Social media videos are becoming one of the most well-received and influential way to share content online. Social media platforms are now introducing video functions to their application to accommodate for such change.
Why is video content so popular and such an effective way to communicate with people and communities?
In this article, we will explore some of the most influential social media videos right now from various platforms. We will break these videos down, in an attempt to find out what makes them so popular amongst viewers.
The Popularity of Social Media Videos
As far back as to half a decade ago, the popularity of social media videos have been constantly climbing.
Branded video content have increased in views by 99% on YouTube and 258% on Facebook from 2016 to 2017, quite a significant jump.
The power of video and social media combined is remarkable, but why exactly is that so?
Video content often relays more information both visually and auditorily. When compared to photos or text, videos have the capability to be more interactive and entertaining.
Let us take a look at a list of social media videos we have complied, and see if we can better understand this phenomenon.
The Most Popular Social Media Videos In Singapore
Night Owl Cinematics Dance Challenge in High Heels
Night Owl Cinematic members were challenged to dance to a song by K-pop group BlackPink, ‘Kill This Love’.
The video was filmed to celebrate the channels 900k subscribers milestone on YouTube and was released in April 2019. As of May 2021, the video has achieved over 1 million views. The channel has similarly reached 1 million subscribers.
The key factor that makes this video so interesting was the fact that the members had to dance to the song in Charles & Keith heels.
Seeing the participant’s reactions and dancing vigorously in heels makes the video extremely humorous, and definitely draws attention. At the same time, they are helping to promote Charles & Keith and their products, bringing it to the viewers in a non-overbearing way.
We believe that social media videos have a lot of creative freedom in comparison to advertisements or corporate videos. They have the ability to hold onto the viewer’s attention, and subtly feed them information.
The Smart Local Best Ahbeng Handphone Shop
In this short skit by The Smart Local, they show a Singaporean ah beng that runs a handphone shop. It is said that his shop is the best and can solve any problems. In this case, ah beng was seen solving a relationship problem for a bickering couple.
The context of the video is very local, and the key point of this IGTV video is actually to promote My Republic’s Mobile Plan. The promotion of this service is evidently there, but it has been masked by the skit.
The skits incorporates interesting concept of relating a couple’s relationship issues with their relationship to their handphones. The IGTV video garnered 145k views, one of their most viewed videos in the past few years.
Being able to incorporate storytelling into advertising helps to lessen the hard-selling aspect of marketing, making it easier for viewers to consume such content.
SGAG Stuck In A Car With Xiao Ming’s Lame Jokes
SGAG released an IGTV in March this year to promote Audi’s new e-tron Sportback car. The video garnered 181k views, likely due to the creativity of the video.
The idea of the video is that Xiao Ming, founder of SGAG, gives a ride to one of his interns to work in the new Audi e-tron Sportback. Throughout the whole ride, Xiao Ming will crack puns and jokes for his fellow intern, which she finds to be lame
The video is overall very humorous, and the jokes incorporated fun facts about the new car. This way, they are actually showcasing the car without making it too obvious for the viewers.
These type of short videos are easily consumable for most social media users. It is interesting and does not take up too much of their time, hence is often a popular option for online entertainment.
We wrote an article on car video production in Singapore and analysed a comprehensive list of car videos in Singapore. If you are interested, we encourage you to check it out.
SGAG vs Impunity Esports Livestream
SGAG very recently held their own livestream and managed to gain 16k views on their stream. SGAG’s own gaming team and Impunity Esports battled it out in a match of League of Legends: Wild Rift.
It was an interesting livestream with fun commentary, and was overall meant for fun. They managed to get a sponsorship from 100Plus for their event and garnered a large number of viewers as well.
Gaming livestreams is a popular form of entertainment for the younger audiences, a great way to bring gamers together. People who play League of Legends will feel included and interested to see how the match plays out.
Meanwhile, 100Plus managed to put their name into the event and gain more traction amongst the viewers without being too aggressive in their marketing.
We recently wrote an article on e-commerce live streams in Singapore, where we go in-depth on how brands utilise the online market to sell their products. If that is an interesting topic to you, do give it a read.
Mothership Hits The Streets: Bubble Tea
This Facebook video posted by Mothership.sg managed to garner a whopping 1.6 million views on the post alone. Released in September of 2019, it is one of the episodes within the series called Mothership Hits the Streets.
In this series, Mothership goes around interviewing people on the streets on various hot topics in Singapore. This episode on bubble tea interviewed people on how often they drink bubble tea. At the same time, they also bring up issues on diabetes and health.
This is an interesting episode as bubble tea is definitely adored by Singaporeans as seen from the video itself. Multiple people answered that they drink bubble tea almost everyday. Some people also answered saying that they drink bubble tea at high sugar levels.
The video is short and sweet, but brings in a lot of information on bubble tea in Singapore and its health implications. As mentioned before, people enjoy short videos as it is easier to consume. Hence, it is clear how the video managed to get the views it has.
Speaking of food, we recommend that you check out our article on food recipe video productions in Singapore.
Mothership Instagram Asks: JJ Lin
In this video series called Mothership Instagram Asks, Mothership asks their audience to ask questions through Instagram Story’s QnA function. Then, JJ Lin would have to answer those questions
The video features JJ Lin answering questions from fans and viewers on anything, and it manages to be very entertaining.
Singaporean viewers get to see JJ Lin answer questions about Singapore, which is also JJ Lin’s home country. This gives the viewers a sense connection to the international star, humanising his character.
Then again, JJ Lin is a well-known singer with an estimated net worth of $10 Million. Hence we are not surprised that the video managed to gather over half a million views within a month.
The video serves as a platform for JJ Lin to promote his new album, which is definitely subtle as they mention it at the end. This keeps the main focus on JJ Lin’s personality and the QnA itself.
Gov.sg #SteadyCNY2021 TikTok Videos
Earlier this year, Gov.sg released a few TikTok videos as a social media challenge. These videos are to encourage Singaporeans to abide by safe distancing measures amidst the Chinese New Year festive.
With the #SteadyCNY2021, they were joined by various other TikTok influencers. These influencers participated in the challenge to be ‘steady’ and spread the word.
All three videos posted on their TikTok page garnered around 600k views, with the highest being 630.5k views. These three videos make up their most viewed TikTok videos in 2021 thus far.
With the cute stickers and animations that come together with the TikTok challenge. Hence, you can see why it was so well received by the viewers.
Gov.sg Singapore Be Steady! Featuring Phua Chu Kang
There are a lot of reasons why this video is so interesting and managed to garner over 1.5 million views on YouTube.
Firstly, the video features one of Singapore’s most beloved character Phua Chu Kang. He dances and sings about how Singaporeans need to stay safe and ‘steady’. The video is informational but at the same time fun and entertaining.
We have mentioned this video before in an article recently on music video production in Singapore, where we break the video down it terms of its production quality. After you are done with this article, feel welcome to check it out.
Circles.Life A World Without Telco Contracts
This social media video by Circles.Life, a local telco service, garnered over 200k views for its creative way of delivering their message.
The main actor, Tim, introduces himself as ‘some actor Circles.Life hired’ to deliver the message. This is bold but also quite honest and humanises the character.
Throughout the video, visual cues were given to represent the content. When they say contracts “lock you in’, the actor is actually handcuffed. When they mentioned the word ‘globally’, the actor was thrown an actual globe. He fails the catch properly the first time, bringing humor into the video.
The production of the video is high quality, but intentionally scripted to seem impromptu and almost as if it is a blooper to make viewers feel more comfortable.
MacDonald’s Ramadan
In 2018, MacDonald’s Singapore released a 1 minute 52 seconds short film in celebration of Ramadan. As of today, 3 years after its premiere, it has garnered 1.36 million views.
The video follows a day in the life of Zul, a MacDonald’s delivery man during Ramadan. Zul is shown as a very passionate and kind-hearted individual, that goes out of his way to help people despite being tired from fasting. He is generous and open-minded, forgiving his friends easily when they offer him food by accident.
The video is cinematically shot from various different, unique angles, showing the production quality of this film. At the end, the video ends off with Zul’s regular customer offering him food, knowing that he is tired and hungry and it is time to ‘buka puasa’, to break fast.
The video shows how the Singaporean community can be, living in racial harmony and respecting one another’s culture. The video also relates to the Muslim community, and encourages them to stay strong during the fasting period.
Singtel His Grandfather’s Road
In 2020, Singtel released a special video short film for Chinese New Year. Titled His Grandfather’s Road, the video currently has over 14 million views.
The story revolves around 2 families, whose cars have come head to head in a narrow road with neither family wanting to back out. What at first seemed to be a petty conflict between 2 families, eventually turned out to be a happy family gathering.
The video is relatable to Singapore’s Chinese community, and also plays on the literal sense of the phrase ‘his grandfather’s road’. It is an interesting short film with a pinch of comedic flare.
What We Can Learn From Social Media Videos In Asia
Now that we have taken a look at Singaporean companies and creators, let us take a look at some videos from various parts of Asia, and see what we can learn from them.
UNIQLO #UTPlayYourWorld
Uniqlo released a TikTok campaign in 2019 with the tagline #UTPlayYourWorld, and featured influencers from various countries trying on clothes from the UT clothing line.
The tiktoks are interesting, with various animations and filters and they even made their own sound or music track to go with their TikTok videos.
The main goal of this campaign was to get user-generated-content, by engaging the younger demographics through these micro-influencers. The videos garnered an average of 600k views each, with the highest viewed video receiving 3.7 million views.
This tells us how powerful younger audiences can be when helping a brand to gain traction on platforms. This is achievable by leveraging influencers or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) with a large following consisting of younger fans.
SK-II: Meet Me Halfway
In 2019, SK-II released a short cinematic documentary titled Meet Me Halfway, which received 41k views on YouTube and was a 2019 Clio Awards Bronze winning entry.
This short documentary follows the journey of 3 young women in China, who have drifted from their parents in the pursue of work and their job. While the parents wish for their daughters to get married and settle down, the daughters feel pressured and conflicted.
The title Meet Me Halfway is both figurative and literal, as in the documentary the daughters and their parents meet at a halfway point between their locations, and talk it out to understand one another better. The video ends with all the families finding love and happiness with one another, which is extremely touching.
The video was shot in a cinematic way, with a lot of beautiful b-roll shots and makes use of a lot of clean compositions.
The scriptwriting is compact, and filled with content. There is not a point in the video that feels too boring or bland, as there is meaning to every shot included. From the daughters writing their letters and the parents opening up the letters to read them, every shot is carefully clipped together.
GoJek GoTo: Go Far, Go Together
This video released by GoJek Indonesia earlier this year managed to receive 2.5 million views. The theme of this video revolves around GoJek’s journey thus far, and how they can go further than just wanting to do good.
‘Gotong royong’ is the Indonesian saying and spirit for working together, and it is what this video is meant to convey as they collaborate with Tokopedia, an Indonesian e-commerce company.
The video is well edited with intuitive transitions and has a lot of different clips to visually represent what the narrator is talking about. The music brings a sense to hopefulness and together with the strong Indonesian vibe of the video, we understand why it was so popular amongst the people.
Social Media Video Production in Singapore
We hope that our list of social media videos have helped you understand why social media videos can be so popular amongst social media users. We’ve recently written another article on how to make your own social media videos, feel free to check article out.
If you are interested in hiring a team to produce your social media video, we have a team of video production professionals to help you with that.
Simply contact us or get in touch with us through the contact form on the right side of the page, and our project coordinator will get in touch shortly,
