HashemAl-Ghaili, Science Communicator and Video Producer, especIALGAMES, Science Communicator,
My name is Hashem Al-Ghaili and I am a science communicator. Currently I run a Facebook page
called ScienceVeaturePage which has over 32 million followers. What I do on this page is
that I share content related to science, technology, nature, and medicine. So my Facebook page
started in 2009 as a Facebook profile, but in 2015 I converted it into a Facebook page
because Facebook page allows you to see insights, what kind of posts are you sharing and who
are engaging with them. And so I started focusing on videos mainly because Facebook was paying
a lot of attention to videos starting from 2015 and the focus on videos led to massive
growth. I mean in 2015 the page only had 66,000 followers and now it has over 32 million which
is beyond my expectation. I think video mostly contributed to the growth of the page. I mean
if you look people don't want to read an article that is like 600 to 700 words and instead
they would like to see a summary of that that can deliver the same idea within say one minute
to two minutes. And so videos are very powerful because they also contain amazing visuals
that accompany these pieces of information and this is what makes people want to watch
them and share them. Plus one of the reasons why I like to focus on videos is because by
2020s most of the traffic on the internet, that's 80%, is going to come from video views.
Just think about it. And that's why it's very important to focus on videos. Well my advice
to companies and individuals who would like to grow their Facebook pages is that to focus
on videos as a start and to create quality content. Something that relates to people,
something that people want to share. And so whether you are a company or an influencer
the first question you have to ask yourself before making a video is, is this something
that I would share with my friends? And so you start taking care of the content quality,
you adjust the length, you choose great music and you form partnerships with people who
share the same mission. Collaborations are very important and they will help you exchange
audience and get new audience from other people as well. So as you have seen the video about
C-Section which was about 50 seconds long has been shared over two million times and
has received over 50,000 comments. And one of the reasons for its success is that because
it contains basically a story that relates to people, C-Section, human birth, something
about nature. But it also illustrates the concept in high end visuals, really fantastic
visuals and amazing storytelling style. And what I like about it is that it also shows
this natural process that some people may have not experienced and they say oh it could
have been me. So whether you are related or unrelated to the video you can still somehow
connect it to your life and this is one of the reasons why people shared it and commented
on it and send it to their friends. Well there are a few rules for effective storytelling.
First of all you have to take care of content quality. Second you have to take care of the
language simplicity. Language should be made as simple as possible so that everybody can
understand. You have to take care of the visual storytelling, the length of the video which
is essential and also the music choice. It should be emotional, it should illustrate
the concept and it should be related to the context of the video. You also have to make
sure that the content you are sharing is shareable which means it combines all these elements
that I just mentioned. And as I said you ask yourself is this something that I would share
with my friends. One other thing you need to do is exposure for the video. And the best
way to get exposure for the video is to form new partnerships and ask your partners to
share it in exchange to share their content. And this will help the video to get exposure
to audience that's not within your reach basically. The future of social video if you look into
the very distant future I think virtual reality where people will be connected by putting
a headset and then they will interact with each other or with other people in simulated
environments of their choosing. I mean it's going to be like the future that maybe the
future from now because of the costs associated with VR to some people but as it becomes
cheaper and cheaper more people are going to start using it and it's going to change
the storytelling style especially when you will be able to watch videos 360 videos VR
style and they surround you. Of course we see that there are videos that are 360 and
VR style you can watch them on your phone by moving around but it's different experience
when you have a headset and that's why many people are going to like it and it's going
to be the future of social videos. What makes a video successful or what determines the
success of the video is the conversations it generates. It's very important. I mean
engagement is great. Sometimes you may say oh likes, shares and comments but we all know
that sometimes these comments are not really authentic. They could be generated by bots.
Shares for example sometimes people share videos even though they haven't watched it.
They haven't watched them and they just keep sharing them with their friends so you can't
really say oh video has got many shares so it's successful. No or comments doesn't make
sense. Likes also doesn't make sense. What makes it successful is are these comments
really talking or is the video generating discussion about the topic? And if all the
comments or most of them are talking or discussing the video content then that's successful because
that's what you are going to do from a video. I mean you are interested in generating discussions
and probably changing minds. So I would say if a video is successful at generating discussions
then it's a success. So when Facebook Live was launched I was among the first people
to test the feature and provide feedback on it and I was broadcasting a lot of live videos
basically where I would bring scientists and doctors and we would talk about different
topics and we would wait for people to ask questions and we answer these questions directly.
There were thousands and thousands of people watching and later on I decided to mostly
focus on pre-produced videos where you produce them, edit them earlier and then post them
but of course I'm going to get back to live videos. Until the page reached 22 million
I was the only one who was working on it. I was the only one who was writing scripts,
editing the videos, collecting the sources and creating the final piece that I also published
myself. But after the page became more successful I was in a position to create a team and now
I have an in-house team that produces the videos. I have got someone who helps me with
screenwriting, basically writing scripts for the videos, search for the topics, someone
who helps with editing the videos. None of these steps would go without me being involved
because in the end we want to maintain basically the same style, consistency. Otherwise people
are going to notice a change and they might move away, they might unfollow the page. So
I'm involved still in video production but I have a team that's helping with that. I
think it's important to build a video marketing community because there are a lot of people
who are interested in getting into this but they don't have the resources or the ideas
and how to start. And so through this community they can connect with people who already have
experiences and this. They can also ask them questions and get advices. They can also eventually
those members of the community become their collaborators in the future. And this is basically
a shortcut for some people. Instead of going through the internet, reading through tons
of pages and watching a lot of videos and how to create a fantastic and successful video
marketing strategy. So this is a shortcut and I appreciate this event and I'm very
happy that I was part of this event.
