Why Authentic Short-Form Video Dominates Social Media
Here’s a hot take: your next best-performing video might already be sitting in your camera roll – shot on your phone, with natural light and no fancy edits. Yes, you heard right!
In a digital world saturated with perfectly curated content, users are craving something different. Something real and that’s where phone-shot short-form video is dominating. It’s unfiltered, unscripted, and undeniably human. It’s the kind of content that’s resulting in huge organic reach on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Gone are the days when your brand needed a full crew and a $10k camera rig to show up online. Now, it’s about grabbing your phone, hitting record, and speaking truthfully. Because people don’t engage with perfection, they engage with authenticity.
Why Real Short-Form Videos Win
Raw, real video content breaks through the noise. It’s scroll-stopping because it feels spontaneous, personal, and trustworthy. That kind of content doesn’t just ‘perform well’, it performs authentically. The beauty lies in its imperfections: a casual tone, a behind-the-scenes moment, a human voice that doesn’t sound like it was written by a PR team or ChatGPT.
Social algorithms agree. Platforms prioritise content that keeps users engaged longer and sparks interaction. And nothing does that better right now than reels and stories that feel unscripted.
Why? Because it’s what audiences want. 73% of consumers prefer short form videos and 66% of marketers believe these videos are more engaging, achieving on average 2.5 times more engagement than long form-videos. It is because of this that reels are becoming known as the holy grail of social media marketing.
What Is Organic Engagement and Why Should You Care?
Organic engagement is the genuine, unpaid interaction your content gets from viewers – likes, shares, comments, saves. And unlike paid reach, it is earned instead of paid for. That makes it more valuable. Why? Because it’s based on trust. People are choosing to connect with you because they want to and not because you paid to show up in their feed.
What type of content drives that kind of trust? Realness.
Authentic content feels less like marketing and more like storytelling. When done right, it doesn’t scream “BUY NOW!”, it says, “Hey, here’s something worth watching.”
We Tested It on our Client And It Works
At Biizy, we don’t just talk the talk, we test it too. One of our clients, a local internet service provider, was hesitant at first. Convincing them to trade polished high production videos for handheld, phone-shot short form videos felt like a leap. But they took the chance and the results were unquestionable.
We applied the same approach to a few different videos that we shot for C3 Pure Fibre which featured companies that C3 supplies internet to. The goal? To create short, punchy , short form videos on our phones. The plan was to keep it real, keep it relevant, ditch the fluff and make C3’s clients the hero.
The results? They spoke for themselves:
- C3 x Rocky’s Diamonds Reel
88% of total reach came from non-followers.
Of all interactions, 72% were from people not following the account. - C3 x Holiday Inn Reel
73% of total reach came from non-followers.
Of the interactions received, 68% were from non-followers.
That’s the power of authentic video. It breaks beyond your existing audience and captures attention from people who’ve never engaged with your brand before. All for FREE.
Unpolished Content is the Best Bet
There’s a reason why some of the most viral brand videos look like they were filmed in one take on someone’s phone. The spontaneity makes them feel more like a message from a friend than a pitch from a business. It makes people want to watch, relate, and respond.
Of course, there’s still a time and place for high-production content – especially for website headers, product demos, or premium campaigns. But a regular social media post? People are there to scroll, laugh, learn, and move on. Reel content fits that mold like a glove.
At Biizy, we’ve seen it time and time again, real content gets real results. Whether it’s a casual team update or a client moment captured in real time, this kind of content often outperforms the glossy stuff that takes weeks to plan.
So next time you’re overthinking your next post, don’t. Open your phone. Hit record. Be real. And, if you’re finding that tricky to do, contact us – we’ll happily help guide you.
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