How government departments are using Twitter video
A study by Senate Media
The Ministry of Defence produces the most popular videos on Twitter of any government department.
Its videos achieved 138 ‘likes’ on average, nearly 50% higher than the Home Office which was the second most popular department, according to our exclusive study.
We analysed 537 multimedia tweets across 13 government departments to understand more about how government departments were using Twitter’s native video capacity.
The MOD was among the departments to favour ‘film’, helping it to account for 38% of multimedia tweets, above animation (26%), GIFs (22%) and combinations of animation with text and film.
Yet film alone doesn’t produce the best levels of engagement. Videos that featured animation are more likely to achieve retweets and likes than those without.
While all video types combined yielded a higher number of likes on average (68) than GIFs (20).
Our study also showed that you give yourselves a better chance of achieving higher engagement levels if you create videos in a format specifically for Twitter - namely in a 1:1 square aspect ratio rather than using the landscape formats favoured elsewhere.
Square videos performed better than other formats
Square videos performed better than other formats
The majority of videos (81%) in our study were under one minute in length, with 43% 30 seconds or under.
Shorter videos performed best for average number of likes, with the average gradually dropping for each subsequent 30 seconds increase in length.
The Department for Work and Pensions produced the most multimedia tweets over the study period (May and June 2018), with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the MOD second and third respectively.
At the other end of the scale the Department for Health and Social Care was the least prolific department, followed by the Department for Transport.
