7 Essential Enhanced Video Texting FAQ — Switchboard

Enhanced video texting is the biggest innovation for digital marketing in 2021. Read on to find out why.

Our team has always been committed to providing the best possible tools for our clients, and we have delivered on this commitment with our innovative Enhanced Video Texting, made possible by our industry-leading video compression technology. 

Want to know more about this revolutionary innovation in texting and learn how to leverage it to enhance your outreach? Here are 7 of the top questions asked about Enhanced Video Texting to help you get started:

1. What is Enhanced Video Texting? 

Enhanced Video Messaging is a service that enables you to deliver high quality, 30-60+ second videos with custom closed captions embedded directly in your text messages. 

The benefits of sending longer videos is obvious, but closed captions are equally as beneficial. Hearing impairments affect more Americans than people realize, with approximately 38.2 million Americans reporting some degree of hearing impairment or loss (source). 

Hearing loss is not the only reason why video captions are important. According to a consumer study by Verizon, “50% of consumers said captions are important because they watch videos with the sound off” and “80% of consumers are more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available” (source). Captions on Enhanced Videos are custom mapped to match the voiceover so that videos are watchable for everyone.

Another challenge to making videos watchable for everyone happens when they are sent across different platforms. If you have ever tried to send a video to a friend who has a different phone model than you, Apple to Android for example, you will have seen how much the video quality declined and how the audio quality distorted. 

This is because messages sent between messaging apps like iMessage aren't SMS or MMS at all, which is why videos look fine when you send a video to another friend with an iPhone. However, they convert to SMS/MMS once you send messages to other platforms, which is what causes problems.

That is the primary challenge behind video texting at scale, and one that our team solved with Enhanced Video Texting. It has been rigorously tested and optimized to retain maximum video and audio quality on all major phone carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. 

2. How does Enhanced Video Texting differ from a standard MMS message?

Standard MMS messages contain a multimedia attachment such as a picture, GIF, or video sent on their own or embedded with text content. Videos sent with Standard MMS persistently suffer from cross-platform distortion and can’t be longer than about 15 seconds. 

Enhanced Video Texting allows you to send much longer videos to multiple phone platforms while maintaining high visual and auditory quality, which other texting platforms have not been able to achieve. 

In general, the best results can be achieved with videos that are 30 seconds. High quality results can be achieved with videos that are 31-45 seconds, and good results can be achieved with videos anywhere from 46-80 seconds. 

All videos are unique, and we look into the parameters and unique specifications within each video to produce the best possible results when compressing them.

3. Why can't I just run my video through a free online compression tool? 

Off-the-shelf compression tools use basic algorithms designed with one goal in mind: reducing the file size, with no regard for audio/visual quality or even the platform on which the final video will appear. Since most of these free compression tools are catered to reducing files to sizes appropriate for social media use, they rarely accommodate file reduction to textable sizes, requiring users to run several compressions on the video which results in iterative quality loss. 

By contrast, our tool is designed with texting in mind. By examining individual video qualities, engineered specifically to meet mobile carrier requirements, we are able to deliver the highest quality videos at textable sizes. 

4. Why not use another service that claims to send videos up to 5MB in size?

Simply put, other video SMS platforms, video texting apps, and services that offer regular MMS services including MMS video messaging do not come close to our Enhanced Video quality or delivery rates. Additionally, our Enhanced Video Texts can be embedded directly in full-length 600 character messages so you can make sure the message you want to get across to your audience is received correctly.

5. Why send a video at all - why not just send a link?

Embedding a video is far better than sending a link to a Youtube video. People are hesitant to click on external links from texts because of warnings from government bodies like the FTC who caution against clicking links sent in unknown texts, and also experiences with email phishing scams. Including a link also means there will most likely not be a preview image, which is one of the major driving forces behind consumers deciding to watch a video.

Another benefit to our EVT technology is that clients can choose the thumbnail for videos sent through us. This is significant because 90% of the top-performing videos on YouTube use a custom thumbnail, and this is just not possible when sending a link to a video instead.

For example, people retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in a text. But that's not all. Around 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded videos and more than 50% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.

In addition, a staggering 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others, which means taking the time to send a video to your audience will most likely result in your message being shared with others at no cost to you. Pictures and GIFs do not have this same level of share-ability, and low-quality videos will likely not even be opened or watched all the way through, much less shared. 

6. This all sounds awesome, but what are some ways I can use EVT?

• Embed Marketing Videos and Ads 

• Share Exclusive Video Content

• Direct-to-Camera Asks

• Video Announcements

• Fundraising Videos

• Video Testimonials 

• Thank you Videos

• Product Showing

7. Now I'm hooked! How do I submit my request?

Due to the time-intensive nature of the compression process done by real people (not algorithms!), we have the following minimum requirements for requesting video compression service:

• Minimum contact segment size of 12,500

You can find the actual size of your contact segment by clicking into the contact segment in the portal and looking at ‘Good’ contacts.

• Maximum video length of 30 seconds

Because video compression quality begins to rapidly decline with each second after 30 seconds, we are currently limiting videos to 30 seconds in length. We have resources to trim your video that are accessible on the Enhanced Video Texting page in the help tab of the Switchboard portal.

• Non-refundable billing for the estimated cost of the contact segment

Because of the time commitment our team makes to produce the highest quality videos, we require upfront payment prior to service.

Like what you see?

Sign up and start texting today at myswitchboard.com or reach out to our sales team to talk about how Enhanced Video Texting can best work for you: sales@myswitchboard.com.