One of the fastest growing social media agencies in Europe has announced the launch of the first vertical video studio ‘nine:sixteen’.
Manchester-based Social Chain will open the new studio and produce content exclusively in the 9:16 format, to fit phone screens held in a vertical position.
The agency said that 96 per cent of all mobile consumption is vertical, a shift in the way content is consumed, but most video is ‘reframed’ from traditionally widescreen or square formats.
With its new studio, the award-winning agency will explore psychology behind why audiences prefer to consume data this way.
“One of our key values is to always be ever-changing, we dedicate a lot of our resource and focus to innovation in order to achieve this,” said Jason Fisher, Group Director of Video at Social Chain.
“Finding new ways to tap into social platforms and adapt our content services to match audience consumption is essential, and as such we have always been a big believer in vertical content.”
The studio has already seen success from the studio after generating “impressive results” for clients including Sky Bet.
Social Chain reports that Sky Bet’s followers increased by 900 per cent in the first 5 months of the campaign
“We knew there was a massively untapped audience on Instagram with our following making up a fraction of our weekly users, so with the help of Social Chain we created Six of the Best, a weekly Instagram Story,” explained Nigel Hockin, Media Manager, Sky Betting and Gaming.
“Due to the engagement Instagram Stories gets, we can reach a much higher percentage of our followers organically than we can on other social channels creating an efficient way to message existing customers. Users are also becoming much more receptive to swiping up through stories enabling us to also drive traffic directly to site.”
The Social Chain Group owns over 400 digital communities including leading channels such as ‘Student Problems’, ‘Sporf’’, and ‘Love Food’, who are able to reach over 10 billion Millennials and Gen Zs across social platforms each month.
Through delivering bespoke social first strategies, they have secured clients such as SkyBet, E! Entertainment, Revolution Group and Superdry.
The Social Chain Group has grown from 30 to over 200 staff since 2016, with group turnover more than doubling year on year.