Picture the last time you were really engaged—like, really engaged—on the internet. If I had to guess, it was probably a video. Maybe it was a how-to, a short clip on a social media outlet, or some Youtube clickbait. Whatever it is, it was likely immersive and stuck in your mind way more than this written post is about to.

It’s just true—viewers retain 95% of a message when it’s in a video, and 10% of a message when it’s in a text format. 

It’s to be expected. We’re visual creatures. Facebook knows it. Instagram knows it. 81% of businesses know it. 

If you’re here, I’m assuming you haven’t hopped on the bandwagon. Or, if you have, you’re having difficulty with creating videos and are looking for something better.

In either case, here are the best video makers, and the best video practices to reach your audience on every channel, as told by me, someone who wrote a blog post instead of making a video about it.

I have done thorough research and testing of these products. But I can’t not point out the irony.

Videos seem to have unlimited potential and a lot of restrictions.

I don’t care what kind of venture you’ve got going: blogger, ecommerce, freelancing, tutorials, marketing, it really doesn’t matter. I do care about making video work for you.

Video Making Potential

Useful video content come in several forms:

• Ads
• Tutorials/How-To
• Explainers
• Vlogs
• Webinars
• Customer testimonials
• Livestreams
• Product videos
• User generated content
• Product reviews
• Animations
• Video emails
• Brand film
• Behind the scenes/company culture
• Interviews

Videos serve the purpose of educating, engaging and/or brand awareness. They act as a quick way to capture the attention of viewers and motivate them. The best videos tap into your viewer’s emotions to move them. Really, all content should aim to do this.

While video appears to have an unlimited potential, they are limited by format. Specifically, they are limited by the media outlet you choose to post your video to.

You can post to:

• Youtube (obviously)
• Facebook posts and stories
• Instagram posts and stories
• LinkedIn feed and groups
• Snapchat
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• Yelp
• Reddit
• TripAdvisor
• Vimeo
• Instructables
• Twitch
• Your marketing emails
• Your website

Note the lack of TV as a video sharing outlet. Your target audience hangs out online. That demographic streams now (looking at you, Netflix). Subscribers also usually pay to remove ads, so it’s not worth trying to advertise there.

Video Making Restrictions

The biggest constraint when it comes to video is time—how long a video can be on a sharing platform, and how much of your viewer’s time you can take up without losing them.

Videos on Instagram can only be 60 seconds long before being spliced into several 60 second videos. Instagram stories can be 15 seconds long before being spliced. Facebook ads that appear in a viewer’s feed can be up to 31 seconds long.

The recommended timeframe for social media ads in general is 5-15 seconds, which is probably why the social media giants have set these limitations in the first place. This leaves you a very short window of time to catch someone’s attention before they scroll (which is very easy to do). 

Youtube, the second most popular website after Google, has no time constraints (although you need at least 4,000 hours of content put up before you can monetize any of your videos). LinkedIn videos can range from 3 seconds to 30 minutes. 

Videos on your own website are officially constrained by your web hosting plan, and unofficially constrained by how much time it takes for a video to load.

When it comes to attention: 33% of viewers drop off after 30 seconds, 45% by 60 seconds, and 60% by two minutes.

A general rule of thumb is to keep videos to under 2 minutes, unless you’re elaborating on a subject in the form of an explainer, webinar, Q&A, etc. Those videos came to learn in depth, so you can take up more of their time. (Just don’t waste their time. If your videos drag on without giving a viewer any new information, they have a lot of other, better options.)

Creating a Good Video: Attention, Clarity and Impact

If your videos are going to fit in 1-2 minutes or less, you are going to have to finesse your content. It has to be high quality without taking forever to load, look good without taking forever to put together. It has to be informative and entertaining. Subtle but obvious, original but understandable. Motivating without being pushy. And, of course, it has to be on brand.

Some tips for actually making a video that lasts:

1. Don’t sink a disproportionate amount of time into your video.

The biggest thing holding back bloggers, business owners, content creators and marketers from making more videos is not a lack of equipment or knowledge. It’s time—specifically the huge time suck that shooting and editing can become.

If your video is what your viewers see first when they land on your page, it should be primo stuff. If you’re developing an incredible, innovative webinar for how to start a business in 7 days, a higher level of effort should be put into your content. But if you’re making a vlog or a 30 second promo for a workshop coming up next month, don’t spend a whole lot of time on it. 

Getting a good thing done fast is better than getting a perfect thing done never.

2. Don’t do anything until you have a clear idea of your message.

Every amatuer, in every creative field, tries to run before they can walk. Every first time writer ends up five chapters into a novel before they realize they have no idea what they’re trying to say. 

Skip this part as much as you can by figuring out the purpose of your video. What’s your message, why does it matter, and what do you want viewers to do next? The last part is your call to action (CTA) and it’s arguably as important as making your video engaging.

The best videos tell stories. We’re a narrative based society. We’ve been hearing and telling stories since the dawn of our existence. Tell a story in your video, even if it’s just about a product. Tell the story of why it exists, how to use it, and who it helps.

After you’ve thought all of this through, then you can choose what kind of video will get the job done, and where to post it.

3. Consider the material needed to convey your message.

The whole point of a video is imagery. Flooding your video with text and voiceover defeats the point of the video. Keep these to a minimum. Use only the text you absolutely need, in cases like stating your business name (although logos are better) and a short, sweet CTA. 

If you want to specifically include voiceover, find someone (or be someone) with a strong, persuasive voice. But their tone makes the tone of the video. Imagine if a cheery voice was talking about people in need of water and trying to get you to donate to the cause. It would just be creepy.

Imagery can come in the form of video you record, user generated content and free video footage from royalty free media sites. You could also animate something, like a character or a whiteboard drawing. 

The kind of message you want to portray, and the platform you post on, will shape your imagery.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who does this better than Google—specifically their “Year in Search” videos they put out at the end of every year. They’re a little over two minutes, but viewers hardly notice that as the entire year folds before them.

Each one has a message. In 2019, it was the “year of heroes.” User generated content, from marathon footage to clips from everyday events, are mashed together in such an order that viewers feel connected to the rest of the world through Google. It makes Google look compassionate, almost human.

And that’s their message: Google is by people, for people. And it works, every year.

Related: To see a storytelling masterpiece, and get in your feelings, watch Google’s 2019 Year in Search.

4. Know what materials you are capable of capturing.

Unless you have a drone, you’re not going to get an original overhead view of the city for your city cleanup event advertisement. Unless you’re famous, or lucky, or something, you can’t get Morgan Freeman to do a dramatic voiceover for your 30 second Instagram post announcing the arrival of your new product.

So, what can you do with your budget, abilities and connections? 

Ask your users for video reviews of your product. Scour social media for videos about your event. Use free footage online for b-roll of cityscapes, people biking, a girl turning around during a sunset—generic images that help tell your story in an interesting way.

If you have a budget, great. Hire actors, dancers, a sound crew, and make some real cinematic shit. If your budget is small, or nonexistent, round up your friends and put them in your ad. If you don’t have any, go make some. Film events and use them in later videos.

Basically, just do what you can. 

Note: Take into account the sizes of your footage when filming or choosing content. If they’re different sizes, resolutions and formats, you’re going to want to know that upfront and be able to manage it later. Beginners should try to make things like frame rates and video size the same in all your materials.

5. Start and end strong.

Attention and CTA is the name of the game in the video world. Grab your audience in the first 10 seconds, or you’ll lose them. Tell them a story, the ending being your CTA. This is no small feat.

When it comes to getting a viewer’s attention, you have to consider what they came to a certain platform for. Do they want to be entertained (Instagram) or informed (Instructables)? Is your target audience looking to for inspiration (Pinterest) or for answers (Reddit)? Tailor your beginning to match the reason your audience is on the platform. Don’t try to explain in detail your SaaS solution in a 30 second Instagram ad. They don’t want it.

A strong ending includes the CTA in words or speech. Many users turn off the sound when they’re on social media because it’s either annoying, or they’re not supposed to be on it at work. (No judgment here, ever.) Take this into account when making your CTA.

There are certain restrictions on various platforms about linking, which is crucial for getting your potential lead where you want them to be. Instagram stories, for example, only allow you to put a direct link to your site if you have at least 10,000 followers. There are ways to get your viewer to your site or Eventbrite link, or wherever you’re sending them, but you’ll have to find some clever workarounds depending on your platform.

Or, you know, have tons of followers so that platforms want to share your stuff.

6. Know your technical limits when you’re putting it all together.

In an ideal world, you can seamlessly put together original footage, animations and gathered content to convey exactly what you need them to. You’ll lay music in the background to make a whole mood out of your amazing video.

In reality, making magic is anything but magical. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Keep it simple, so you can get it done.

The best video makers make the editing process much less painful, so let’s take a look at all of them.

Related: For more video making tips, click here.

Best videos makers to creat something that moves people, maybe to cry, I don’t know. I feel like good ads do that.

Best Low-Cost, Easy to Use Video Makers:

• Magisto: Clean, professional looking videos with AI templates.
• Canva: A revolutionary way of building videos using an intuitive visual process.
• Animoto: Template and layering capabilities for just about every kind of video.
• Biteable: Wallet-friendly, fast, easy to use tool for making simple videos.

Most Feature-Packed Video Makers:

• Moovly: Creative capabilities for small ventures, and automating capabilities for large ones
• Wave.video: Brand build on many channels with auto-resizing, 600+ templates, brand presets
• Clickmeeting: For live or recorded product demos, webinars and customer feedback
• Animaker: Video maker designed exclusively for animation

Best Video Makers for Social Media and Mobile:

• Ripl: The only video maker service that allows you to post to all your channels at once
• YouCut: Video creation and editing app, with no watermarks on the free plan

Bonus Tips: EmbedPress plugin and FilmicPro.

Magisto: Best video maker for creating quality videos, even if you suck at designing.

Remember that first tip about putting out videos—about not taking too long to make them? Magisto must have thought of this first, because they’ve drastically simplified the level of effort it takes to create a simple, but quality video with minimal aesthetic capabilities on your end. They have many useful features, including A.I. capabilities, omnichannel content distribution and their new layout feature.

The cloud based video maker is owned and operated by Vimeo, a Youtube alternative. Magisto also comes in mobile app format. They’ve covered all their bases in terms of usability. 

Magisto’s native video content player is optimized for sharing across all major social media platforms, email marketing, content marketing and your own website. Videofy, another video maker by Vimeo, is a free app that allows you to make Shopify specific product videos.

They have over 100 templates for every video format and purpose, from LinkedIn portfolios to Instagram product releases. Most of the design can be automated: Add in your business videos and photos, choose a template and audio from their library (or upload your own) and allow their A.I. software to create and edit your video. 

Their Emotion Sense video editor uses A.I. to analyze the video, audio and storytelling aspects of your uploaded content. Figuring out the most interesting and compelling parts of these allows it to focus on optimizing the emotional impact of your videos, which is what any good video should do.

If you want more creative control, Magisto just added layout capabilities. You can now manage visual, audio, and text layers to create your own videos. The editing capabilities of layers are not expansive, but sometimes that’s to your advantage. Other video editors have an overwhelming amount of options, and mashing things together as a beginner is not the way to go for good content output.

Magisto has further streamlined the content creation process by letting you import your own custom branded colors, fonts and logos. This is a highly attractive asset for businesses.

If time is money (it’s the most valuable kind of money), then Magisto is a steal that will make your business or creative venture live on forever. The amount of money you spend on Magisto plans is well worth it for the amount of time you save. Really, it’s a great price in general, although I do not recommend a free plan.

Note: I do not recommend any plan that doesn’t remove the software’s watermark. It just looks unprofessional. This is usually how free plans stay free, so only use them if you have, like, zero cash flow. I do, however, recommend using free trials before committing, in every area of your life.

The only drawback of Magisto is that, while you can download an unlimited number of videos, each video can only be 10 minutes long, max. This is not the video maker for webinars, how-to videos, or any other long form video project.

Also keep in mind that many of the features that make Magisto desirable for businesses start at the Professional plan. Branding capabilities, social sharing, video embedding, and analytics are included, which are more than enough features for an individual. 

Magisto is the best video maker for people who have a general framework for their brand, video purpose, and media outlets, but do not have aesthetic design capabilities. The cloud based software makes it almost impossible to screw your videos up. And the fact that it has an app equivalent allows you to work and upload from anywhere.

Canva: One of the best pieces of graphic design software, period. They do videos now, and honestly, not surprised.

Canva is having a zero-to-hero movie level of growth. The Australian company has been declared a unicorn for the rapid amount of success they’ve had. And they kind of are—they have put out one of the most intuitive, flexible, versatile cloud based pieces of graphic design software at the best rates. (Can you feel my enthusiasm?)

They have templates for everything, from birthday cards to quarterly marketing reports. And they have recently added videos to their repertoire. 

Canva Visual Video Building Method

You could not have asked for a cleaner, easier way to create Instagram stories, Youtube intros, Facebook Ads, or anything else (as you can define custom dimensions and work from there). They have an abundance of both templates available. Some templates have elements, such as text and borders, that remain static, and a preset area for you to drop in a video. Other templates have animated objects, such as arrows or moving text and boxes, that animate no matter what media you upload and place within the video.

You can upload images, videos and audio. Storage is dependent on your plan: Free plans have 5GB of storage, Pro has 100GB and Enterprise comes with an unlimited amount of storage. 

Video templates start at one length, but automatically resize to fit the amount of time your uploaded video is. They also have a library of media you can draw from, if you have a paid plan. 

One of the most beneficial parts of using Canva to make videos is how “scenes” are split up in videos. Each “scene” is like a Powerpoint slide, with video, audio and moving elements. This allows you to clearly see the overall layout of each “scene,” its purpose and how it adds to the overall narrative. Every element that you put on each slide will move with the same transition format as every other element. If you set a particular slide to a “Vertical” transition, and place a (free) sticker on the slide, that sticker will transition in time with everything else automatically, creating a seamless sense of motion. 

Each slide can have a different configuration: one slide can have one template, and the next can be an entirely different one, with different objects and transition formats. This offers you a lot of freedom: don’t disappoint Canva by mashing up a bunch of different styles, inconsistent colors or generally random shit.

Your video is the combined, ordered set of scenes you put together. Scenes can be the length of a video you use in it. Or, you can change the amount of time each scene is. You can add a slide with only images, and set an amount of time you want the image shown for. This is great for product promos, as you only need to display a static product, with words moving around it. 

The only feature lacking in this incredible video maker is video editing capabilities, specifically audio overlays. For example, audio can be uploaded and used in videos. However, you can only use a single song for a video, even though the visuals change. You can’t trim and combine audio. You also can’t overlay other sounds. 

Canva has removed the potential ugliness of editing with timelines by making the process entirely visual. This makes for professional looking videos. They look exactly as they will when you post them, so there will be no surprises when you download or upload your video. However, because they have removed the timeline, they have removed audio overlaying. 

Is it a worthy trade off? In certain cases, yes.

Canva’s free plan is incredibly generous, in my humble opinion. You can upload videos directly to Twitter, Facebook Ads, Google Drive, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Mailchimp, email. If this isn’t enough for you, download it and post to wherever.

Note: There is one social media giant that will not allow you to upload a design from your desktop. Instagram is notoriously irritating in that you can’t post anything from your desktop (unless you get an extension or something from a third-party service. 

They do have a companion app, which is also easy to use. You can work from your desktop, open the file on the app, and upload from there. Or, you can send your file to Google, and download onto your mobile device, and upload from there. Canva compresses videos so well that it’s easy to handle them on any device.

Both free and higher level plans allow for collaboration and sharing work. You can create teams who have access to work. You can also generate a link to your work. Those who have Canva (and have editing permissions) can get to work immediately. People who don’t have Canva can still view your work.

Bottom line: You have options.

Canva is one of the very best video makers for simple, streamlined video creation. You are given a lot of freedom and flexibility, both when using templates and creating videos from scratch. The completely visual process of building videos ensures that what you see is what your users will see.

Animoto: Produce straightforward video content for any purpose.

Now recall the various purposes for making a video. Whatever your reason, Animoto has a template for it. Making a weekly series of Instagram posts? Check. Product promo on Amazon? Yep. Explainer video on Youtube? Oh yeah, you’re good.

Animoto is a nice combination of flexibility and guidance, with highly customizable, brandable templates for any kind of video. Add your own content into a drag-and-drop template, or start from scratch. Combine your original content with over a million stock assets, from images to video clips to a large music library, to create fully fleshed out narratives.

They have aspect ratios to fit all major social media platforms. You can get an embed link for your own website, or download your finished work to post anywhere you want.

Animoto’s standard plan comes with a photo video maker, music library, online video editor, templates, video trimming, a stock library and iOS app. Their free plan (obviously) doesn’t come with the entire stock library and full range of templates. And their free plan also has an Animoto watermark (which I do not recommend).

Animoto is the video maker for those who want more control over their designs, as well as an expansive stock library to work with. It is also for those who know exactly what the purpose of their video is, as Animoto is very likely to have a customizable template to fit that exact purpose.

Biteable: The video maker guaranteed to make you money, even if you have no video editing skills and no money.

No one can say that Biteable doesn’t know their audience. People who have no video making or editing experience to speak of, and little funding, will find themselves at home while using Biteable. 

Biteable offers several templates in several social media and web formats (with 16:9, 9:16. 1:1, and 4:5 aspect ratios). Templates are categorized by promos, social, explainers and animations. Templates are designed so that you don’t either take forever to make a custom video masterpiece, or take forever to make a piece of garbage. This is cloud-based software for beginners—as in, have never touched editing tools in their lives (not even in Google Photos). It’s comforting to know that you will pay for something that you’ll actually use, and something that is just about guaranteed to make you money.

Templates are composed of several 3-5 second long “scenes” that, together, tell a story. You can add and remove scenes (but bear in mind, you should have a cohesive message, so I wouldn’t go nuts). While you can’t technically start from scratch, you can just delete all the preset scenes and add your own video footage, or other materials from the media library. Some scenes look generic, especially the animated ones. But honestly, the imagery gets the point across, and you can upload videos and specific brand assets to make them your own. 

Biteable’s video editing interface is extremely simple to use. In a world of finicky video editing software that makes you lose your mind, it’s refreshing to see something a fifth grader could use.

Some drawbacks of Biteable: While you can create a video with an optimized aspect ratio, you have to download and then upload to your chosen social platform. There are also caps on how much media you can upload. And while Biteable has a huge media library, including 800,000+ pieces of video footage, the entire library does not come with any plan. But this is not an uncommon setup.

Biteable plans are relatively cheap, especially if you go with a yearly plan. My recommendation? Use the free plan for a while, see how you like it, and upgrade if you want. If it’s not for you, you’ll know, without having to spend a dime.

Biteable is one of the best video makers for quickly producing video content for several platforms, and several purposes. It’s for complete beginners, and is so easy to use that you will always walk away from the video editor with something you can post.

Moovly: Best video maker for mass producing video content.

Moovly has two products: Moovly Studio and Moovly Automator. While Moovly Studio is a powerful tool for individual and smaller businesses, the Moovly Automator is an excellent tool to automatically create and distribute several branded videos efficiently. Moovly is cloud based, so film and edit from anywhere.

Moovly Studio allows you to create by customizing a premade template, or start from scratch. Upload your own media or make use of their extensive library. Make hand drawn explainer videos, cartoon animations, screen record yourself, turn text into voiceover, the list goes on. 

Customized videos are built using a drag-and-drop timeline editor, while templates are prebuilt, so that all you have to do is change text values, media, colors, etc. Creating a video on a timeline with no basic framework can take up a big chunk of time, so if you’re pressed for it (or you’re just not feeling editing today) just use a template.

Format your videos for Facebook, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Vimeo, etc., or download for yourself. You can also upload to your Moovly gallery to share with your team and/or the Moovly community.

To keep in line with branding, import your colors, fronts, and other brand assets. Save your custom designs as templates and use them again in the future, without having to use the timeline editor. Collaborate with others using saved templates, and there you have it—an on-brand content creation machine.

The concept of machinery is taken one step further with Moovly Automation, which is geared towards businesses, organizations and brands. This tool will automatically generate videos from a list or database. Define your brand assets, input something like a listing of new products, and let Automation generate unique videos for each. Live data from Twitter, RSS, analytics measurements, etc., can be automatically turned into videos by connecting that live feed to Automation.

Being able to automate something like a product listing will save stupid amounts of time and money. 

I won’t lie—Moovly Automation is expensive. You have to get a custom pricing before purchase. But it’s geared towards people with budgets.

Moovly Studio is also not cheap, compared to others on this list. But it has several features that others do not, like the ability to create videos in more forms and to save custom templates. Moovly videos (after the free plan) can be as long as you want, and you can download an unlimited number of videos. It’s worth it.

Note: Students, teachers, professors, and staff can get Moovly Studio at a reduced price. 

Oh, wait—there’s also a WordPress plugin and a companion app for Moovly Studio. So really, there’s no excuse for you not to use Moovly, especially for you bloggers out there.

Moovly Studio is one of the best video makers for small businesses and collaborative ventures. It has an array of video formats and creative flexibility. Moovly Automation is the best video maker for creating a huge amount of content in a very short amount of time, with very minimal effort.

Wave.video: For creative content and brand building over several channels.

Wave.video had brand building in mind at every point of design, from video sizing to distribution. 

When you first start a video (from a template or from scratch), you can choose “use case,” which is essentially the purpose of your video, your industry, an occasion that your video is for (like a holiday) and the size of your video. Videos can be automatically resized with a single click to optimize videos for various platforms and devices.

You can also add brand presets for a number of brands (the number depends on the plan, of course). Templates are then modified to fit your brand colors and fonts. There are 350 fonts to choose from, and a spectrum of color. But, if none of these suit your brand, upload your own. Don’t forget to add your logo as well.

Other features included in every plan: a free library of media (the entire library is not available on every plan), 600+ professional templates, voiceover recording, inspirational calendar of content ideas and automatic captioning and subtitles, which increase your SEO ranking and allow you to reach viewers with their volume off.

You can edit videos, turn your videos into landing pages, upload them directly to every major platform. Download them and embed them in your blog, website, etc. 

The only downside of Wave.video is numbers—specifically the number of free video embeddings, and  the length of videos. Free plans (which have the Wave.video watermark) have a 5 free embeds and a 15-second video time limit. Creator plans have 20 free embeds and a 15-minute video limit. And the Business plan allows 200 free embeds and a 30-minute max per video.

You get an unlimited number of social media sharing, so if you are strictly a social media creator, then these downsides don’t even apply to you.

Wave.video is one of the best video makers in the SEO and social media sharing game. If you don’t need a ton of videos for your blog or website, but do share on social media a lot (which you should) this is also a great video maker. If you are creating webinars or long how-to’s, steer clear of Wave.video.

ClickMeeting: For live and recorded product demos, webinars and customer feedback.

The process of setting up and hosting a webinar or product demo is no small feat. But ClickMeeting makes it easier with planning, running and post video analytics.

Create customized email invitations using your online organized address book. Set up registration signup pages. Set up your custom branded virtual webinar room. Create your webinar timeline.

Host a live webinar, stream on Facebook or YouTube, or pre-record a webinar and send it out at a specified time. Make use of presentation, whiteboard, screen sharing, instant chat translation, polls and survey capabilities. Set up the exact right time to showcase your CTA in the best way possible.

Get paid for your teaching and connection skills using ClickMeeting’s free PayPal integration.

Afterwards, set up a thank you page, perform webinar analytics such as what devices most attendees used and the top countries your webinar was watched in to drive future event planning. You can connect to your Google Analytics to ClickMeeting. Send out rating and review requests to get more info on how your webinar went. And share invitations to your next one (or your recorded one) on social media.

Creating webinars or how-to’s shows your knowledge, places you as an authority in your field and increases brand awareness.

You can also use ClickMeeting for training videos and e-learning settings.

The only downside of this video maker is also numbers. Recording and file storage, and the number of meeting attendees allowed varies a lot depending on your plan. Read more about those numbers here.

If you’re going to be hosting or recording webinars often, I suggest at least the Automated plan. It has adequate storage, and a lot of automated features for someone who is probably very busy constructing their next big thing, and doesn’t have the mental space to send out email thank-you’s.

ClickMeeting is a great video maker and a great planner in general. This is one of the best for recording how-to’s, webinars and product demos. This is not the video maker for cinematic masterpieces or social media gurus—unless you’re teaching us the ancient art of Snapchat.

Animaker: For high quality custom videos.

A commonality between many animated video makers is the lack of customization. They have a lot of options for scenes, characters and props, but there’s not any good way to get exactly what you need. 

Animaker, on the other hand, lets you play dress up with these things. Hair, eyes, background colors, they’re all variables that you can change to fit your exact needs. If you want to customize even further, use the text-to-speech feature to give a voice to your characters, one that is auto-synced to your character to create a perfect animated conversation.

Make and edit explainers, promos, informationals, and intros for Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, you name it. Resize with one click to optimize for different platforms. If you’re pressed for time, use Animaker Lite to make and post an even simpler video.

Three features really stand out when comparing Animaker with its competitors: file size, file quality and their Smart Move tool.

Animaker allow you to upload much larger videos than it’s competitors, even on their smallest plans. All files are also at least HD, if not 2K. It’s main competitor, Animatron, only exports to 720p resolution until the Pro plan. 720p is getting to be too low a resolution for newer devices.

Smart Move has simplified the motion part of the animation part. Movements characteristic of certain objects, like bouncing balls, have been embedded in these object instances. So, if you use Smart Tool, you don’t have to trace out the movement of something like a ball bouncing. Common, easy to recognize movements should not take up your time.

With the Basic plan, you only get 5 video downloads a month before you have to start paying $20 per download. This feels like it sucks, right? If you don’t need to download more than 5 a month, it’s actually not that bad. My advice to you in this case: Make sure your video is 100% finished before downloading—mistakes, in this case, will cost extra.

Higher plans allow for more downloads, more storage space, more conversations (the auto-sync thing) and more premium objects (templates, music, custom fonts, etc.) from their media library.

Animaker is one of the best animated video makers, especially when it comes to customization. It beats out it’s competitors in terms of storage and video quality. And’s a great solution for someone whose occupation is not animating. If you’re an animator, you better not be reading this—you already know your shit.

Ripl: The absolute best video maker software for social content creation and marketing.

Ripl is for small business branding. Period. That’s all I need to say, but you came for the knowledge, so let me elaborate on why this is true.

There’s only one plan, and you can only get it monthly or yearly—you’re going to want the yearly.

1000+ templates, 150+ fonts, 100+ music tracks, logos, brand colors, use their library, upload your own, you get the gist. They give you a lot, but this isn’t why they’re amazing.

They are one of the only video making platforms that allows you to share to all of your socials simultaneously. Other platforms allow you to change your video sizes, but you would have to change sizes then upload for Instagram, then for YouTube, then for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter—it will get exhausting.

Not only that, but they let you schedule out content—something you used to have to get another app, plugin or service to be able to do.

If you’re an individual, who’s just uploading a LinkedIn portfolio video, this doesn’t matter at all. But, a small or midsize business or organization who posts to several social media channels? This is exactly what they’re looking for.

Create, post, and perform analytics on post engagement, on desktop and with the companion app (on Android or iOS). 

The video maker itself is incredibly easy to use: you build your post as it will look online. Start with your text, which should be your CTA. Add your own media. You can also add a link where you would like viewers to navigate your website. Then choose a template and customize. Check off all channels you want to publish to, and publish. Or, schedule them all.

It’s a clean, easy solution that has an extremely high ROI for what you’re paying for.

Ripl is the best video maker and distribution tool for businesses that want to produce a ripple effect with their social content.

YouCut: Apparently the only video editing app whose free plan comes without watermarks.

Okay, so the obvious shining quality of this mobile app (available for Android and Apple users) is the fact that the free version does not have watermarks. Which is apparently incredibly rare, or so it seems after scouring Google Play for a good free video maker app.

It will always be free, unless you upgrade to the Pro plan for more features, but if you’re eyeing this app, you’re probably not looking to pay for one.

This app is more video editor than maker, as you cut, trim, merge, and add filters and effects to your own media. But, considering you’re on your phone, which has a camera anyway, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get some footage. 

Or download some and upload it to the app.

Nobody said penny pinching was easy, so you have to get creative.  

Add music (YouCut has some for free, but you can upload), text and change aspect ratios. Use transitions, change the speed of your video, and when you’re happy, upload to Youtube or social media.

This is the best free video editing mobile app—and although this is specifically a review of video makers, finding and uploading stock footage, adding your own footage, and using free music feels like a creative process. And creators using this app are probably taking video already, so I think YouCut is a worthy video maker.

Tell your narrative with motion.

If you have not grasped the importance of being able to make videos by now, there’s nothing I can do to change your mind.

But, for those who see the potential of creating unique, branded videos for themselves, their blogs and their businesses—and have made it this far—I leave you with two extra pro tips.

Two free tips, because we love free things here.

Embedding:

If you want to put your content on your WordPress site, you have to embed it. Some of these video makers allow you to do this. If they don’t, then there are two solutions I recommend: 

• EmbedPress: Embed literally anything that is online: Instagram posts, Google Maps, Vimeo and YouTube videos, anything. It’s an excellent solution for those who are actively working on dynamic sites with a lot of different needs.
• Embedly: A low-cost alternative to EmbedPress that allows you to add rich media like images and videos. It won’t connect to everything like EmbedPress, but you start off at $9.99 a month, way less than the starter plan for EmbedPress.

Filming:

If you don’t have a legit video camera, then Filmic Pro takes your phone camera and pretty much makes it one. It gives you features, like manual “lens” controls, advanced audio settings for however you gather sound when recording (i.e. microphone or stereo output) and RBG control. You can change the number of frames your camera takes per second (FPS) along with the video quality (HD, 4K, etc.). Monitor the amount of light and audio noise around you.

Filmic Pro is a great video capture app. It is, as its name implies, not for people who don’t care that much about how their videos turn out. If you do want to shoot really high quality content, and do it the right way without spending an arm and a leg, then a $14.99 app and some time to learn is a good way to do it.

It also connects to gimbals, if you really want to take your phone filming career to the next level.

I think that’s all I have to say about making videos.

I probably should’ve just made this into a video.