AI video generation for marketing: short video and Reels

Why short video is the hard format

A still image is one decision. A fifteen-second clip is dozens: what appears first, how it moves, what is said, what is written on screen, which sound plays and how it ends. Generated video can get most of these right and one badly wrong, and viewers notice the wrong one.

What a short video brief needs

Whether you brief a person or a tool, the same six items shape the result.

• One idea. A single point, product or moment. Two ideas make two videos.
• The first second. What the viewer sees before deciding to stay.
• Length. A target in seconds. Shorter is usually easier to get right.
• On-screen text. The exact words, since many people watch without sound.
• Sound. Voice, music or a trending audio, and whether your account may use it.
• The ending. One action: visit, book, comment, save.

Trending formats and audio

A trend is a borrowed structure: a familiar setup that viewers already know how to read, such as a point-of-view scene. Borrowing it saves you from inventing a format, and it only helps if your version fits the business. A trend bent too far to reach your product reads as trying too hard.

Audio needs a separate check. Platforms set their own rules on which music a business account may use, and those rules differ from what personal accounts see. Before approving a clip built on a popular sound, confirm in the app that the sound is available to your type of account.

What to check before a generated video posts

Watch it three times: once as a stranger, once with the sound off, once frame by frame.

• Does the first second show what the video is about?
• Is your product or place shown as it really is?
• Is every word of on-screen text spelled correctly and readable on a phone?
• Do people, hands and movement look natural all the way through?
• If it shows realistic people or events that are not real, does the platform expect a label?

Generated footage or real footage

The strongest short videos for a small business usually contain something real: the owner's hands, the actual room, a customer's reaction. Generation helps most around that core, with the structure, the text overlays, the cut and the sound.

Link AI and short video

Link AI by Linkme is our pick for generated short video. Linkme's page shows its content creator role making a Reel, with the example of a 15-second POV Reel built on a trending format and trending audio attached. In its strategist role it spots trends and adds them to the calendar, so the video request can start from what is rising. You approve before it posts.

For footage of real people, Linkme describes a creator marketplace: Link searches the creators on Linkme, matches them to your brand, sends your brief and hands you videos you can run as ads. How Link AI produces video, which audio it may attach for your account and how you supply your own clips are points to confirm. Try Link AI in a demo and ask for one Reel about a real product.

Connected entries

Questions & answers