Tell your story on repeat

Continuous video loops may play over and over again—that’s pretty much by design—but how does auto-replay translate to view counts on social media and other platforms? It depends on where your video clip is posted.
While platforms use a variety of metrics to calculate the number of views, most rely on systems that record intentional views.
How can they tell what’s intentional from an accidental replay? Again, it varies. Some platforms:

• Record a view when the user has watched the short video for a certain amount of time, for example, twenty seconds
• Record a view when the user intentionally clicks a button such as play or replay
• Record repeat viewings with a certain upper limit, for example, up to five replays

Since each platform has its own policy for counting views, it’s hard to say how looping impacts your view tally. But even if looping a video clip won’t dramatically increase your number of views, there are many other reasons to try the feature out.

As you create your looping effect, you’ll want to consider your audience, your intent, and your aesthetic. Here’s a handful of factors and best practices to keep in mind to steer you toward success:

• Purpose – When you’re just getting started, it pays to determine the purpose of your loop video online. Doing so will help you decide the images to use, the tone of the video file, the audio content, and more. For example, a professional video loop for a business event may include certain shapes, colors, and logos representative of a company’s brand image.
• Impact – As you identify your seamless loop’s purpose, consider how you want your video to affect the audience. Do you want to establish credibility? Do you want to make the viewer laugh?
• Cuts – Beginnings and endings are always important—but even more so when it comes to loops. A tightly cut video can produce a jarring effect, particularly useful for moments of humor or surprise. On the other hand, if you’re creating an instructional video, cutting too close may result in your viewer missing important information. It can be helpful to experiment with different starts and ends to find the ones that best suit your message.
• Style – Don’t forget to add your signature look to the continuous loop. Try out the various effects, filters, and audio features in Runway to create a unique style. Do you want to throw in a music track, some sound effects, or a voiceover? These small details can take your creation from an ordinary video to a loop to remember.

Wondering how to make a looping effect? Start anytime, anywhere with our easy, intuitive editing suite. If you’re searching for inspiration, try out our countless features, templates, and effects—accessible directly from your browser. With a variety of filters, a seamless keyframe animation tool, the capability to support multiple audio tracks, and more, our video production suite is the perfect place to launch into your loop.

As a highly engaging visual medium, video loops can be particularly beneficial for conveying large amounts of information, highlighting funny moments, and showcasing quick actions.
Video loops work especially well as:

• Wall or floor designs for events, such as conferences, trade shows, club openings, concerts, or more
• Instructional animations for a presentation
• Engaging, humor-packed videos for social media
• Compilations of essential information, for example, step-by-step instructions of FAQs
• Highlight reels for personal events such as weddings, baby showers, housewarmings, and more

The occasion for your video loop will likely determine the type of content you’ll include and influence some post-production decisions, like whether you’ll choose to have audio (essential for a pratfall) or keep things silent (more than fine for a floor design).

Thinking about how to make a loop video more engaging? Keep the following tips in mind to captivate your audience:

• Consider the cut – Pay attention to the loop part of the video loop—in other words, the moment that the beginning and end connect. Do you want to create a seamless transition? End your video with the exact same image with which you began it for an infinite sensation. Want to invoke a compelling narrative? Play with a final image or design that leads the audience naturally back into the first frame.
• Amp up the angles – Decide on the various camera angles and shots you’re using in your video. Juxtaposing contrasting angles at the beginning and end can create the effect of a more jarring transition akin to a jump cut. For a smoother ride, consider starting and finishing your loops with complementary camera movements that make one continuous motion.
• Say it with sound – Design the audio for your loop based on the story you want to tell. Looking to create a funny video or a high-stakes loop? Think about setting your loop to evocative music that times well to big reveals and punch lines. Creating an instructional loop for a presentation? Include different insights through voiceovers to keep your audience engaged.
• Mix it up – Try blending animated elements with live-action clips for an eye-catching, totally unique loop. For example, you add animated doodles to your live-action video to emphasize certain elements or draw your audience’s attention to various parts of the image.

Depending on the images and sounds they contain, video loops can be soothing, surprising, entertaining, illuminating, mesmerizing, or downright shocking. But while video loops can run the gamut from educational to hilarious, they’re reliably compelling.
Here are some of the top benefits of video loops:

• They’re attention-grabbing – Video loops have a different effect than videos that play straight from the beginning to the end. One of the top benefits of a looping video is that it can engage and maintain the viewer’s attention as they attempt to understand the loop itself—where it ends and where it begins.
• They’re time-saving – Looping videos are incredibly efficient, saving time and effort. If you’re creating an abstract pattern, for example, loop your video over and over rather than animating a longer clip frame by frame. Not only will you finish the project more quickly, but your video loop will also become a source of quality control—providing an absolutely identical experience with each replay.
• They’re versatile – It’s nearly impossible to match the versatility of video loops. These videos, long or short, work just as well as social media posts on mobile phones as wall designs at corporate events. Add a video loop to any occasion to set the tone and build the atmosphere.