What is a Branded Content Series: Is your Brand ready?

Written by: Julin Jean

Published: 03/02/25

Branded Content Series is crucial for reaching your audience online, getting them to engage with your brand, and taking action. In creating and producing branded entertainment for over 100 brands, I've discovered the storytelling elements that make a great content series.

Sure, it's one thing to have a big, beautifully produced web series that your customers watch and that looks like a Netflix show, but it's something else to have a digital series that moves people's emotions, gets them to comment, and shares with their people. That's real brand love, which helps your brand grow to the enterprise level, and that's what we're talking about today.

With that in mind, I'm sharing my expert tips to help you visualize your new content series with brand affinity and big goals for 2025 in mind.

Table of Contents

• What is a Branded Content Series?

• Why is a Branded Content Series essential for brand building?

• How to Diagnose branded content issues using storytelling techniques and five metrics to watch out for. 

• Storytelling Factors to incorporate in your branded content series

• Branded content should stay top of mind in 2025

What is a branded content series?

Branded Content Series is "Episodic video content that integrates products, services, or marketing messages on behalf of a brand while simultaneously engaging and entertaining an audience." WebbyAwards

While video marketing is crucial to building your brand, you should consider what type of branded content series aligns with your brand values. 

This holistic approach to developing a great branded content series ensures that your content is forward-thinking, audience-focused, and optimized for higher engagement on social channels.

At a high level, know that you'll need to consider a blend of storytelling, video production, and other elements that include:

• Story structure and brand integration.

• Pacing

• Music Composition

• Brand Characters

• Themes

I'll briefly explore these creative elements, explaining how they relate to branded content series and offering tips to determine the best for your team and brand.

But first, let's clarify why you must think about a video marketing plan with a branded content series in mind if you want to stand out in the business world in 2025 and beyond. 

Why is branded content important for brand building and video marketing?

First, I always say that every business is social; by social, I mean social media. 

Not convinced?

Whenever we're considering a brand, we first google and look at your socials for legitimacy, authority, and credibility. If they love you, they're sharing with their friends. So how do they share it in 2025?

Look, we all know word-of-mouth is the best way to market, but the new word-of-mouth marketing is known as "social sharing." At FOXFORCE, we make sure all our content is "TFG," which is short for That Freakin' Good, so it's always shareable. 

So, you must have something share-worthy on your profile to get that organic word of mouth, and that's when the real money happens, and you've got orders and new fans comin' in 24/7.

That's where branded content series come into play. By creating a social series that's share-worthy, you'll create several brand-building benefits for your brand, such as:

Higher Visibility and More Organic Traffic

In addition to people finding you through your new branded content series, they can start sharing their favorite content bits, lines of dialog, or episodes with their followers to get hooked on your content, become super fans, and so on. 

Sure ads help your visibility but they won't create an organic snowball effect when your audience is really diggin' into your content. 

Plus, it won't help you expand your opportunities like expanding your digital revenue, or allow you to partner with like-minded brands to co-create and develop brand affinity points like no one else in your market.

If you produce it, they will come, watch, enjoy, and share.

Brand Trust

As I mentioned before, people will develop brand affinity as soon as you start sharing something creative that reflects your brand's values, but I didn't mention the deep trust that comes along when someone spends more time watching your videos.

The more people know your brand and the values you stand for, the more they spend time with you online, then the more trust they have in your brand. It's just human nature.

When your prospective customers think about something you have to offer, you will be at the top of their minds because you've already pulled on their heartstrings, which other brands are most likely, just to lazy to do. 

Higher Conversion Rates

When people are actively searching for you or what you do, there's a good chance they're ready to buy or at least further along the customer journey.

Branded content series is not about selling, but it's like the same effect I had when I did grassroots marketing. I'd initiate a fun conversation, nothing about the brand, but about who I am, make someone smile, and they say, "Whatever you're selling, I'm buying."

If that sounds too good, see what happened with our first social short video of Silva's Law Injury Case Study. 

Cost-Effective Marketing

If your video marketing isn't designed for series-style watching, someone might watch one video but then click away to watch someone else and forget about what you're offering. 

And since you're already spending money on making content and pushing for ads, why not spend it on building your brand and growing your market organically and through digital word of mouth? 

More than once, I've started creating videos for a brand, and in less than 30 days, they've had their biggest month ever or have started selling from a story post. 

Our premium package plan can help you jump-start this initiative right away. Branded content is really that important, and it's even more critical to partner with a team that understands how to convey your values in a creative way that speaks to your audience on a deeper level.

How to Diagnose branded content issues using storytelling techniques and five metrics to watch out for. 

For this blog post, I dug deep into what makes a great content series and broke down the most critical metrics that can tell you if it's a success. 

If you find the following in your video analytics, you might face a boring video creation problem. 

1. Low Watch Time

A key metric to focus on is Low Watch Time, LWT, which tracks how long the viewer is watching your video content. If someone is watching less than 20 seconds of the video and the video is 3 minutes long, you have a problem. 

You can check watch time on any social media platform by clicking the analytics button and scrolling down to watch time. 

To help with your watch time, if someone is clicking away after 20 seconds, a quick tip is to trim the first part of your video and start it on something with more action or excitement.

2. Bad Thumbnails (CTR)

Another metric to focus on is CTR and click-through ratios, which means if someone clicks on your video, aka your thumbnails. 

Your thumbnail is the first impression to invite your audience in or send them scrolling past. If you notice you have less than 10 % of a CTR, you might have a lousy thumbnail problem.

To fix this, you need to create a new thumbnail that displays the conflict and theme of your video more clearly. This way, your thumbnail represents your story and compels people to click.

3. Low Comment Engagement

Comment generation is key to qualifying whether the video is good or not. Comment engagement is more than just numbers because it shows your audience connects with your message. 

If viewers aren't sharing their thoughts, asking questions, or even dropping a simple emoji, try asking a question in the middle to spark engagement.

I once rewrote a bullet point script for a tennis video, and his comments went from 70 to almost 300 just by asking that one question, which helped his videos grow by 77% practically overnight.

4. No Social Shares

Sharing is caring—especially in the digital world, where a share can be the spark that turns a single viewer into an ambassador for your brand. 

If your content isn't being shared on social media, it might not hit the emotional or inspirational mark that makes people want to spread the word. 

Your series should inspire viewers to tag their friends, repost, or shout out. If not, you should take a step back and analyze: Is your video striking a chord? Are you prompting viewers to share their favorite moments? Without that organic spread, you're missing out on the most genuine form of word-of-mouth marketing.

5. Video Views

While views are the most obvious metric, they're not just about numbers—they reflect your content's reach and appeal. 

Consistently low view counts signal that your video isn't capturing the right audience or that you must rethink your story.

Does the video have any extra fluff that can be removed? Is it exciting? Does it match your brand voice, tone, and values? How about your hook? If you're questioning a good video and would like me to look at it, contact me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to analyze a video and would love to meet you!

Storytelling Factors to Incorporate in Your Branded Content Series

Now that you know what analytics to measure to see how well your video is performing, what storytelling factors should you consider when creating your branded video content? Here are some storytelling techniques that help your story resonate more deeply with your audience and make your brand shine like the star it's meant to be in the world.

Story Structure and Brand Integration

There are so many different ways that you can tell a story. When I teach screenwriting, I refer to this as the story design. Is it like a mockumentary with photos and fake interviews? Is it a blend of scripted and improv like Curb Your Enthusiasm? Is it a cooking show that's more educational and how-to-oriented?

The best way to determine the design of your branded content is to start with how you want the brand to play a role in the series. If the brand is the oven in the cooking show, it's wise to show it working and how it can make delicious cherry pies.

Pacing

Pacing is essential because if you have a thoughtful conversation about something meaningful to your audience, you prob don't jump cuts. But if it's a series about a dirtbike, some quick cuts and action shots are what the audience craves.

This decision can be made by integrating the values of your brand. If your brand is thoughtful, slower pacing makes sense; fast cuts make more sense if it's exciting and cutting-edge.

Music Composition

Music is the unspoken language of your brand, which is tricky because if you don't have an in-house composer like we do at FOXFORCE, how can you have music that represents your brand?

We use a service where we can select—or have a team help us pick—music that fits the vibes of the series we're creating.

Brand Characters

Characters are the talking points of your brand, and this shouldn't be an afterthought or a case of forcing an employee who doesn't want to be on camera into a short role. Hiring a creator is very affordable, and why not have someone excited to show up and be on camera?

Who you cast should be someone that you could consider working for the company in a spokesperson role or as a brand ambassador.

Themes

The themes of your videos are like the questions your audience wants to ask the world. This is deep and may not be as straightforward as you thought, but you can figure this out by researching your audience's interests. Ask questions like, "What do they care about?" and "What are they commenting on?"

Another trick is to look at your competitors' pages and see what questions are not being answered; then, you can create something that fills that gap.

Branded Content Should Stay Top of Mind in 2025

People are always looking for a way to have their brand stand out in a sea of sameness. I'm telling you this right now: complete honesty: most brands will not want to put in the work it takes to make a branded content series that hits a home run with their audience.

It's fun work, but it's real work—and that's why we developed our unique process that makes it fun and worth investing in. Great branded content can last for years and be used on every social platform, in newsletters, websites, and more.

When we develop at FOXFORCE, we don't chase trends; we create movements. You know it when you see it because you'll feel it—in the heart, head, gut, and balls. We're the stories you can't forget. We're the emotions you can't ignore. Contact FOXFORCE today, and let's craft genuine stories that delight, inspire, and transform your brand into a legacy that people can't help but talk about.