Announce a feature in a day
A feature announcement is a small job done well, not a small version of a big film. How to capture it, cut it and get it onto the surfaces that matter without turning a one-line release into a production.
A feature announcement fails for a specific, avoidable reason: it gets treated like a small brand film, with a script, a brief and a review cycle sized for something that shipped a release ago and should already be live. The whole point of an announcement is that it moves at the speed of the release. This is the version that does.
The three steps
One feature, one afternoon
- 1. Capture the new screensWalk the feature the way a real user would — the screen before, the moment it does its job, the result — and capture each one from the running app, in Frame24's secure browser or through your coding agent. See the product UI capture guide.
- 2. Make a short film about the one changeChoose a 30-second film and say plainly what changed. Keep the story to the feature itself — the new screens carry it, with their real figures and controls moving as the narration describes them.
- 3. Cut a vertical versionCreate the film again at 9:16 if the announcement is going on social or staying in-app — see the guide on getting one film onto every platform. Keep it tight: an announcement rarely needs the full 60 seconds a demo might.
What to actually show
| Do show | Skip |
|---|---|
| The specific new thing, working | A recap of the whole product around it |
| The before, briefly, if it clarifies what changed | A long setup — assume the viewer already uses the product |
| One sentence on why it matters | A feature-by-feature justification |
| Where to find it | A generic call to action unrelated to this feature |
The single most common mistake is re-establishing the whole product before getting to the feature, the way a demo has to. An announcement can skip that — the audience already knows what the product is, which is exactly what makes this format fast rather than a smaller version of a slower one.
Building a cadence
A single feature-announcement film is useful once. A consistent one, published alongside every release worth mentioning, becomes a signal in itself — viewers learn that a new film means something real shipped, which is worth more than any individual film's polish. That only works if the format stays this cheap to make; a return to script-and-brief for every release is how the cadence quietly stops.
Questions people ask
How is a feature-announcement video different from a full product demo?
Scope. A demo has to establish the product and show a whole workflow; an announcement can assume the viewer already knows the product and only has to show what is new. That difference is what makes it fast — there is less to explain, not just less time to explain it.
What is the fastest way to make a feature-announcement video?
Ask your coding agent for the film from the branch that shipped the feature: it reads the change for the right words, captures the new screens from the running app and checks the storyline with you. Without an agent, capture the screens in Frame24's secure browser and write the one line the film must leave behind.
Do I need a script for a feature announcement?
No. Give Frame24 the one sentence that says what changed and why it matters; it writes the narration from that and from the product's own words. The announcement should sound like someone telling a colleague what changed, not a marketing voiceover.
What format should a feature announcement be?
Vertical, in most cases — feature announcements are usually seen on social feeds and inside the product itself, not on a landing page. If it is also going on your homepage or in an email, a landscape cut is worth making too.
Should every feature get an announcement video?
No — reserve it for changes a user would actually stop scrolling for. A film for every minor tweak dilutes the ones that matter; a consistent cadence for the changes that are genuinely worth seeing is what makes the format a signal rather than noise.
Keep reading
Get your real product UI into the film
A public URL cannot see past your login. Here is how to capture the three or four real screens that actually carry the argument.
Get one film onto every platform it needs to reach
Frame24 designs a scene for the format it is given rather than cropping a wide shot down. That means a second format is a second film — a fast one, because your brand and screens are already saved.
How Linear makes its launch videos — and how to copy it
No presenters, no stock, no explaining. The most copyable film style in B2B software, taken apart — and rebuilt at a fraction of the effort.