Over the last 12 months, social video marketing has become the single most important investment in your social media strategy.
Why?
Because in the past 12 months, bit by bit, social video content has exploded. These short, made-for-social videos have captivated audiences, created awareness (ice bucket challenge, anyone?), and even launched unsuspecting folks into the spotlight. The evolution of social video is hardly surprising; we’ve seen it coming for the past 17 years.
In 2000, when newspapers and magazines still reigned supreme, the average human attention span was 12 seconds. In 2013, Microsoft concluded it had fallen to eight seconds. After the study, Satya Nadella, the chief executive officer of Microsoft, said that “The true scarce commodity” of the near future will be “human attention.”
What does that mean? To put it bluntly, marketers have less than eight seconds to sell their message.
It’s incredibly difficult to convey complex information in eight seconds, which is the time it takes the average person to read about 24 words. As the human attention span has evolved for social media so too has the way in which we consume information.
Enter video. As our attention spans have declined, our consumption of online videos and multi-device usage has exploded. Why? Because, according to marketing industry influencer Krista Neher, the human brain can process images up to 60,000 times faster than words, and according to Forrester Research’s Dr. James McQuivey, “a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.”
Suddenly eight seconds seems a whole lot longer.
Think about this: In Q3 2014, Facebook served one billion video views to users. In by Q2 2015, that number bumped up to four billion, and by the Q4 2015 earnings call, that number exploded to more than 8 billion.
That means 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every single day.
Do I have your attention?
What Is Social Video?
What is social video? It’s really pretty simple: social video is a wide-ranging term that refers to videos specifically created for and shared on social media. This can include live streams on Facebook, vines or GIFs for Twitter, and even company culture shorts in Snapchat.
What does “created for social media” mean? Think back to that 8 – second attention span. A video is create for social if it is specifically created for that short social attention span.
How Social Video Marketing Impacts Sales
Social video marketing is where the attention is, but does it translate into ROI? When you think about your social media ad spend, think about this:
- Enjoyment of video ads increase purchase intent by 97 percent and brand association by 139 percent. (Source)
- Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 80% of all internet traffic by 2019. (Source)
- 4X as many consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product than to read about it. (Source)
- Facebook users spend 3X more time watching live videos than traditional videos. (Source)
- Videos turn watchers into advocates as 92 percent of mobile video consumers share videos with others while social video generates 1200 percent more shares than text and images combined. (Source)
The Top Social Media Video Platforms
Moving onto your social media advertising options for video, we’ll touch on the three main social video advertising platforms: YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
YouTube Video Ads
I wouldn’t necessarily call YouTube a social media platform, but since it’s the granddaddy of online video, it’s necessary to include it. With 1.3 billion users spending an average of 40 minutes per viewing session, YouTube is your traditional video marketing go-to. The con of YouTube is you can’t control the content your ad is placed next to. In March 2017, Google received negative attention that turned into an all-out advertiser boycott of the advertising channel when it was discovered that many advertisements are running next to “repugnant videos,” including violent extremism and hate speech.
Read More About YouTube Ads:
Facebook Video Ads
If you want to get the most out of mobile video and video advertising, create video content for Facebook. Reason #1: It has the biggest cache of consumer data anywhere in the world. As The Social Network tries harder and harder to nudge out Google, it’s become a prime place for social video advertising.
Facebook video receives, on average, 135 percent more organic reach than a Facebook photo and 73 percent of B2B marketers say that video positively impacts marketing ROI.
The key to successful videos on Facebook is to strike someone’s emotions and take advantage of that short attention span. A 5-second video of a puppy playing with your merchandise is pure gold.
Read More About Facebook Video Ads:
Twitter Video Ads
It used to be the rule of thumb that video on Twitter could only succeed if it was short, concise, and created specifically for engagement. In the past year, Twitter has been shoved in the spotlight for many social video breakthroughs; news stations now broadcast live, video “channels” rose to prominence, and even the President of the United States is addicted. The downfall? Twitter is treating social video like traditional TV ads, which doesn’t translate. They’re monetizing live content that is consistent with TV content, which strays from the whole premise of social video.
Looking for a Social Video Advertising Partner?
There’s one theme that rings true in all social video advertising platforms: quality video is the key. Sure, those casual live videos and off-the-cuff gifs work great, but if there isn’t a strategy behind it you might as well be yelling into the wind.
Blue Corona offers professional social video marketing, completely tailored to your company. We will create shorts, animated gifs, and feature videos that are perfect to share on social. Fill out the contact form below, and I look forward to helping you grow your social strategy!