Why is there an increasing demand for social media video content?
So, what exactly do these platforms provide to online marketers? Well, social media platforms offer data to organisations to help them in their marketing activities. For instance, the sheer size of Facebook provides a lot of data to organisations due to its scope.
Most of the video ads on Facebook are video promos for products which also providing a direct response from users. This is not to allege that Facebook is the only medium that marketers strive to upload their videos. There are other mediums, but its advantage is that it has a wider reach to a wide audience.
So, why exactly are marketers targeting social media video content? Here are vital statistics that will enable to understand the scope of online videos in marketing:
• More than 1.3 billion people use YouTube which is almost 33% of all internet users.
• By 2015, 82% of Twitter users watched video content on the platform.
• In Snapchat, over 10 billion videos are being watched in a single day.
• Facebook alone has over half a million people watching videos.
Well, these statistics may not be 100% accurate, but the fact remains. Numbers never lie! With the ubiquity of smartphone technology and the availability of the internet, you can tell that videos are the in- thing in marketing.
What are the videos used for? Let us look at a few:
Storytelling about the Brand
The answer is simple. Social media videos provide more shares when compared to texts, and this makes them reach a much wider audience. Telling the story of a brand is more efficient using social media videos as it will be shared and get to a wider audience. Once a video goes viral, it will reach so many people in a concise time.
Narrates the Brand Story Faster
Videos that are less than 90 seconds tend to have an average retention rate of 53% with those lasting more than 30 minutes having only 10% retention rate. With such a short retention span, marketers have minimal time to market their brands. Consumer attention must be grabbed from the cacophony of everyday worries and reverted to the brand promo. That is where short online social media videos become effective.
Instant Feedback
Social media videos provide marketers with instant feedback on how their products are perceived in the market. Marketers don’t have to commission expensive marketresearch to understand the perception of their products by the consumers anymore. Most of them can rely on feedback from customers directly, and use it to make any corrective changes.
It is imperative to note that social media sites have realised that they have the power to push the marketer’s agendas to a wider audience. They are therefore making changes that will enable them to serve better. Notably, YouTube andFacebook have set standards and changed platforms for videos.
