THE POWER OF VIDEO IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Sharing video through social channels is incredibly important to the growth of your brand. Visual assets are crucial to the communication of your brand story, and video offers a remarkable return on investment as well as the potential to reach a wider market than other visual assets.

Many social media sites use algorithms to determine what content is seen by users, as well as the order it’s displayed in on the news feed. Videos are typically favoured by algorithms, meaning more users will see your content and it’ll likely spend longer on the feed in a more prominent position.

Between April and November of 2015, the average daily video views on Facebook increased from 4 billion to 8 billion. This demonstrates how popular sharing video on social channels can be, as well as showing video’s unique potential for greater reach.

These platforms are typically favoured by a millennial audience that eschews traditional media, thus sharing video content on social media makes it easier to reach this demographic. More visual social platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are particularly popular with this demographic. With Instagram increasing the length of videos that can be shared and Snapchat shifting their advertising model, reaching a millennial demographic through video on social channels has never been easier.

Producing high quality video was once a financial burden. However, the increased availability of cheaper equipment as well as the continued improvement of technology now make the production of high quality video content more achievable, with 51.9% of marketers naming video as the type of content with the best return on investment.

Videos are more likely to be shared and engaged with via social media than other visual assets. Specifically with regards to emails, including videos in the title and body increases open rates, click through rates and lowers unsubscribe rates. Social video offers a more visual, personalised method of consumer engagement that’s more digestible than blocks of text. As a more shareable form of lead generation there’s also the potential for videos and campaigns to go viral.

By 2017 it’s predicted that 74% of all internet traffic will be video based. Regardless of the type of video that’s shared, whether it be animated, 360, or behind the scenes; creating branded video content for social media can put your business ahead of the curve, increasing your audience and your engagement, potentially transforming your social media presence.