Faster internet and cheaper bandwidth has ushered in an era of photos and videos. Nearly 84% of internet consumers today watch videos on their mobile devices. That is according to a recent study published by video editing company Animoto. For the study, Animoto reached out to more than 1000 consumers and 500 marketers to understand the current state of video marketing online.
Here are the findings – in infographic:
Video marketing works!
Could watching a video on Facebook influence your purchasing decision? Sixty four percent of consumers surveyed for the aforementioned study confided that it was indeed the case. Unsurprisingly, marketers today are heavily invested in video marketing. Nearly 48% of marketers surveyed created at least four videos a month. An impressive 27% make at least six videos each month. And this does not have to be expensive – an overwhelming 92% of marketers said they make videos with assets they already have.
Subtitles are critical
Nearly a third of the consumers watch videos during lunch hour while more than 43% of those surveyed watched videos in the afternoon. This is a huge market of video consumers that do so from school and workplaces where listening to the audio is not always possible. A Digiday study had previously found that nearly 85% of Facebook videos are watched with the sound off. Participants in the Animoto study concur with this assessment, as 39% of these consumers stated that they were more likely to finish videos with subtitles. Two-thirds of the marketers used text over imagery on their videos while over a half of them used closed captioning.
Twitter and Instagram matter, too
Video marketing and advertising is mostly associated with Facebook and YouTube. But marketers have found that Twitter and Instagram offer great conversions as well. While over 80% of marketers rated themselves confident or very confident when it comes to getting views, engagements and purchases on Facebook, other platforms were not too far behind. About 79% of marketers were confident or very confident about getting purchases on YouTube while the corresponding figure for Twitter and Instagram were 70% and 67% respectively. The key takeaway here is not that Instagram and Twitter are not as effective, but rather the fact that they have not been as utilized as the bigger channels.
Due to these trends, a growing number of marketers are now looking at Twitter and Instagram for their video marketing strategies. Around 25% of the surveyed marketers currently invested in these two channels. But when it comes to video marketing investment over the next twelve months, the figure more than doubled for Instagram at 52%, while it shot up to 50% for Twitter. Facebook appears to have hit a plateau though with investment numbers falling from 67% currently to 63% over the next year.
Popular channels among consumers
So what are the popular channels among consumers to watch branded videos? Facebook is the leader here with nearly 60% of participants stating they watch branded videos here every day. This is followed closely by Instagram at 59%, Snapchat at 58% and YouTube at 55%. However, Twitter lags behind the others here at 41%. But when it comes to engagement, YouTube scores better than Instagram. Close to 49% of the participants stated they engaged with branded videos daily on Facebook while the corresponding figure for YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter were at 32%, 24%, 22% and 22% respectively.
How to benefit?
If you are a marketer reading this article, the writing on the wall is clear – investing in video is no longer an option. But unlike many other forms of digital marketing, gathering data points in a medium that relies on virality may be tough. For advertisers, it is recommended to integrate your campaigns with Facebook Pixel to help understand the reasons why a video goes viral or does not get adequate attention. There are similar tracking tools that are available for advertisers across the various social media channels.
However, tracking organic video virality is still largely a guessing game. A workaround to this issue is to use independent surveys to identify social media influencers who impact your brand. You can then target these influencers for social media follower acquisition. Engagement among these influencers during the early stages of your video marketing campaign is vital to reaching critical mass and virality and will allow you to gain the benefits of video marketing for your brand.