Numerous research reports indicate that video is the best performing content on social media. Most recently, new research from Twitter reports that:
- There are about 1.2 billion video views on the network per day – twice as much as in the last 12 months.
- Tweets with video currently see 10 times more engagement than those without.
- Promoted Tweets with videos save more than 50% on cost-per-engagement.
The statistics, combined with other research, may motivate more organizations to post videos on social media. “Of course, not everyone has the capacity to create video, but if you can, the stats show you probably should,” comments Andrew Hutchinson at Social Media Today.
A band of advertisers had sued Facebook, alleging that the company inflated its video statistics to boost ad income. However, Twitter’s statistics counter those accusations, Hutchinson says.
Twitter also released advice for video marketing:
Twitter Tips for Video Marketing
Keep it mobile-friendly. Almost all (93%) video views on Twitter occur on mobile devices. Make your content mobile-friendly by using closed captioning or subtitles in case viewers watch with the sound off. Test videos to make sure they look good on mobile devices.
Include a call-to-action. With certain advertising products, like Twitter’s Video Website Card, videos attract click-through rates twice as high as mobile video ad benchmarks.
Keep Tweets short. Videos with minimal Tweet copy vs. longer Tweet copy have 13% higher brand and message recall and overall view time.
Twitter also explained the different types of video ads. Promoted Videos promote a video that you’ve shared. Video Website Cards are designed to drive mobile readers to websites. In-Stream videos ads are played at the beginning of a video from one of Twitter’s content partners.
More Social Media Video Tips
Planning. Plan a social media video marketing strategy, advises Roman Daneghyan, CMO at Renderforest, in a Social Bakers post. That entails audience research, compiling ideas, content planning, and budget distribution. For example, American Swiss targeted women on Facebook with short video ads to persuade them to choose the ring of their dreams and send the ad to their loved ones. After their boyfriends opened the clip, the ring began to follow them everywhere online through a retargeting campaign. More than 3000 women shared a ring, and 89% of their boyfriends visited the site.
Start strong. Some viewers may leave abruptly within in the first few seconds; many within the first 30 seconds. “Whether you show something highly interesting in the beginning or deliver immense value right away, it’s your choice,” advises Lyfe Marketing. “The idea is to stop social media users in their tracks and keep them interested.”
Good production. Virtually no one watches a video that’s dark or has hardly intelligible sound. Make sure your video meets today’s lighting and audio standards for mobile video.
Repurpose. Successful video marketing now requires understanding the varying formats and styles, not to mention lengths, of the many different social media networks. However, savvy marketers can repurpose videos by editing them to meet preferences of networks’ different audiences.
Measurement. Although video can be a powerful marketing and public relation strategy, many marketers are unsatisfied or unsure of its effectiveness. Video views, the prevailing metric, are a vanity metric that doesn’t indicate if videos are effectively promoting your company, experts say. Track more sophisticated video metrics, such as watch time, play rate, completion of the call to action, and, then track CTAs to sales volume.
Bottom Line: Video offers the most effective type of content for social media marketers. The latest statistics from Twitter may prompt brands considering video to embrace the ongoing trend.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
