What’s Next For Social Video?
Over the past few years, video has become one of the most compelling ways for brands to tell their stories on social media.
From the instant popularity of Facebook Live videos to Instagram increasing their video length from 30 to 60 seconds, marketers are using the power of video to communicate their business’ personalities and brand stories, express creativity, and build emotional connections with fans and followers.
And it’s working: 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI, according to a research report from Adobe. And over 60% of marketers plan to increase their investment in video over the next year.
Right now, video is performing incredibly well on social media. So, where is it headed during the rest of this year and beyond?
The Future of Social Media Video
YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram will be the preferred platforms for social media videos.
While the video will grow in popularity on social media, not every platform will benefit equally from this growth. Some social media platforms will be better equipped to create, publish, and share videos than others. And, the ones where marketers are the most successful will be the ones that brands will gravitate towards the most — namely Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
For instance, over 100 million hours of video a day are watched on Facebook, and of the 79% of marketing teams that published videos on Facebook in 2020, 85% said it was successful. Of the 85% of marketing teams that posted videos on YouTube, 83% found it successful. And, 65% of video marketers said they plan to include Instagram in their 2020 marketing strategy because of how effective video content was on this social media platform.
These three platforms will be the most popular when it comes to social media video content. Not only do they already have millions of active users, but they also let you engage with followers after you post a video. The more you respond to comments and communicate with your audience, the more they’ll interact with your content the next time you post.
Tik Tok and Twitch aren’t the only social platforms aiming to join the ranks of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Aside from smaller players like Meerkat and Periscope, Twitter is now getting into video with its newest feature, Fleets. Fleets are temporary posts that expire after a day, similar to an Instagram Story. With Fleets, users can post videos to their timelines, six times more likely to be retweeted than a photo tweet. And, research from Nielsen suggests that Twitter video is twice as memorable than videos watched on other social media platforms. The reasoning here is that Twitter videos tend to be viewed as more organic and genuine than videos posted to Facebook, Youtube, or Instagram.
Social Media Platforms will Compete with Streaming Services
The next frontier for social platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram appears to be television. In fact, Facebook marketing expert, Mari Smith, says she believes that Facebook’s goal is “to become the next generation digital streaming television platform.”
This means that Facebook would entirely directly with brands like Netflix and Hulu. Its goal is to become the destination for video streaming and, according to Smith, it’s investing heavily in its “Watch” feature to accomplish that goal.
YouTube, on the other hand, has been experimenting with YouTube TV since 2017. With YouTube TV, users can watch live television without a cable subscription. This is much different than YouTube’s original approach, which was completely centered around user-generated content. With more social media platforms competing in its space, YouTube is expanding its offering to appeal to a larger audience.
Let’s not forget Instagram, either. While it doesn’t offer a full-fledge streaming service, Instagram recently launched its IGTV feature, which is geared towards long-form video content. And, rather than having to tilt your device sideways to watch a video, IGTV expands the image so the video can be watched from your device’s vertical interface. Research shows that watching videos from this angle improves its completion rate.
Portions of this blog post appeared here first: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-forecast
