Facebook has recently launched Facebook Live, Snapchat is the fastest growing social media platform, and Instagram has added Stories to their app. The common theme here is that video is exploding online. It provides a more immersive experience, generates more customer interaction, and it shows no sign of slowing down. If you are in the marketing space, you need to add video to your marketing mix or risk being left behind.
According to a Cisco report, video will be responsible for driving 85% of search traffic by 2019. Surprisingly, the drastic growth in video has taken place not on YouTube, where you might expect, but on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. Social networks are banking on a large increase in revenue from video advertising, with predictions of a 184% growth in spending from $9.9 billion to $28 billion. As with any new form of advertising, it is something to adopt and implement. The current boom in video advertising is fueled by concise, informative clips that are suited to certain niches, in much the same way that Google recently discussed Google Moments.
An excellent example of a company that has been experiencing dramatic growth on Facebook, all thanks to the use of video advertising, is BuzzFeedTasty. Their cleverly put together videos of recipes are usually less than a minute long, perfect for people standing in line at a bank or supermarket. At the time of writing, they were generating about 80 million views inside two weeks, which demonstrates the power of video when marketed correctly.
Food and recipes, of course, are a very visual niche, so the trick will be to take note of why those videos are so successful, and then try to replicate it in other markets.
Why It Matters
One of the most basic rules for any experienced marketer is to go where your audience is. According to Facebook, the average person spends 50 minutes per day on their various platforms, so pairing a great video with a large audience is marketing perfection.
Perhaps the biggest reason why video is exploding on social media is due to the ease of share-ability, which in turn generates the viral effect that marketers dream of. On a platform such as YouTube, people have to copy the link, then leave YouTube, and finally share it on another platform. This takes quite a bit of effort, and the reality is that the vast majority of people simply won’t bother.
Facebook, on the other hand, makes it so simple to share content. All a user needs to do is interact with a video in some way, and their followers will see the activity. The minute you like, comment, or share, that video appears on your friends’ news feeds- this happens 24/7 since so many people engage with Facebook. A few great pieces of video content, and suddenly your Facebook page starts to gain followers who then repeat the engagement process again and again. And so, the process continues.
Those who fail to take advantage of this huge popularity in video begin to look bland, and fail to grab the attention of site visitors. This alone is why it is essential to embrace trends and implement them into your business strategy. It’s worth it. The power of video allows you to watch the process again and again, changing your company’s marketing landscape.
Learn more about why video marketing, particularly on social media, is one of the most fundamental growth hacking strategies.