Video marketing is amidst a pole reversal. Are you prepared to adapt?
In the marketing world, trends change faster than the seasons. Fortunately, the awesome people at Tubular conduct quarterly reports to track changing trends before they strand us like a bad storm. Their Q2 2017 State of Online Video Report revealed some interesting information, including three video marketing trends to watch closely as we pivot into Q4.
Trend #1: Sponsored Views Are Up
Sponsored views increased by 258 percent on Facebook and 99 percent on YouTube. As predicted, the marketplace is becoming saturated with video content, making it harder for brands to connect with audiences without shelling out some dough. The good news is — sponsored videos are working. Need some tips? Check out these tips to optimize your video ad performance.
Trend #2: Video Length
Back in the springtime, experts touted the importance of short video campaigns. Of course, this suggestion was never intended to be an exact science. Too many factors are at play. But generally speaking, short-form video content performed best. The sweet spot was right around 60 seconds or less. Today, top performing videos are anywhere from 2 to 6 minutes long.
The average YouTube video length is about 4 minutes and 20 seconds.
Top performers, like BuzzFeed, keep their content length at Instagram’s 60-second threshold.
Tubular’s report found that YouTube videos from media companies are 2.5x the length of Facebook videos.
It’s safe to speculate that these choices in video length are a direct result of performance tracking that indicates user preference. For marketers, this long-form video trend provides an opportunity to leverage storytelling and interactive video to form a deeper connection with viewers and collect valuable data about the context of their interaction as well as their preferences for future content.
Trend #3: Multi-Platform Investment
The top U.S. media companies are using multiple social video platforms, which supports our incessant advice to focus long and hard on a diverse distribution strategy. But what’s remarkable about this finding is that social media presence across different platforms is segmented. Influencers keep hitting the marks on YouTube while media and entertainment creators are crushing Facebook. One possible reason for this is the differing genre preferences between the two social platforms.
Facebook sees a lot of entertainment, sports and food/drink segments. They also get a larger share of voice in traditional kid’s entertainment, and from animation creators. On the other hand, YouTube sees a lot of gaming, general interest, entertainment and beauty.
In other words, video must be created specifically for each network. You can still repurpose video content to better fit each distribution channel, but it’s not the best use of your investment. Just like how international brands publish different commercials in different countries, your brand should be promoting different videos on different social platforms.We get it. Keeping up with the latest marketing trends can be tough and time-consuming. Creating enough video content to leverage trends is even more difficult. If your resources are limited and your marketing team is stretched too thin to remain vigilant about trend tracking, avideo partnercan help bear the weight. It’s theirjobto know the latest trends and forecast what the next “hot” trend will be. And because they are your partner in video marketing, all their knowledge gets passed on to your marketing team. Sweet deal, right?
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