The use of video to reach audiences online has never been so widespread (or so important) as it is right now. Year after year, the growth of video-based social media, like YouTube, Facebook’s Watch, Instagram’s IGTV, and now new apps like Tik Tok have proven that video is here to stay.
A growing audience
From its beginnings in 2005, YouTube has grown to be the world’s second largest search engine and the second most visited site (after Google). Its 2 billion monthly users watch more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content every single day.
YouTube content creators are creating videos that range from entertainment, to politics, to DIY, education, and everything in between. It has also been the source of new celebrity for content creators, and the development of the profession of “YouTuber” as a viable career.
Video does not stop at YouTube, though.
About 11% of all Facebook posts are video based, adding up to 8 billion views a day. Instagram has launched a new service, IGTV, where users can post videos up to 60 minutes in length and create their own “channel”.
TikTok, a social network completely centred around short form video content, has now surpassed 1.5 billion app downloads and more than 500 million active users worldwide. The most popular users of TikTok are between 16-24.
On Twitter, the fastest growing segment is video, with over 1.2 billion views per day.
The secret to engagement
Across the board, video is the best performing content type on social networks. In fact, social media posts with video have 48% more views and the algorithms of the networks favour content with video.
Creating interesting and engaging video content is the quickest way to:
- Help with your SEO (your website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if it includes a video)
- Increase your ROI for social posts and social ads
- Increase your organic search traffic (+157%)
- Increase your social engagement (on Facebook, video posts get at least 59% more engagement than other posts)
- Increase “shares” of your content (92% of mobile video viewers share videos)
Top Tips for optimizing your video content
- Create content that is funny, inspirational, or practical for maximum engagement.
- Search for trends on popular video sites to create content that is consistent with what your audience is watching. For example, TikTok is a wealth of viral video challenges and trends.
- Live video is a great way to engage with your audience on a budget and gains excellent engagement.
- Keep it short – videos under two minutes get the most engagement
- Make sure it works with the sound off – 85% of all Facebook videos are watched without sound, so add those captions!
- Put the main message of your video in the first 30-seconds for maximum exposure, as many users will stop watching or skip after this point (33%).
- Make sure you’re keeping the format in mind for each channel. Create the size and aspect ratio that is going to gain you the most engagement on each social network (landscape, square, portrait).
- Check out YouTube for great tips on content creation and production!
Video is not just the future, it’s the present.
For years, marketers have talked about video being the future, but the current trends point to it being the dominant content form now and growing every day.
What are you doing to incorporate video into your content mix? What challenges have you faced when creating video content? Drop your comments below.
Sources:
Smith, Kit (2020, January 17). 52 Fascinating and Incredible YouTube Statistics. [Blog post] Retrieved from https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/youtube-stats/
Hutchinson, Andrew (2019, March 12). Twitter Provides New Stats and Advice on Video Marketing [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-provides-new-stats-and-advice-on-video-marketing/550225/
55 Video Marketing Statistics For 2020. (2020, January 20) [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://biteable.com/blog/tips/video-marketing-statistics/
Peters, Brian (2019, January 29). Facebook Marketing in 2019: A Study of 777M Facebook Posts [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://buffer.com/resources/facebook-marketing-2019
Lister, Mary (2017, March 8). 37 Staggering Video Marketing Statistics for 2018 [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/03/08/video-marketing-statistics
Iqbal, Mansoor (2019, August 8). YouTube Revenue and Usage Statistics (2019) [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/
Aboulhosn, Sarah (2020, January 21). 18 Facebook statistics every marketer should know in 2020 [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/
Ting, Deanna (2020, January 1). For TikTok, big expectations await in 2020 [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://digiday.com/marketing/tiktok-big-expectations-await-2020/
Mohsin, Maryam (2020, January 15). 10 TikTok Statistics That You Need to Know in 2020 [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.oberlo.ca/blog/tiktok-statistics
Social Post Examples
Facebook:
Video has been the fastest growing type of content online every year for brands and content creators. If you’re looking to engage with your audience and boost your brand, adding video to your marketing mix is the best way. Don’t miss these tips for creating video content for your channels: http://bit.ly/30YecOZ
Twitter:
If you’re looking to engage with your audience and boost your brand, adding video to your marketing mix is the best way. Don’t miss these tips for creating video content for your channels: http://bit.ly/30YecOZ
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 
Hey! Great read! I’ve heard lots about Tik Tok but had no clue it was that popular. I sound old saying this, but I remember when snapchat was the cool thing because you were limited with your video length. As for Youtube….1 billion hours a day!?!? That’s crazy! I hope its not all cat videos haha.
Great article and very insightful! Its funny- as I was reading through your “Top tips for optimizing your video content” I found myself thinking of all of the content that I’m used to watching and if it follows your tips- which most of them do. I am guilty of fast forwarding a video if the main message isn’t within the first 3 minutes- I get bored, which I think can also be a major downfall of social media- it has let our attention spans diminish. That is where Tik Tok is flourishing- 15-60 second clips of interest and then bam, move on to the next one. Youtube is always my go to when trying to solve a vast majority of my problems, it is a great resource.
I also agree with your last comment, video is the future but it most definitely dominant now as well. It will be interesting to see how it evolves over time, hopefully some of the companies can figure out a more user friendly algorithm as well (cough, cough, YouTube).
Thanks again for the insight, it was great to read your perspective.
This topic is honestly one of my all time favourites to read up on, and I’m really glad that you’re taking the initiative to talk about it here. I’ve always loved creating videos, and using that hobby in my digital marketing has proven to be effective! I really think that Tik Tok is going to be a huge way that we consume video over the next few years, but I’m also interested in seeing how IGTV does! Do you create online content yourself? I would love to connect outside of WordPress. Hope you are taking care, and thanks for a great read!