The State of Social Video: Marketing in a Video-First World [Video]

What does it mean to live in a video-first world as a social media marketer?

With social platforms like Facebook and Snapchat popularizing the demand and appetite for video on social media, how are savvy marketers keeping up?

At Animoto, we conduct an annual survey in order to better understand how marketers are approaching our ever-changing social media landscape in regards to their video strategy. This year, in addition to surveying 500 marketers, we also surveyed 1000 consumers to better understand how the flux of video on social media has changed their purchasing behaviors. The result is our “State of Social Video: Marketing in a Video First World” infographic.

Below is a video showcasing some of the highlights from the survey, followed by some tangible takeaways that marketers can apply while keeping up in a video-first world. Check it out, and then read on for more takeaways from our survey – and how you can use them to create more effective videos for social.

One important thing we learned? Facebook is the best place to put your marketing videos.

Our survey found that 64% of consumers have made a purchase in the last 30 days thanks to a marketing video on Facebook. And that’s good news for marketers, since we found it’s also the platform marketers felt the most confident creating video content for.

At the same time, although 81% of marketers feel that they’re optimizing their marketing videos for mobile, only 39% are creating video in the square and vertical formats that Facebook recommends for marketers in their Ad Manager platform (see #2 recommendation below).

Similarly, many marketers aren’t taking advantage of Facebook’s mostly silent video views. Only 67% of marketers are putting text on top of imagery. Facebook recommends adding captions to your videos (see #5 above), which helps ensure all of your viewers will get the message in video content.

But what if you don’t have anything to caption? 92% of marketers surveyed said that they’re often repurposing photos and video clips that they already have for their marketing videos. Placing text on imagery is a great way to optimize for the feed when you don’t have audio elements in your video that lend themselves well to captions.

This is a proven tactic with recipe blogs, including, of course, Buzzfeed’s ‘Tasty’. Another example of this is Simple Recipes, a recipe site with more than 1 million Facebook fans – they optimize their videos for mobile, creating square videos with text from blog posts for silent viewing.  

With the popularity of Facebook Live taking over feeds, we also asked consumers if they like Facebook Live better than pre-recorded or edited content. The reaction was split pretty much down the middle.

The recommendation here is for marketers to be comfortable creating both live and text-based video content.

So what does this mean for your video strategy? Essentially, if your video content isn’t optimized for mobile, it’s not working on social. Be prepared to tell your story in a sound-off environment.

The assets you already have can provide a wonderful starting point for creating videos. Once you find a format or two that work for you, commit to consistency with video posting. Especially on Facebook, you’ll be thanked by increased reach and engagement.