Why Video Has Taken Over Social Media

Social media video is everyone’s favorite way of finding out news and updates from their peers and favorite channels. Also, social media sites are becoming ever more accommodating to video posts that entertain and engage. And we as consumers have grown to rely on online video to learn new skills, get a few laughs, and see how products work.

Video will be 85% of Internet traffic in the US by 2019, according to Cisco.

Social Media Video is Engaging

Video grabs our attention and saves us time when we are looking to find out how to do our taxes or where to eat. It also conveys information quickly and is often entertaining, that is why it is taking over social media. We are already on social media to stay in touch with family, friends and world news, so when we see an engaging product video in our feed, we can hardly resist.

When we see a brand’s video that entertains us, we are taken in and do not push it aside or even think of it as an ad. We see a video that offers value in the form of a few laughs or inspiration and we love to share it and spread the news, aiding the digital word of mouth.

Like every time I come across the new Dos Equis video ad on social media, I always share it with my friends because it’s cool and I love the adventures of the Most Interesting Man in the World.

Video is powerful and has much higher engagement and click-through rates than all other forms of content. Visitors spend 88% more time on a website that includes video, according to Word Stream. That is why social media video has become the main marketing approach for many small businesses.

Video is Shared More Often on Social Media

When the video tells a story that resonates with us emotionally or visually we share it because it is like an extension of our personality.

Online videos often grab our attention with emotions like joy, pride, or nostalgia or alter our moods with visual cues like color and action, or upbeat music. We love to be entertained and these videos create positive attitudes in us towards the product or brand.

80% of consumers believe videos are helpful when making a purchase, according to Blue Corona.

It can also be educational, showing us a healthy new recipe or a juicing technique. These value-first videos, we often see on social media resonate with our beliefs and we pass them along to our peers by sharing them

For example, if we like Game of Thrones and see a video of restaurant workers dressed like the characters from the show for Halloween we might find that exciting and share it. And later we might even visit the place to grab a bite.

We Remember Videos Better Than Other Content

One minute of online video is equal to 1.8 million written words, according to Forester Research. Furthermore, 90% of data your brain process is visual and that info is processed 60,000 times faster than text.

We are naturally wired to prefer moving pictures because we understand and remember them better. We are also getting ever busier and when we visit our social media feeds we want to be informed fast so we choose to watch videos rather than read. That is why relevant and resonating visual content in our feeds stay in our memory the longest.

We will remember a video of a steak sizzling on the grill much better than a description of the quality of the meat and where it comes from.

Social Media has Evolved to Boost Video Reach

YouTube and other social media sites have powerful algorithms that offer a range of engagement metrics to help you fine-tune your video efforts. Many individual influencers and brands take advantage of these metrics to boost the reach of their videos.

Social media sites have evolved to help brands place their videos in front of their target audience. Facebook video offers a host of targeting options – location, occupation, age, personal interests, online behavior – to help brands reach their audience.

We are constantly looking for videos online and this type of precise targeting help us find the ones relevant to us.

6 out of 10 people prefer online video to live TV, according to Google.

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google and it offers a world of tools to target videos. Brands can optimize titles, assign appropriate keywords to rank in organic search, and add tags and descriptions so they can improve their chances to gain traction.

And let’s not forget mobile, people love watching videos on their smartphones.

YouTube has over 1 billion users and is growing at an incredible speed. Many small and medium-size businesses take advantage of this powerful ecosystem to boost their following. They often start a YouTube channel in order to keep current customers engaged and make them come back.

Young people are migrating to Snapchat where quick, quirky, and entertaining videos have proven to work for many leading brands.

Instagram is another powerful platform where fresh and inspiring videos can quickly catch fire and reach millions. Twitter has also incorporated video and is perfect for micro spots that raise awareness about brands.

82% of Twitter users watch video on Twitter, according to Bloomberg.

We Like Video

Social media video is engaging, easy to share, and easier to remember than any other forms of content. That is why it resonates with us and makes us form positive attitudes towards products and brands. Also, social media sites are making it easy for us to find videos that we would like and even easier to share them with our peers.

We at Helium Video go a step further beyond production and help small and medium-size businesses understand how to distribute their videos via social media and engage their customers. To get a better idea check out our engagement worksheet.