A Deep Data Dive into the Power of Branded Video

Video reigns supreme when it comes to content marketing and the data backs this up. If you’re not convinced that you should be investing more into video content, then you need to brush up on the facts. Multiple studies show that social video is the most powerful form of content for both engaging your audience and influencing their consumer decisions. The cost of producing video is well worth the reward of connecting with your key audience.

According to surveys and studies from marketing solutions and analytics companies, Aberdeen, Animoto, Buzzsumo, Locowise, Ooyala, Tubular.io, and Wyzowl, production and demand for video content across social media has grown considerably in the last couple years. Here’s what the data shows and why it matters for your brand.

Reach & Engagement

One of the most popular places for companies to invest in content marketing, Facebook, has actually seen a decline in engagement over the past year as the social network changes its algorithms to favor people over brands. But as engagement worsens across the board, video engagement takes an increasing lead over engagement for images and links posts.

According to Buzzsumo, video posts in April 2017 reached 12.05% of publishers’ audiences. Image posts reached 11.63%, links reached 7.81%, and plain status updates only reached 4.56% of the total audiences.

These numbers are down from February 2017, but video remains on top and the gap between reach and engagement with video posts compared to other content formats is widening.

Locowise says that “for every video you post you get 236% more people to engage compared to a status update.”

While it may be more difficult now to reach your key audience on Facebook, it’s clear that video is the way to do it and is only become more essential over time. And if your brand’s main topics are on food, fashion and beauty, animals or pets, or DIY, you’re in luck as these see the highest level of engagement. In fact, if you’re a food brand, it would be crazy for you to not take advantage of the high engagement levels that come with fun food videos like the ones produced by Buzzfeed Tasty.

According to Animoto, consumers on Facebook engage with 49% of the branded videos they watch and 60% of Facebook users are watching branded videos every day. Even if your brand publishes more on Twitter, which sees 41% of users watching branded videos and 22% of those people engaging with them, that’s still a huge portion of your potential customers or audience.

Competition

Your competition is already producing highly engaging videos, but there’s still time for you to get your brand into the game and bring your content marketing to another level.

In the first quarter of this year, Locowise’s data showed that “the average number of videos published by a page in this period was 24, but twenty of the most active pages published 52% of all videos.”

Tubular’s data for Q2 in 2017, shows that the number of sponsored views on Facebook and YouTube are up by 258% and 99%, respectively, from the same time last year. This shows that more brands and publishers are trying to grow the reach of their video content.

Customer Response

Video is a powerful way to grow and maintain your customers and revenue. A recent study from Aberdeen shows that brands who use video and other rich media are 65% more effective at communicating with and retaining customers than those who don’t. Companies that use video in their marketing efforts also improve their revenue at a greater rate. And when it comes to social video, Animoto says that “64% of consumers say watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchase decision in the last month.”

If these metrics aren’t enough to convince you how effective video is when it comes influencing your audience’s purchasing decisions, then this survey from Wyzowl should. They found that:

• 79% of consumers prefer to learn about a product via video rather than text
• 84% of consumers have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a video
• 91% of consumers have watched explainer videos to learn about a product or service

Winning Content

The drop in engagement on Facebook may be from the change in their newsfeed algorithm, where they are using signals, such as the number of likes, comments, and shares, to determine whether a story is authentic. They changed their algorithm in order to cut down on fake news and spammy or sensational posts.

This means that your branded content needs to feature genuine, authentic stories that people connect with and want to share. The more unique users that share a story and engage with it, the higher it will rank in Facebook newsfeeds.

Beyond authenticity, the best video content is also subtitled. According to Locowise, people on Facebook only clicked a mere 7% of videos to play sound. The other 93% were watched without sound as users watched in their newsfeed, meaning you should add subtitles if you want users to know what your video is saying.

Ooyala’s Global Video Index for Q2 2017 also shows that the majority of social video is watched on mobile devices, leading to a rise of vertical or square videos. Long-form videos also make up a large portion of people’s viewing time on every device, and the popularity of long-form video has been growing over time.

If your main audience is watching content on their phone, then you might do better with short-form branded content. However, if you want them to watch on their TV or tablet, then you might want to invest in purchasing pre or mid-roll ads during long-form content for your branded videos.

Video is a powerful tool that you can use to create interest with your audience and influence your customers’ purchasing decisions. If you’re looking to get started with video for your brand, let us know and we can help you out.

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By D. Simone Kovacs, Storyhunter Editor