When was the last time you went online to check something and were still online 20 mins later, laughing at the latest cat video or tearing up over the latest appeal for help? There’s a reason for this— humans are visual creatures who respond to storytelling and videos are the natural medium for this.
Brands and marketers are making a conscious effort to include video while developing their marketing plans. Here are some statistics that tell the video story.
- Social media messages with video receive on average 1,200 percent more shares than messages with text and images combined.
- Asia Pacific (APAC) sees 8.4 billion videos being shared each day, putting it at the forefront of the social video revolution.
- More than 50 percent of internet users in Singapore and Thailand watch online videos daily.
- 82 percent of B2B content marketers have used video to tell their story.
We hosted an event, Social Video 101, at our Hootsuite Singapore office and invited three video marketing experts to talk about key social video marketing trends in APAC.
- Neal Moore, Co-founder and Director of Click2View
- Eliot Connor, Director Singapore at AdParlor
- Michael Grierson, Social Media Marketing Manager at Skyscanner ANZ
Here’s are some highlights from the evening:
So what were the key takeaways from the event and what are some opportunities that marketers can hope to make the most of?
1. Video is king of the content marketing world
As a digital marketer you can’t ignore the strides that content marketing has been making and how it’s become a key piece of every marketing plan. In APAC, 88 percent of businesses include video in their content marketing strategy and 52.9 percent of marketing professionals worldwide named video as the type of content with the highest return on investment (ROI).
What are brands doing?
Metro Trains in Melbourne Australia hit the nail on the head with their Dumb Ways To Die campaign, a public service campaign promoting rail safety. The video features 21 characters killing themselves in silly ways with the last three characters being killed by trains because of unsafe behaviour. It received 2.5 million views within 48 hours after being uploaded to Youtube.
What videos should you make? Depends on what you’re trying to achieve. IKEA Australia is a great example of a brand using social video to tell their story. Their videos range from customer testimonials to how-tos.
Studies have shown that the average consumer spends twice as much time watching video content online than they do reading text—and with captivating campaigns like this, we can see why.
“Viral videos do not exist without marketing investment.“
— Eliot Connor, Director Singapore, Video, AdParlor
Highlights from Eliot Connor’s talk
- 24 percent of your marketing investment on digital should be on social and video and 16 percent on other digital media.
- Millennials are the heaviest consumers of online video in APAC.
- Thailand, India, and the Philippines dedicate nearly half their concentration to online video whilst watching TV.
2. Mobile growth is leading to more video consumption
As smartphone usage is exploding in APAC, so is the demand for social. Last year the number of people accessing social media from mobile devices grew by 32 percent over 2014.
More and more users experience the internet on mobile first and as a result, a higher number of videos get consumed on mobile as well. In fact, APAC sees more video consumed on smartphones and tablets than any other part of the world. Ooyala published some research to support these stats.
What are brands doing?
Brands are latching on to this trend and last year Ad Nut set out to redefine Yahoo Hong Kong as a mobile platform. They created short, compelling videos based on real news events (like the Hong Kong cash spill) to emphasize Yahoo as the best platform on which to share these sorts of stories. They pushed the videos out through popular social platforms and added a rewards element for Yahoo Mobile users, resulting in a viral mobile campaign.
3. Real-time marketing meets video with live video
As the desire for instant gratification continues to dominate the mobile marketplace, the demand for real-time content is on the rise. Live video feeds have traditionally taken the form of webinars, but more recently platforms like Periscope and Facebook Live have grown to satisfy the social element by offering users a chance to deploy their own live feed to a personal following.
What are some ways brands use live video?
- Customer service training
- Sales training
- Streaming product launches
- Interviews and Q&A with thought leaders
- Live events and behind the scene videos
What are brands doing?
Adidas Indonesia recently used Periscope to share their search for the country’s most talented football player. By live streaming the event on the app, fans felt closer to the action, which created a sense of VIP access and an emotional connection to the brand.
“The content and appearance of social video is inextricably linked to the platform distributing it.”
— Neal Moore, Co-founder and Director, Click2View
Highlights from Moore’s talk
- Youtube is TV on the web. It is a repository for any and all online video of any length.
- Facebook and Twitter have as broad a range of videos as Youtube, but because of the silent play feature, the best performing videos make use of subtitles and don’t require the user to click through.
- The length of an Instagram video has gone up from 15 seconds to 60 seconds.
- Because videos are filmed in portrait mode, Snapchat provides a great mobile video experience
4. Interactive video
Modern marketing relies on customization and communication, so the surge of interactive video comes as no surprise. After all, it doesn’t get any more personal than building one-on-one conversations with customers and prospects. The best part?Companies gain valuable data-driven insights while customers get to dictate what content they want to see, improving customer engagement by up to 100 percent. It’s a win-win scenario.
What are brands doing?
Interactive video campaigns incorporate touchscreen activity, resulting in a more engaged audience. This interactive 360 video produced as part of the A/W 2016 Catalogue—created by Australian retailer David Jones in collaboration with Sydney Dance Company—is a perfect example. Recognizing its value, several APAC apps have built platforms that support interactive video, with Google (and Google-owned YouTube) paving the way around the world.
“Use video to turbo-boost your content. Test everything.”
— Michael Grierson, Social Media Marketing Manager, Skyscanner ANZ
Highlights from Grierson’s talk
- Content containing video gets shared more often and leads to increased time on page by 25 percent
- Maximize your video presence on Facebook
- Content that includes video is shared on social three times more than content without
Ready to add social video to your social media marketing plan? With Hootsuite you can upload, schedule, publish, promote, and monitor your social videos from one platform.