YouTube
YouTube is social video. As the world’s largest video-sharing social network,over 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month. That’s an enormous potential audience and one that can be reached by any business.
Best practices:
Due to YouTube’s massive scope, it’s hard to say what works well on the social network. In general shorter videos work well, with top performing videos lasting just under 3 minutes on average.
YouTube, in summary:
- Great for businesses of all sizes, budgets
- Put effort into production value
- Keep videos short in general, around 3 minutes
- Shareability largely affected by content, promotion
Instagram is Facebook’s mobile photo giant that has in the last few years dipped its toes into the social video world. Launched in June of 2013, Instagram videos emerged as a director competitor to Vine, and quickly took over the short video market. Instagram videos can be a maximum of 15 seconds, and can be edited from a series of uploaded videos. Apparently 15 second videos prompt the highest click-throughs in social video, putting Instagram high on the list for sharability.
Best practices:
Instagram presents a lot of opportunity for small businesses, since the app in itself is about empowering regular people to make great photos and videos. Even regular cell phone video can be edited and filtered to create something beautiful, making it perfect for companies with low budgets and few resources. If you can invest even a small amount of budget into your Instagram videos, it could give you a huge leg up on regular users. That is likely the reason brand videos were at one time responsible for 40% of the top 1,000 performing Instagram videos.
Instagram video, in summary:
- Instagram is the go-to app for teens
- Editing tools make it a great option for businesses with low budget, resources
- Only upload videos that work well on mobile
- Check out eConsultancy’s tips for succeeding at Instagram video
Vine
Vine is a Twitter-owned video app which allows users to film, edit and share 6-second, looping video clips.
Best practices
Vine has proven that anybody can build a massive following if they’re funny or clever enough. Vine superstars are regular people who have managed to earn a following making shareable videos using humor or enticing visuals. Your Vine videos will automatically loop, so you have to create something people won’t mind watching again and again.
Examples
Vine videos are very flexible when it comes to production value. You can create an effective, high-quality Vine like this one from Lego.
Vine, in summary:
- Great if you’re marketing to millennials—young audience
- Make use of looping functionality, since people will watch again and again
- Humor is the key to Vine success
- Requires very little budget + resources—just 6 seconds of raw video
Facebook Videos
Facebook isn’t thought of as a video platform in the same way as YouTube or Vine, but over the last year it has grown into one of the most powerful channels for social video.
Best practices
Facebook is leading the way when it comes to mobile social networks. We see that in the over 1 billion monthly active mobile users, but it also mean huge audiences for mobile social video. More than 65% of video views on Facebook come from mobile. When over half your views will come from mobile, it’s essential that you optimize your videos for mobile. That means they should be easily viewable on small screens (no one wants to squint).
Facebook, in summary:
- Massive audience of all ages
- Keep things short, and optimize for mobile
- Only share the highest quality videos
- Facebook’s algorithm will promote your videos the more they are shared
Snapchat
Snapchat emerged in 2013 as a golden boy of teenage social networking but very few brands see value on the social network. In fact, only 1% of marketers have incorporated Snapchat into their strategies.
This might be due to the fact that Snapchat videos aren’t truly social videos, in that you can’t share them like you would a video on other platforms. But done right Snapchat can increase brand awareness, contribute to marketing campaigns and even cause purchasing. And the barrier to entry is very low. All you need is a phone and some moderate creativity.
Best practices:
In 2013, Snapchat introduced “Snapchat Stories,” which took it beyond a photo app into video and chat territory. Now, Stories is the most popular Snapchat feature, with over 1 billion stories viewed per day. Where brands once brushed off the value of quick messages that disappeared in a few seconds, Stories last for 24 hours—a reasonable amount of time for someone to see your brand video and then visit your store or attend your event.
Snapchat, in summary:
- Only useful for targeting the under-25 audience
- Provide followers with incentives to follow your brand
- Connect with Snapchat celebrities to grow reach
- Keep things light, and tell stories
Vimeo
Vimeo is often described as YouTube for filmmakers, a place where artistic videos thrive. This may be why you don’t often see brands using Vimeo as a primary channel. That, and the success of this generic brand video.
That being said, Vimeo still had 135 million unique video viewers worldwide in 2013. If you can find a way to connect with that audience, it will be worth your effort.
Google Hangouts
Google has one really innovative video tool called Hangouts on Air which is unlike anything offered by any other network. Hangouts on Air essentially allows you to broadcast to live viewers, for free. Whether you want to host a weekly discussion that showcases your expertise or a share a more formal webinar with 5 other experts on a certain topic, Hangouts on Air is a great tool for the more professional elements of social video.
These Hangouts are more about the information and less about the quality or production, making them an appealing option for small businesses and those working in very technical industries. It’s a great way to engage prospects or attract a new online audience with an engaging conversation. Plus, these videos can be saved to your YouTube profile for future use.
Hangouts on Air essentially make you the host of your own show, at no cost. How many businesses have dreamed of that opportunity?
Twitter launched the ability to include videos in Twitter cards earlier this yearas a powerful new way to engage users in promoted posts. With video Twitter cards, a business can upload a video into a Tweet that will appear within a user’s stream and can be viewed in one click. According to Twitter, Tweets with native video generate better engagement and more video views.
Video embedding isn’t available in regular messaging, only in paid ads, so cost is something you have to consider. At least for now. Earlier this month Twitter teased native video, coming at some point in 2015. For the time being, if you have no budget for promoted posts on Twitter, you can include Vine videos within Tweets and they will appear in-stream as well.
Tumblr
Tumblr isn’t seen as a traditional video channel by most brands. But maybe that’s because most brands don’t know that Tumblr is responsible for referring more average video starts than YouTube, Twitter and Reddit. Plus, Tumblr is producing video view rates comparable to Facebook, with over 1/3rd of referred visits producing a video start.
The issue with Tumblr is that it’s a very niche community. Tumblr is the home of countless memes and inside jokes. Succeeding on Tumblr will really depend on your efforts to learn about and understand this audience, and then share videos that fit the profile. Check out Reel SEO’s tips for your Tumblr video marketing.
From:
http://blog.hootsuite.com/social-video-platforms/?utm_source=content%20team&utm_medium=owned%20social&utm_campaign=content%20team%20owned%20social#pagetop
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