The Rise of Social Video
Shareablee and comScore recently presented The Rise in Social Video webinar in which we analyzed the growth in social video, which brands are driving this growth and what social video best practices can be learned from the top performers.
In 2014, there was a 147% growth of actions taken on video content, resulting in 2.8 billion social actions. This growth is seen across all social platforms, with growth on Facebook at 579%, Twitter at 2526% and Instagram at 549% since the start of 2013. To put this in perspective, video is a small part of the content mix, only making up 8% of content on Facebook, 1% on Twitter and 9% on Instagram. However, video posts are outperforming other types of content across platforms, as seen in the chart below.
Why has engagement on video grown at such a rapid pace? Social video is highly shareable, with social shares on video growing 140% in 2014 compared to 2013. In the chart below, you can see that though shares (or social amplification) only make up 9% of all actions for all of social content, they make up 38% of all actions taken on videos. This increases impressions, views and further engagement on brands’ social content.
On the industry level, TV dominates social video actions, with growth at 174% since January 2014, followed by Sports (157% growth) and Publishing (316% growth). Shareablee has compiled best practices from brands across several industries which have seen massive success by incorporating video into their social strategies.
- A Personal Approach
Behind-the-scenes videos have brought in huge social engagement numbers for TV shows like Empire and Dancing with the Stars . Empire reposted video content that reinforced and empowered audiences to care about the characters. Videos that probed deeper into characters’ lives, including behind-the-scenes videos, made up 22% of Empire’s video content throughout the season. As a result, 25% of video drove 38% referral traffic.
https://www.instagram.com/p/zAl9F7zfNZ/
- Ephemeral Videos
On Instagram, time-lapse videos have been key engagement drivers across several industries. Nike and National Geographic scored the highest-ranking videos by social actions on Instagram in Q1 2015 with stories told through time-lapsed videos. Victoria Beckham’s time lapsed videos capturing behind-the-scenes during fashion week drew in a total 77k social engagements.
- Tutorials and How-To’s
Anastasia Beverly Hills’ top performing videos featured makeup tutorials from its social audience. The cosmetics brand has also consistently placed at the top of the Beauty category in Shareablee’s weekly Instagram video rankings by using this type of video content.
- Re-Living Experiences
Budweiser re-lives the Super Bowl moment on social with the #1 most engaged video on Twitter. Budweiser’s #BestBuds Super Bowl spot drove a combined 1.8 million total actions on Facebook and Twitter in Q1 2015.
- User-Generated Content
Several brands have seen social success by regramming user-generated videos: five of the Top Ten Instagram videos by brands in Q1 2015 were regrams of user-generated videos. These videos came from Starbucks, GoPro, Anastasia Beverly Hills, National Geographic and Mercedes-Benz.
Click here to download “The Rise of Social Video” joint presentation from Shareablee and comScore.