Social media video consumption is on the rise, with Snapchat daily views reaching 10 billion, Facebook reaching 8 billion and YouTube daily views pushing 5 billion, respectively, as of last October. Social platforms generate most of their revenue from native ads and will continue to dominate overall native ad spending through 2021, according to research conducted by Business Insider. A study conducted by eMarketer predicts that 72 percent of leading brands intend to invest in digital ads through YouTube over the next 12 months, according to those surveyed.
“Video will be playing a central role for us on social in 2016, based on the level of engagement and positive brand lift that we saw with the video campaigns that we ran in 2015,” Linda Duncombe, global head of digital, social and content marketing at Citi said in the new eMarketer report, Video Ads in Social Media: With a Full Slate of Ad Products, the Social Properties Take Aim At TV.
The latest advertising push comes in the form of autoplay ads, a service offered by major social networks including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. YouTube, in particular, has been courting marketers with Google Preferred, matching brands with popular YouTube channels frequented by millennial viewers.
Why millennials? Although marketing to the audience is nothing new, millennials are 112 percent more likely to share online video ads compared to other age groups, according to an Unruly study. During NewFronts, Buzzfeed announced a new analytic tool called POUND (Process for Optimizing and Understanding Network Diffusion) that traces sharing across multiple social networks.
YouTube is confident in their millennial influence, and for good reason. “We reach more 18-49-year-olds during primetime than the top 10 TV shows combined,” YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki said during this year’s Digital NewFronts.
Calculating actual video views can be tricky, with Snapchat videos considered “viewed” as soon as it renders on the user’s screen and Facebook videos are counted if they have been played for at least three seconds. LinkedIn autoplays YouTube videos on a user’s feed, as well, which can inflate statistics considerably. Regardless of a lack of continuity in what constitutes a “view,” this data remains valuable to marketers who want to reach that coveted 13-to-34-year-old demographic.
In order to deliver these statistics, Instagram started showing view counts on its videos in February. It also extended the length of video ads from 30 to 60 seconds so that TV ads could seamlessly transition to social media. In the first quarter of 2016, almost 60 percent of all ad impressions on Instagram came from video ads, which nearly doubled the percentage in Q4 2015, according to a new study by Brand Networks.
As social media timelines fill up with ads, it is critical for brands to connect with their audiences in a unique and engaging way to cut through all that noise. Brand stories have returned to “survival of the fittest,” as creative director Joey Jones explained during this year’s [a]list summit.
“Transmedia [has been] fighting for its place for many years now.” he observed. “I think that can really find its nest, its home and really be able to tell stories that cross many different platforms.”
