Social video stats to guide your marketing strategy

Video content is king in the realm of social media, with Cisco predicting that by 2021, 80 percent of all traffic will come from video.

With this in mind, it is becoming clear that video should be a part of your marketing strategy, no matter what your business is.

For many businesses, video marketing is just a mere afterthought. Yet, with strong video content shared on social, businesses can expect to see many benefits from improved SEO, stronger consumer attention, higher engagement, higher retention, and increased conversion.

But what are the current trends with social video content? Here are some statistics to think about when developing your own video marketing plan.

1. On Facebook, 85 percent of videos are watched on silent mode

While the social media goliath may be hosting around 8 billion views per day on the platform, according to multiple publishers, the majority of this viewership is happening in silence.

This can be attributed to the fact that Facebook’s newsfeed automatically plays videos without playing sound.

For your business, this means that you must tailor your video content, finding a way to capture the attention of your audience immediately without needing sound.

This means adding striking visuals or messages from the very beginning of the video, along with explanatory captions throughout the content.

2. On LinkedIn, 38 percent of marketers publish video content, with three quarters finding it effective

While not commonly associated with video content, this form of marketing is truly beginning to take off on LinkedIn, and your business should jump on the bandwagon nowto get noticed.

Marketers and brands can harness the power of video to reach and engage with a wider audience, establish your expertise, showcase your products and services, and build credibility for your business.

For example, instead of just congesting peoples news feed with job advert after job advert, many recruiters are using video to describe the position in more depth instead. This more human approach is proving to be an effective way to accrue more engagement and fill more job positions.

3. On Instagram, time spent watching video has increased more than 80 percent year-over-year

Instagram is mostly associated with photo content, but engagement with video content has exploded in recent years.

Brands are posting short clips on their Instagram profiles fast and furiously in order to capture the attention of the platforms wide audience.

Recently Instagram also introduced a longer-form video feature, IGTV, which can be viewed within the platform as well as its own stand-alone app.

The feature allows anyone to set up their own IGTV channel and post video content as long as an hour. Marketers can leverage this feature to showcase behind-the-scenes video, interviews with influencers, events, and more to better connect with their audience.

4. Live video will account for 13 percent of internet video traffic by 2021

Consumer engagement with live video content is really booming as of late. On Facebook alone, users spend three times more time watching live video as compared to traditional video.

This form of video enables brands to inject an authentic human element into their marketing, which is very often missed in pre-recorded videos.

By broadcasting live footage, your business can create a two-way channel of communication with your audience. For instance, many companies are using it as an opportunity to host Q&A sessions, host interviews with industry experts, give product demonstrations, and more.