Social Video's Top Trends: Short, Funny, Female
A leading online video platform recently released data that sheds light on emerging trends and usage patterns in one of the category's fastest-growing segments -- social video. The study defines social video as online video programs created for major brands, which users opt-in to watch and which they can share with others.
The findings are summarized below, as well as in this infographic from Jun Group.
The study was based on a sample of more than 13 million user-initiated video views between January 1, 2011 and September 30, 2011. The views were the result of social video campaigns created for Fortune 500 brands across a number of vertical categories including consumer packaged goods, apparel, consumer technology, retail, luxury products, fashion and beauty, sports and fitness, and auto. Key findings are as follows:
- Humor works. Humorous videos are prominent within the social video space, accounting for four-in-10 campaigns. Those who watch a humorous videos are more than three times more likely to click to a brand's Facebook page after viewing than those who watch other types of social video content.
- Celebrities don't guarantee engagement. Only one-in-10 social video campaigns feature a TV or movie personality, and they are actually less effective at driving brand interactions than non-celebrity videos. Celebrity videos drive 12 percent fewer visits to brands' Facebook pages than non-celebrity videos. This data may indicate that those who watch celebrity videos are more interested in the famous personas than the brands behind them.
- Very short and long-form are most effective. Fifteen-second videos produce the best click-through rates, but they are used least. Only 10 percent of videos are 15 seconds or less, yet they are 153 percent more effective than videos between 16 seconds and one minute.
Videos of 60 seconds or more are the second-most effective format, outperforming videos between 16-60 seconds by 70 percent. This may indicate that 16 second-to-one-minute videos are not enough time to tell an engaging story.
- Girl power grows. According to Jun Group's first study in January, women accounted for nearly 57 percent of social video views. In 2011, that number has grown to 63 percent.
- 18-44 year-olds dominate, younger people gaining interest. Sixty percent of video-watchers are between the ages of 18-44, while viewers between 12-17 years old increased by 48 percent since the beginning of 2011.
- Facebook page traffic. The social video opt-in environment is more effective in driving post-view engagement than interruptive video units, such as pre-roll. Users who opt-in to watch social videos are more than three times as likely to interact with a brand after the view, compared to pre-roll. Social videos are notably effective in driving users to a brand's Facebook page. "Join a brand on Facebook" is the single most popular post-view interaction, accounting for 40 percent of all post-view activity.
- Social video completion. Social video programs deliver completion rates that are significantly higher than pre-roll. On average, 64 percent of users served a 30-second pre-roll video watch to completion, according to a recent study by the YuMe video advertising network. In contrast, 95 percent of users who opt-in to a social video of the same length watch to the end.
Jun Group's distribution technology delivers millions of monthly opt-in video views across social networks, mobile devices, premium content sites and YouTube. Jun Group distributes videos from 15 seconds to 3 minutes-long with exceptionally high completion rates and significant post-view activity, such as website visits, coupon downloads, and store locator usage.
