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Social Is Likely To Be All Video (Mostly Live) In The Next Decade
June 21, 2016
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Twitter has announced the launch of a new stand-alone, companion app called "Twitter Engage." The app is to enable us to post videos to Twitter of up to 140 seconds in length, plus provide analytics around those tweets to measure our impact.
Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, said in a statement, "Video is becoming increasingly central to the real-time conversations happening on Twitter."
In fact video tweets have increased over 50% since the beginning of 2016.
Video has become the primary focus for every social network.
Nicola Mendelsohn, who serves a Vice President role at Facebook, revealed last week that their platform will "probably be all video within the next decade" due to the dramatic decrease in text.
Mendelsohn added that while Facebook's algorithm favors native and live video over text, the shift was user-driven due to the data they have been watching:
- Facebook's daily video views have grown from 1 billion to 8 billion in the past year.
- People watch an average of 100 million hours of video on Facebook mobile every day.
- Facebook Live videos receive 10 times the engagement than recorded videos.
And Beyond Twitter and Facebook, Snapchat reports 10 billion video views a day.
Video not only gives us opportunity to be a very visual medium, it also allows our audience to consume information in a quicker way.
But here's the deal - don't do video for video sake.
While it may be easier to create video or visually live stream these days, the onus is on us to captivate enough attention for people to watch and want to see more.
The key is to always come at content from the fan point of view.
For example - your video or live stream must include at least one of the following:
Access
Fans crave it. But we rarely give it.
Allow fans to virtually interact with artists and celebrities.
Whether it's asking questions or going beyond ordinary and setting up a real "holy crap' moment by creating the opportunity to do a virtual duet between an artist and fans - it's all about the access.
Exclusivity
What can you broadcast that no one else can or will?
Steve Jones, host of Jonesys Jukebox out of KLOS/Los Angeles is always reminding us visually why his show is so unique in LA. Watch him sometime.
How does your live or native video differentiate from all others?
Impact
The power of live video is allowing those watching to influence the broadcast.
By default you'll get a few lurkers when you start a live stream via Facebook or Periscope.
But when you fully involve fans - that's when you'll see real impact.
When WMAL-AM/Washington, D.C. announced Fox News contributor, Stacey Dash was going to answer questions from the thread of their recent Facebook Live, the amount of viewers began to increase faster than they could keep up with.
People want to feel a part of something. There's very little value in just sitting in front of our phones watching you do your radio show. Fully involve the audience.
The social platforms are giving you the cue. Video, whether live or native (meaning planned out & recorded) is a critical evolution of the social space; raw and real time moments.
Always ask yourself, does your video offer access, exclusivity or create meaningful impact?
If not, consider pausing until it does.
Substandard video is as brand erosive as bad breaks on-air. Over time the audience becomes fatigued and unmoved.
In short, they become passive fans.
And there is no value in a passive social fan base.
Have an objective that satisfies the audience and let the (phone) camera roll.
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