As social video popularity edges ahead of traditional television, advertisers are expected to increase their advertising investment over the next two years.
Spends are Soaring
With social media increasingly becoming the favored channel for video consumption, and content creators producing more material than ever before on its respective channels, advertisers are beginning to put more on the line in terms of advertising dollar. A recent study released by eMarketer has forecasted that social video ad spending in the United States is on pace to rise by 44% and become a nearly $15 billion dollar industry by 2021, accounting for close to one-third of total video advertising spend.
Image Source: eMarketer
From a broader perspective, digital video as a whole is gaining a significant amount of momentum on the performance front, with the study also claiming that overall video spends will soar 62.1% between now and 2023.
Breakdown by Channel
Despite the fact that the eMarketer study doesn’t actually include YouTube in its forecast for social video, both it and Facebook are the clear frontrunners in terms of which channels advertisers are drilling down on, with Facebook actually edging Google’s video platform by 5% when combining both its native and sister-owned Instagram platforms.
Image Source: eMarketer
It’s worth noting, however, that even though those two players are taking up the majority of the market, some of the smaller social platforms are still making serious upward strides. Twitter for example, is expected to consist of over $1 billion of the social video revenue by 2021 in the US, and Snapchat’s advertising revenue is positioned to climb by 19.9% year-over-year in 2021, hitting $727.4 million.
Another key point from these findings are the fact that all five of these social mediums are outperforming major news outlets like CNN, Fox News, and the BBC.
Resonating with a Younger Crowd
The shift in popularity towards the social space can be largely attributed to younger US adults and teens, with both Generation Zs (90%) and Millennials (83%) admitting to spending a minimum of one hour per day watching video content, and 54% of that time spent doing so on a social app.
“Video has taken center stage on social platforms that were once text- or photo-centric—including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, even Pinterest,”
claimed eMarketer’s principal analyst Paul Verna in a statement about the study.
“Not only do younger users spend growing amounts of time watching video on these platforms, but they also share clips among their followers, potentially amplifying brand messages.”
While it’s no surprise that younger audiences are watching more content on these mobile social apps, perhaps most importantly is just how much influence these videos are having on purchasing decisions. A study by Brightcove revealed that 76% of adults in the US, UK and Australia claim to have bought a product after viewing a video about it. Additionally, 66% of Millennials have positively engaged with a brand after watching a video about them on social media.
Full Speed on Social
If a younger audience is your target demographic, these findings should spell out quite clearly just how important it is that social video is part of your performance marketing strategy.
We admit that there’s a lot of oversaturation these days when it comes to social advertising. Social video alone has a plethora of different options. Whether it’s Facebook Stories ads, YouTube ad-pods, WhatsApp Status ads, autoplay Messenger ads, AMP video ads, or the countless others that are currently available for advertisers to deploy at will, the fact of the matter is – now is the time to start activating video and testing which platform is going to give you the largest return.
For those who are tight for cash and don’t have the resources to test different video formats on each of the different channels – there’s good news – you really don’t need to overthink it. With Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube owning the lion’s share of total viewership, make those channels your starting point, and move on from there based on how your ads perform.
Advertisers will also want to ensure they are doing their due diligence, because with a rise in advertising competition in new socials spaces also comes an increased risk of turning your target demographic off your brand and offerings if your ads are subpar. Before you launch anything – especially a video format – take the time to make sure the content will resonate in a positive way.
If you have any questions about these insights, or video ad best practices, feel free to reach out to our affiliate management team. They’ll be happy to share their findings with you.