Study: 64% make a purchase after watching marketing videos on Facebook

Dive Brief:

Animoto today released its The State of Social Video 2017: Marketing in a Video-First World report with the key takeaway that marketers should focus on social media channels and mobile in their video marketing strategies, per a press release made available to Marketing Dive.
Illustrating the importance of the social media and mobile combination, 84% of consumers reported watching social video content on mobile devices, and 81% of marketers reported optimizing social videos for mobile including using tactics like planning for views with the sound off.
The report also found that social media video drives brand engagement and sales with 83% of marketers reporting they are confident Facebook video content will drive purchases and 64% of consumers reporting making a purchase after watching a marketing video on Facebook in the last month.

Dive Insight:

Video has become an integral part of content marketing and digital advertising. As a result, marketers have to learn to “speak video fluently” in order to connect with consumers on social media, said Brad Jefferson, CEO of Animoto, in the press release.

As consumption of branded video increases, marketers are ramping up production. Animoto found 47% of marketers are publishing four or more marketing videos in an average month, with 92% repurposing assets they already have.

Facebook and YouTube were the top two platforms cited by marketers in the Animoto report across a range of criteria including views, purchases, engagement, and both current and future investment for marketing video, echoing results from last year’s report.

On the consumer side, Facebook and YouTube also led the engagement category. However, when it came to actually watching videos daily, Facebook made a sweep of the entire report in the top spot. Instagram Stories took the second spot followed by Snapchat with YouTube in fourth place.

One interesting finding from the report was the popularity of live video. Even though live streaming video on social media is a relatively new feature, 47.8% of consumers reported preferring live video compared to 52.2% for pre-recorded video.