Which Social Media Platforms Should I Post My Videos On?
Instagram recently began rolling out its extended video uploads as it makes the jump from a capped 15-second clip to a full minute video. This inspired us to take a look at the best social media channels for creating and sharing video.
Shouldn’t social media videos be short? I hear you ask. So why is Instagram making the move to longer videos? Well, Instagram is simply responding to the trend that sees people spending 40 per cent more time watching video than they did just 6 months ago. And now the image-sharing network wants to bring its audience fun, flexible and creative ways to make and watch video.
The ideal length of a video is much disputed and varies for each platform and the results you’re looking to achieve. Here we look at the top platforms for sharing video and the optimum lengths to get your message seen.
Facebook
As one of the largest content-sharing platforms, Facebook is an ideal platform to upload video, allowing up to 20 minutes of view time. While the average video length on Facebook is 44 seconds, the length that gets the best completion rates is just half that at 21 seconds.
On Facebook, it’s more important than ever to engage your viewers instantly as it’s so easy for them to continue scrolling down the moment their interest has been lost. If you want to know how to make an impact with video in the first few seconds, read our blog post for our top tips and tricks.
This month, Facebook has also improved its video metrics to show more daily breakdowns, which helps marketers deduce which days are the most successful to post videos. The new analytic features include minutes-by-day, views-per-day and number of 10-second views on an average day.
Twitter
Twitter has just pipped Instagram to the post with a video update. Last week, it released new functionality that allows users to create and share 30 second videos.
The function allows you to create video directly in the app by holding down the record button to capture one or multiple clips. You can also upload video from your device’s photo album or if you’re on the web, upload clips from your hard drive. You can then go on to edit your clips together on a drag and drop timeline, and when you’re done, you’re ready to share them with the world.
As this is a new phenomenon, results on the success of video on Twitter remain to be seen.
YouTube
As a single-purpose video-hosting platform and the second-most-used search engine, YouTube is a different kettle of fish when it comes to video sharing, and is generally used in conjunction with other social media platforms.
With an estimated 400 hours of video content being uploaded to YouTube every minute, there’s no shortage of different video lengths up there. Some do well and many don’t, but this can’t be pinned down to video length alone. On YouTube, it takes a heavy dose of knowing your audience and a splash of good optimisation.
Having said that, there’s still something to take from the stats. The most engaged videos on YouTube are almost ten times longer than the most engaged videos on Facebook, so if length is a must for your video, you’re best sticking to YouTube.
It’s also worth noting that the best place to add a call-to-action for maximum click through rate on a YouTube video, whether in the original video file or using YouTube’s internal functions, is around the 30-second mark.
LinkedIn
While LinkedIn doesn’t have the functionality to create or host video within the application itself (it’s not that kind of platform), it does encourage users to embed videos into their profiles and posts.
There’s no firm statistics to dictate what length works best on LinkedIn, but you’d be safe to assume that you can get away with a bit longer due to fact that’s it’s geared towards business and knowledge share as opposed to food and furry animals.
Pinterest
As a medium where content is collected and shared, rather than created and edited, Pinterest is not the go-to app for video. However, it does have the functionality to pin video, and as people’s increase in video increases, video pinning is likely to increase too. We predict autoplay videos is the next step for Pinterest to move forward with video.
In conclusion, there’s no right or wrong place to feature video in your social media, but the more you use it, the better.
We’re looking forward to experimenting with Instagram videos as it has also reintroduced the function that allows you to splice together multiple clips from you camera roll. Watch this space for our compelling and professional one-minute masterpieces.
Multi-clip video is available now in the Apple App Store for iOS version 7.19, with the longer video feature being rolled out across all accounts in the next few months.
Original Article