Video: King of the Web

Having just uploaded a video directly to Facebook, following my usual upload to YouTube, it occurred to me just how much the use of video has changed recently.

The video I uploaded was to serve two very distinct audiences: teens and seniors. In this case, we aren't selling anything, but instead want to pass along a valuable educational concept in an engaging, relevant way.

Turns out, the video has earned nearly three times the views on Facebook as YouTube. So, I'm thinking: is this a sign of the future?

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, recently said, ‘People are gaining the power to share in richer and richer ways. We used to share with text and now we post mainly with photos. In the future, video will be even more important.’

Indeed, according to the following excerpt from an article by Matt Pigott:

"According to Cisco, by 2017, around 70 percent of online consumer traffic will consist of video. As people have more ready access to video, and therefore consume more of it, marketers are increasingly using it as a hook before leading consumers toward their written subject matter.

When considering that a year’s worth of YouTube videos are watched on Facebook every day, and that YouTube gets around a billion unique visitors each month, and that a further billion mobile views take place each day, it’s not hard to understand why 70% of marketers believe that videos will dominate their brand strategies over the next five years. Other statistics further reveal the direction marketing is moving in: According to a Forrester Research, volume content is growing by 200% year-on-year, while 78% of CMOs think custom content is the future of marketing. In addition, 72% of marketers think branded content is more effective than advertising in a magazine."

Well said, Matt. For marketers, educators, and anyone else wanting to make an indelible impression on their audiences, words are important but images are vital. And moving images with sound is indeed the King of the Web.