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WHY INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS NEEDS LIVE STREAMING

bsp-admin-1 on November 7, 2023

Employee expectations have been forever changed since the COVID-19 pandemic forced a hard reset on more than 100 years of workforce norms.

According to a 2023 Gallup survey, 80% of today’s remote-capable employees expect to work in a hybrid or completely remote work environment. Further, 40% have shifted from working entirely on-site to either a hybrid or exclusively remote work arrangement since 2019.

As enterprises continue to adjust to a hybrid landscape, many are realizing that traditional video conferencing tools may not be sufficient for all internal communications uses.

Company town halls and all-hands meetings typically feature multiple speakers and a run of show. Webinars include presentations and sometimes prerecorded content. Earnings and sales kickoffs present sensitive information that needs to be restricted to the right people and roles.

Video conferencing continues to play an invaluable role in connecting workforces, but it isn’t enough to meet the needs of today’s internal comms strategies. To unlock the full potential of a hybrid workforce, businesses are finding that live streaming video offers several advantages.

BETTER SECURITY

During the early days of the pandemic, video conferencing platforms experienced rapid adoption. For example, in just a matter of months Zoom saw its daily users skyrocket from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million by April 2020. But along with this growth came a rise in security risks that put business security teams on high alert.

Especially for confidential communications, security vulnerabilities ranging from annoyances like “Zoombombing” to outright attacks are unacceptable. Live streaming through an online video platform (OVP) has the tools to avoid these risks.

  • Enhanced encryption and SSO. Live streaming solutions prioritize robust end-to-end encryption measures. Coupled with Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, they ensure that communications remain impenetrable and are an effective measure for thwarting hacking attempts.
  • Role-based access control. Offering more protection than just passwords, live streaming provides user-level controls. Role-based access means that only authorized users can access, modify, or share content, which significantly reduces the risk of information and content being stolen and distributed.

BETTER RELIABILITY

For hybrid work environments to function, communication must be reliable. Any connectivity issues can result in lost opportunities, frustrated teams, and/or miscommunication. Live streaming has the technology needed to guarantee a seamless viewing experience.

  • Media-grade servers. Outages can indicate the solution wasn’t built to handle the bandwidth hybrid workforces require. Brightcove is built on media-grade servers with industry-leading uptime. These servers are specifically designed to handle the rigorous demands of media companies and are thus much less susceptible to crashes or outages.
  • Award-winning transcoding. Buffering represents a bigger challenge than servers and uptime. Internet speeds vary dramatically by country, making it difficult for global companies to connect their distributed workforces. Brightcove’s Emmy Award-winning transcoding technology solved this problem for media companies years ago. Transcoding rescales a stream’s resolution in real time, preserving quality and preventing disruption.
  • Dedicated support teams. Both Brightcove and our partner Socialive have dedicated support teams and offer support packages for live streaming. Support helps your internal communications run as efficiently as the rest of your business.

BETTER EXPERIENCE

For hybrid workforces, creating engaging, interactive, and seamless experiences for employees is more important than ever. And there are several ways live streaming doesn’t just match the experience of in-person interactions or video conferencing, it enhances it.

  • Speaker management and control. Through our partnership with Socialive, Brightcove offers greater control over the run of show. Speakers can be managed in Socialive’s Virtual Green Room before going live. This ensures they’re fully prepared and their tech is functioning properly before joining the live stream. Socialive’s Studio also includes easy-to-use templates, allowing you to customize the experience with prerecorded video and presentations.
  • Cross-device delivery. Whether your employee is using a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or even a smart TV, your live stream will be easily accessible and optimized for any device.
  • Customized branding. Brightcove gives you complete brand control with white-label customization. This means that even your live streams will reinforce brand identity through customizable features like mobile web-first interactive player overlays.
  • Increased engagement and interactivity. Live streaming isn’t just for broadcasting information; it should also facilitate interactive dialogues. Features like live chat provide real-time conversations by allowing attendees to comment, ask questions, and engage with peers. Further, interactions like polls, surveys, and quizzes give companies the opportunity to solicit instant feedback while fostering active participation.
  • Accessibility and scale. Today’s diverse workforce necessitates that content is easily accessible to employees across geographies with different language and streaming needs. Live streaming includes features like transcription and captioning that make content more accessible to non-native speakers as well as the deaf and hard of hearing. It’s also easily scalable, so your internal comms strategy can grow as your business grows.

BETTER VALUE

With the increase in video conferencing has come a general interest in video. More and more, employees are expecting video for recruiting, onboarding, training, and other internal comms uses. But to keep up with this demand, corporate events have to become more than just events.

Live streaming through a proper OVP is especially well suited to extend the life of your live content and bring more value.

  • Content repurposing. From product updates to open enrollment instructions, company meetings include lots of valuable information, prime for repurposing. Through Socialive, Brightcove allows you to easily clip video segments and make them available on demand for onboarding, training, or whatever else your employees might need.
  • Enhanced discoverability. A library of on-demand content is useful only if it’s easily discoverable. Brightcove’s live streaming solution allows you to tag content, auto-populate Smart Playlists based on keywords, and then auto-publish to branded portals. Furthermore, this workflow can save valuable resource time for content managers.
  • Valuable insights. Insights into consumption patterns can be invaluable for the long-term success of your hybrid work initiative. Knowing what videos are viewed most and for how long can go a long way in understanding your staff’s needs and delivering the best employee experience.

BETTER TECHNOLOGY

The hybrid work model isn’t just a passing trend; it’s the new reality. But to truly achieve long-term success, companies need the tools that marry the best components of in-person and remote work. Ultimately, an enterprise’s success in the hybrid landscape will be directly tied to the technology they deploy and the employee experiences they deliver.

Our partnership with Socialive offers an end-to-end live streaming solution to complete your internal communications strategy. With Socialive’s Studio and Virtual Green Room and Brightcove’s Communications Studio, enterprises can set new standards of communication and collaboration.

OPTIMIZING BUYER PERSONAS WITH INTERACTIVE VIDEO METRICS

bsp-admin-1 on October 31, 2023

What’s one key ingredient that lies at the heart of every successful marketing campaign? A deep understanding of your ideal customer — i.e., buyer personas.

In its simplest form, the buyer persona includes market and industry research, existing customer data, and customer feedback. It helps companies paint a holistic picture of not just who potential customers are, but what motivates them to choose a particular product, service, or solution.

The results of using buyer personas speak for themselves. Companies that exceed lead and revenue goals are four times as likely to use buyer personas for demand generation than those that miss lead and revenue goals.

Especially at a time when personalization is expected, having a well-developed buyer persona is critical. However, personas are complex projects, and gathering the necessary data can be difficult.

Fortunately, video marketing offers a powerful tool to aid the development of buyer personas: interactive video.

BUYER PERSONA CHALLENGES

Customer feedback provides some of the most valuable data points for buyer personas, but it’s also the most challenging to collect for a few reasons.

  • Budget. Customer feedback is typically collected through direct interviews or surveys, which many companies do by hiring specialized agencies. For those that can afford it, this isn’t a challenge. But for everyone else, budget alone can make buyer personas a non-starter.
  • Resources. Companies with more modest budgets may choose to task internal resources with collecting customer feedback. And for those with dedicated customer marketing teams, this may not be a challenge either. But for everyone else, interviews and surveys are time-consuming efforts. Some may prefer to draw inferences from existing customer data, but this is equally time-intensive and also requires deep analytical skills.
  • Frequency. Though creating one is already hard enough, buyer personas are not one-time projects. Consumer preferences and trends are constantly shifting, which means your profiles will quickly become outdated. Some suggest they should be updated as often as every 6-12 months. Even those with the budget and resources will find this burdensome.

INTERACTIVE VIDEO BENEFITS

Interactive video presents a new avenue for gathering customer feedback that eases the challenges of traditional collection methods while bringing distinct benefits.

  • Convenience. Interviews and surveys are one of the best ways to gather customer feedback. However, keeping buyer personas fresh may require over-soliciting customers to collect enough responses, potentially leading to burnout. Interactive video, on the other hand, integrates customer feedback directly into your branded content. Not only does this minimize the burden on the customer, it reduces the burden on the brand to gather feedback.
  • Relevance. Customer surveys and interviews, though direct, are often dependent on the respondents’ memory of brand interactions. Over time, their recollection of experiences and their particular reactions can become distorted and less reliable. In contrast, interactive video can be a source for real-time feedback, keeping the responses in context with your customer/brand relationship.

Even for those who don’t have difficulty updating their personas, interactive video offers additional data points for a more granular view of your ideal buyer.

KEY INTERACTIVE VIDEO METRICS

Interactive video is much more than a CX tool; it’s a customer data gold mine. There are a number of valuable data points you can extract from different interactive elements, but the following video metrics are a good place to start.

  • Timestamps. Timestamps provide a better understanding of which topics resonate most based on when viewers take an action. They can also help you understand why certain topics or content structures are more engaging by analyzing when users take the most actions vs. when they don’t.
  • Hierarchies of interests. Think of these as an interaction-based focus group. Knowing what viewers are clicking on when presented with options, and in what order, helps you better understand which topics interest them most. Interactive elements like branching or chapters are particularly valuable here. They offer insights into what viewers are prioritizing based on what they are clicking on first as well as what they’re skipping.
  • Sentiment analysis. Beyond the actions they take, the sentiment viewers experience during a video can be telling. By determining if a viewer feels positively or negatively about a video or a portion of it, you can uncover areas for future optimizations. Overlays with thumbs up or down, emojis, or ratings are the quickest way to get this information.
  • Quizzes/polls. By being embedded directly in the video, quizzes and polls share the benefits of interviews and surveys without the burden on marketers or participants. Keep in mind, however, that they’re most effective when used with highly-engaged audiences to maximize participation and accuracy.

INTERACTIVE VIDEO APPLICATIONS FOR BUYER PERSONAS

To be clear, interactive video is not a replacement for market research, industry research, and other customer data. Nor will switching on interactivity magically spit out fully-developed buyer personas. No matter your approach, buyer personas take time. Interactive video is just another tool in a good marketing strategy. And like any other tool, you need to know where best to apply it.

MESSAGE TESTING

Perhaps the most difficult part of creating a buyer persona is the messaging — the arduous task of reviewing all your audience research, data analysis, and customer feedback, and transforming it into catchy phrases that capture attention and compel action.

In short, messaging is the product of inferences. It’s what marketers think their customers need to hear in order to buy. But it’s still a guess. And they don’t know if it will work until they test it, often through expensive and time-consuming focus groups.

Interactive video gives you another platform to test your buyer persona messaging.

You can use hierarchies of interest (i.e., interaction-based focus groups) to test control messages against variants. Or, for more direct feedback, you can leverage quizzes or polls to gauge viewer reactions.

FILLING IN DATA GAPS

Even the most thoroughly researched and carefully developed buyer persona will have blind spots — areas where the information is incomplete or inferred. Interactive video helps address these gaps.

  • Psychographic. Psychographic data that captures the motives and values of your target audience is often the biggest data gap. For example, how do your customers feel about ESG standards? Does it vary by persona? An interactive quiz promoting the same product with different value statements could help uncover this. Clicking on “I buy this product to help the environment” vs. “I buy this product to support local economies” paints a clearer picture of audience values.
  • Demographic. Demographic information about your audience’s age, gender identity, or education isn’t usually the biggest gap, but some details can be elusive, like household structure. For example, are your customers likely to have kids? Here again, interactivity can help. Imagine you have a kid’s version of a popular product. You could add it as a product recommendation overlay in a video and track the interactivity data. Based on the overlay click-throughs, you can gauge what percentage of your audience has children.

FAQS FOR ANALYZING INTERACTIVE VIDEO METRICS

Like any marketing tactic, interactivity has to be analyzed in context with your audience. While industry benchmarks may provide a broad frame of reference, they’re much less helpful in projecting how different types of customers will interact with your content. Review the following FAQs to help you get started.

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH INTERACTIVITY?

This will largely depend on your content and your audience. Audiences that are particularly loyal to your brand have a higher tolerance for interactivity. However, keep an eye on your engagement rates. If you notice a significant drop, or even a consistent but less significant drop, it might be time to reassess.

WHICH INTERACTIONS ARE BEST?

Short answer: The ones that are generating the most engagement while yielding the most valuable insights. Discrepancies in the results between various pieces of content or interactive elements are actually a good thing. They’ll help identify which interactions engage your audiences most while also producing the most effective results.

HOW CAN I TELL WHEN TO USE CERTAIN INTERACTIONS?

That depends on the objective you’re looking to achieve. For example, if you want to better understand the hierarchies of interest among your audience, branching can provide those insights. If you’re looking to gather demographic data, quizzes will offer the best and most direct results. If you want to know how viewers perceive your content, sentiment analysis will help you uncover those feelings.

CONTENT, AUDIENCE, OR INTERACTIVITY—WHICH IS THE ISSUE?

A/B testing is the best way to isolate variables, but there are other things you can watch out for as well. For example, changing the text or presentation of a CTA can make all the difference, especially with some audiences who may need more explicit instructions. Watching when viewers leave your video, like during a segment without interactivity, can also be a clue. Tracking no interactions at all could mean you’re targeting the wrong audience. And determining patterns of user behavior can help you easily identify anomalies.

WHICH OF MY FINDINGS ARE ACTIONABLE?

If you see a clear connection between specific interactions and certain outcomes, it’s likely that the data is actionable. That said, be sure you have a strong and representative sample size that gives more credibility to the findings. The more data you have, the more patterns you can establish. And the more patterns you can establish, the more you can identify spikes and trends in user behavior that are worth acting upon.

INTERACTIVITY’S POTENTIAL FOR VIDEO ANALYTICS

Today’s shifting marketing landscape and consumer desire for personalized, relevant content make buyer personas table stakes. They’re no longer just a marketing tool; they’re a clear competitive differentiator and a truly valuable business asset.

Traditional methods of obtaining feedback and insights like interviews and surveys still have their merits. But interactive video has emerged as a powerful tool to bring precision, depth, and clarity to understanding your target persona. All while being less of a burden and using fewer resources.

Beyond the customer experience interactive video provides, now is the time to harness its potential for data-driven marketing strategies.

BETTER CONTENT PERSONALIZATION WITH VIDEO ANALYTICS

bsp-admin-1 on October 24, 2023

Individuals are constantly served information specific to their desires and interests. They’re recommended shows based on their viewing habits. They’re spammed with clothing ads specific to their style. So it’s no surprise that they expect content personalization throughout their buying journeys.

In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. And this phenomenon isn’t isolated to B2C or D2C brands. According to Evergage, 99% of marketers say personalization helps advance customer relationships, with 78% claiming it has a strong impact.

The age of AI has further accelerated the expectation of customized communication, and many organizations are trialing technology that permits personalization en masse.

Despite these advancements, marketers are still struggling to get accurate data flowing into CRM and automation platforms. Indeed, personalized campaigns remain a distant dream for many, with 40% of marketers stating one of their biggest pain points with personalization is related to data.

Yet the wealth of data that could be sourced from video is often left on the table, unactioned. Instead, marketers typically spend their time trawling through metrics on more traditional channels, unaware of the goldmine of insights they’re overlooking. Not that leveraging data for content personalization is easy, but video analytics is uniquely positioned to solve many of its challenges.

DATA LIMITATIONS FOR CONTENT PERSONALIZATION

One of the critical considerations to highlight before pursuing personalization is that data has a few inherent limitations.

DATA ACCURACY

Companies are often too willing to assume their first-party data must be accurate given that it has been collected at the source. The truth, however, is that it often falls prey to common content management mistakes, like being inconsistently tagged and tracked.

Third-party data, as we all know, has its own limitations. Not only is it incredibly difficult to source in the GDPR time that we exist, it’s subject to increasing privacy restrictions. Between these and other factors, third-party data is frequently erroneous.

Getting personalization wrong because of data inaccuracy is worse than not deploying it at all. More people would never patronize your business again than ignore personalization mistakes.

DATA RELEVANCY

Not all data is equally valuable for every purpose. Customer data tells you who your customers are, marketing data tells you how they like to be communicated with, and content data tells you what they like.

Customer and marketing data offers lots of personalization opportunities, from your customer’s name to their preferred channel. But if you’re not giving them the content they like, it’s like meeting them on a blind date after stalking their Facebook profile. Who wants to talk to a stranger who knows their name and email address?

When consumers say they want personalized content, what they mean is they want relevant content. Only content data can tell you what that is, and nothing does that better than video. Between play rates and engagement scores, video captures interest and intent better than any other content format.

DATA HARMONY

Data has to be collected, cleaned, stored, and harmonized with data points from other sources before it can be visualized in useful ways. Many companies do this manually, which is partly why first-party data is prone to error.

Brightcove, on the other hand, can harmonize all of your customer, marketing, and content data for you. Using the latest security and privacy standards, our suite of video analytics provides the kind of insights marketers need to effectively deploy personalization.

VIDEO OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONTENT PERSONALIZATION

The metrics you can garner from video are far more extensive than many marketers realize. Not only can you see what people watched, you can see how long they watched, where they navigated from, and at what point they stopped viewing. If you enabled interactivity, you can also see whether they engaged in interactive elements.

The possibilities for video analytics are vast and can be utilized for robust personalization opportunities across various marketing channels.

RECOMMENDED CONTENT

Recommending similar content based on previously watched videos is one of the strategies that has made streaming services like Netflix so successful. This same methodology can be applied to B2C marketing.

For example, if someone has watched a product video, you could retarget them with related video content. User reviews of the product they viewed or alternative use cases for that product can be particularly effective. If they make it to the point of sale (POS), you could target them with other product recommendations to increase average order value (AOV).

You can also start to look at demographics of your existing customer base. Is a particular audience type engaging with specific videos? Trends in age, gender, or industry can be applied throughout your marketing efforts to recommend relevant content.

WIN-BACK PROGRAMS

Win-back programs can include sequences and workflows that target disengaged customers based on their past purchases, combined with behavioral data on their content consumption. For B2B audiences, this data can be viewed in your CRM and accessed by BDR teams, allowing more informed prospecting, tailored to each organization.

LOOKALIKE SEGMENTS

Creating lookalike segments of viewers with a high degree of content overlap is one of the most effective ways to personalize content. By analyzing purchase histories for product trends, you can cross-promote products based on what others purchased or create lookalike campaigns to reach new audiences. Interactive features can further measure reactions or offer opportunities to submit live feedback.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Video analytics also allows us to personalize our approach to HR and internal communications initiatives. We can understand the progress of employee video training, prompt them to re-engage when incomplete, offer suggestions for additional learning, and pull this into our HR management systems for continuous improvement purposes.

VIDEO TECHNOLOGY FOR CONTENT PERSONALIZATION

The data accuracy, relevancy, and harmony needed for personalization can be tedious and time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.

Brightcove Segment Sync enables marketers to properly segment and action data derived from video engagement. With our platform and insights, you can build segments that can be automatically synced with CRM and digital marketing systems to create highly tailored communications.

The greater efficiencies this affords can give teams more time to focus on developing campaign messaging that resonates with specific audiences.

You can even go one step further and deploy interactivity within videos, allowing you to develop highly targeted one-to-many, one-to-few, or even one-to-one programs. With options for clickable overlays and video-to-video branching based on Segment Sync data, you are far more likely to break through the noise and capture their attention.

Furthermore, the data points interactivity captures can also be synced with your central systems. Alongside existing information you hold, tracking and analyzing this data can further magnify your insight into the customer.

Content personalization is pivotal to creating a good experience for the user, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the entire marketing funnel. And the numerous possibilities using video analytics can allow you to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time.

COMMON VIDEO AD ERRORS AND HOW TO FIX THEM

bsp-admin-1 on October 17, 2023

Given the complexity of the video advertising landscape, video ad issues are unavoidable. Problems with video ad tags can disrupt playback, negatively affecting the user experience as well as contributing to lost revenue.

The most common issues are usually related to ad errors or other ad challenges. However, their frequency and prevalence can vary depending on any combination of technical and user-related factors.

Luckily, there are ways to navigate this difficult terrain by leveraging the right tools and tech, consistently monitoring and testing, and collaborating with ad providers. In doing so, mitigating these issues is not only possible, it will help maximize the overall experience and revenue opportunity.

VIDEO AD ERRORS

Ad error codes result from incorrect or corrupted ad creative files, incompatibility between the ad format and the video player, or within the video player or ad serving technology.

Most errors can be divided into two primary categories: timeout errors and invalid creative errors.

TIMEOUT ERRORS

Errors related to ad load and response times are some of the most common ad error codes. They can be avoided by configuring and testing the timeout and wrapper limits within the player.

When configuring timeout settings, it’s important to balance load times with errors to limit the amount of missed ad opportunities. Ad load times can also be optimized by working with your buyer platforms to troubleshoot their ad creative and enforce bitrate and size restrictions.

ERROR 301 – VAST URI

This error indicates that the URI within the VAST or VPAID creative is invalid or unreachable within the timeout limit. The most common reason for Error 301 is a poor network connection or heavy latency. One way to reduce these errors is to make sure your player, site, and apps are optimized for mobile delivery.

ERROR 402 – MEDIA FILE URI

This error is caused by the ad taking longer to load than the player timeout setting. It indicates that the file may be too large or incompatible with the platform it’s attempting to render on. Ensuring your player timeout settings are suitable, as well as reinforcing bitrate and size restrictions with ad providers, will address this error.

ERROR 302 – WRAPPER LIMIT REACHED

This error occurs when the wrapper limit defined by the player is reached. Working with ad providers who limit redirects will provide relief here. Additionally, you can analyze average wrapper responses within those platforms to align with where your player wrapper limits are set.

INVALID AD ERRORS

Ad error codes can also be caused by how the ad creative is incorporated in the media file or when no ad is returned from the source. Check and validate ad tags to identify these errors before going live. That way, the ad provider can fix them before the errors impact a viewer or result in poor ad campaign performance and wasted impressions.

ERROR 303 – EMPTY VAST RESPONSE

This error occurs when there are no ads returned in the VAST response. Empty responses can result from configuration issues within the ad server, missing house ads, incorrect fallback settings, or low demand from programmatic partners.

AdOps teams should have all the proper setup in the ad server, as well as managed yield optimization to maximize fill rates. Brightcove’s Ad Monetization service can provide additional fill if these errors are particularly prevalent.

ERROR 401 – UNABLE TO FIND LINEAR/MEDIA FILE FROM URI

This error means a valid video file cannot be found. It’s a fatal error and needs to be resolved by the provider to ensure the response returns a valid video creative.

ERROR 100 – XML PARSING ERROR

This error is caused when a provider’s ad response is malformed or contains an improperly formatted XML document. The ad provider will have to verify that the VAST XML is correctly formatted and contains all the required elements and attributes. You can learn more in the VAST specification from the IAB.

VIDEO AD CHALLENGES

Equally important to mitigating video ad errors is overcoming challenges to the overall ad opportunity. Ads can be inhibited by more than just errors, and the most important challenges outside the ads themselves are viewability and ad blockers.

VIEWABILITY

Advertisers insist on their ads being seen. If the player is positioned poorly on the page or the content does not engage the user, viewability will be low and advertisers will not spend. Online video platforms with viewability features can provide different configuration and tracking options to address this.

For example, Brightcove allows you to configure the player to pause playback if it’s not fully or partially viewable. You can also trigger events based on view duration and viewability percentage to track and optimize ad impressions.

AD BLOCKERS

Ad blockers disable the player from initiating ads at all. Whether or not the player is viewable, client-side ads cannot render if a user has an ad blocker enabled. Ad blocking can be circumvented by server-side ad insertion (SSAI), which stitches ads directly into the stream.

With Brightcove SSAI, there’s also the option to use client-side ad insertion with server-side failover when ad blockers are present, without having to be full server-side.

VIDEO AD SOLUTIONS

The first step in reducing ad errors is using a player like Brightcove that supports the latest standards for IMA, VPAID, and VAST. But it’s just as important to remember that you can’t resolve errors you aren’t able to identify in the first place.

Ad monetization strategies are only as good as the analytics and insights you use to monitor them. Tools such as Brightcove’s QoE Analytics and our partner plugin, WatchingThat, can help you deliver improved viewer satisfaction and higher revenue results at the same time.

This blog was originally written by Ilya Degtev in 2018 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

VIDEO KPIS: DO YOUR METRICS MATCH YOUR BUSINESS MODEL?

bsp-admin-1 on September 28, 2023

Let’s be honest: content KPIs aren’t well understood.

Marketers track early-stage metrics like impressions and clicks, as well as later-stage metrics like leads and transactions. But many don’t track anything in between, let alone correlate content consumption with conversion.

Streaming content isn’t understood any better. In fact, Googling “video KPIs” produces mostly AI-written advertiser bait with answers like “video views” and “minutes watched.” Marketers clearly know what to track for content, but they don’t seem to know how to translate those numbers into business outcomes. Because if they did, they’d know those are metrics, not KPIs.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) aren’t just metrics. We know this because when our CMOs ask how a video performed, telling them how many views it got isn’t an answer. KPIs are goals. They’re metrics measured against other metrics or dimensions. In other words, a view isn’t a KPI, but views per week or views per user are. With this combination of metrics and desired goals or outcomes, you can use KPIs to set benchmarks, compare performance, and take action.

KPIs are why we track cost per lead (CPL) or customer acquisition cost (CAC), not just cost. The problem is many of us haven’t applied the same rigor to content, especially video. We’re still tracking video metrics without developing the video KPIs that can influence business decisions.

The good news is video KPIs are as easy to establish as any other. All you need to understand is the role of video in different business models.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN B2B AND B2C BUSINESSES

Business models vary less than we often think. For example, both rely on marketing KPIs related to cost and conversion or retention and value. However, their differences are usually expressed as simple binaries:

  • B2B has a long sales cycle; B2C has a short one.
  • B2B has a higher price point; B2C has a lower one.
  • B2B sells to teams; B2C sells to individuals.

When it comes to content and video, the key difference between business models isn’t so polarized. It’s just a slight difference in the order of the buyer journey.

In B2C, buyers become aware of your product or service, consider it against other options, and then purchase it. It’s not until after they purchase it and use it for themselves that you nurture them into brand advocates. But in so doing, you effectively turn your own customers into salespeople—an invaluable step in both retention and acquisition.

In B2B, buyers technically become brand advocates before purchase. Due to the higher price point and multiple stakeholders, marketers have to convince prospects to become salespeople before ever handling the product (no wonder the sales cycle is longer).

While this difference is more subtle, it does have a greater effect on how to use and measure content.

THE ROLE OF VIDEO IN B2B AND B2C

Comparing business models by sales cycle and price point often leads to misconceptions about video content.

Due to a longer sales cycle, you might think that B2B requires more content than B2C. Or that B2B’s higher price point necessitates higher production value. But these assumptions don’t address the fundamental difference in the buyer journey.

Because B2C buyers can own the product before becoming brand advocates, much of this stage in their journey is managed by the product itself. Every brand promise and every value proposition can be tried and tested as much as they want. If they’re satisfied, the business only has to empower them to share their satisfaction with others. The challenge is getting them to notice your product in the first place.

Consumers are inundated with options. Compared to B2B, B2C buyers often have to choose between many more similar brands or brands claiming better alternatives. In such a competitive environment, success rarely depends on product differentiation as much as market penetration. Thus, video’s role in B2C, first and foremost, is getting the buyer’s attention.

Conversely, B2B buyers don’t get the chance to own the product before becoming brand advocates. Even with trial periods, samples, or demos, they can’t fully vet how well a product satisfies them before they’re expected to sell it to their colleagues. That means much of this stage in their journey has to be managed by the content.

As such, B2B buyers are sold outcomes, not products. They have to imagine how every aspect of a product fits into their business and solves their problems. Certainly, the trust built by the salesperson is essential. But that trust has to be built on an immersive experience that doesn’t just answer their questions, it inspires their ambitions. Thus, video’s role in B2B is engaging the buyer.

HOW TO SET B2C VIDEO KPIS

If getting the buyer’s attention is the primary role of B2C video, then the primary KPI is play rate.

Play rate is the number of views divided by the number of impressions. Impressions alone only tell you how many times your player was seen, which has more to do with your channel strategy than your content. Similarly, video views may tell you how many times your video was played, but that number is also dependent on your channel strategy.

Dividing views by impressions gives you a percentage of action—a proxy for attention. It can quickly tell you if you’re promoting the right product to the right audience, depending on your marketing strategy.

For example, Brightcove’s analytics allow you to break out video performance by traffic source, device type, domain, and country. These kinds of dimensions can help you refine your play rate benchmarks based on how you’re targeting your audiences.

To be clear, play rate should be your primary KPI, not your only one. No matter your business model, it’s always important to track trends and anomalies across multiple metrics. But play rate better correlates video’s role with B2C business goals than most conventional KPIs. If you’re looking for a more direct correlation, you could also invest in interactivity.

Interactive video gives B2C buyers a path to purchase within the video. It also gives B2C businesses the ability to correlate transactions with video content.

Using Brightcove Interactivity, you can quickly compare a video’s play rate against another valuable KPI: interaction rate. A high play rate but low interaction rate could mean the wrong product to the right audience. A low play rate but high interaction rate could mean the right product to the wrong audience. Measuring both is the best way to optimize your video marketing strategy for a B2C business.

HOW TO SET B2B VIDEO KPIS

If engaging the buyer is the primary role of B2B video, then the primary KPI is engagement.

Engagement is the average duration viewed divided by the total duration. Social platforms often show other numbers like minutes viewed or watch time, but these metrics are better at measuring overall channel engagement, not individual video engagement. Keep that in mind if you’re tracking them now. These metrics are KPIs for keeping your viewers engaged on someone else’s platform.

Dividing the average viewed duration by the total duration, however, gives you a percentage of interest in your video (not your host channel). It can quickly tell you if viewers are just browsing or primed to buy.

Brightcove’s analytics can be particularly useful for B2B businesses. Not only do dimensions like traffic source and country add useful context, you can break out performance by custom players. For example, B2B marketers know the importance of tracking user behavior by site subdomain, because today’s buyers want to research your products at their own pace. Granular, first-party data across your site is imperative, and assigning dedicated players to each subdomain is one of the best ways to get it.

Like B2C, engagement won’t be your only KPI, and tracking metrics like play rate can ensure your channel strategy is working. But knowing your leads are engaging with your video content is a great step towards correlating your marketing efforts with your business goals. An even better step is integrating your video platform with your MAP.

Marketing automation platform (MAP) integrations allow you to track video performance at the user level. Most importantly, they can provide a direct correlation between video engagement and closed won deals.

Using Brightcove Marketing Studio, you can trace the average engagement and total videos viewed by multiple users that culminated in won deals. Low average engagement and higher total videos viewed could mean your content isn’t clear enough. Similarly, high average engagement and lower total videos viewed could mean you don’t need as much content as you thought. Measuring these KPIs in conjunction with MAP data gives you a clear picture of how video content supports your business.

CENTRALIZING YOUR VIDEO KPIS

Knowing which metrics to track or which features will enhance them won’t matter if your video content and performance data are managed in multiple places. Centralizing your video marketing efforts with a single solution like Brightcove Marketing Studio can ensure your video KPIs are comprehensive enough to meet your business goals.

And while there are key metrics for different business models, every business is unique. It’s up to you to make sure your KPIs are tracking the right details. But to do that, you need full control over your video analytics, not the limited metrics social platforms offer.

Own your KPIs. Don’t let other platforms set your video KPIs for you.

AUTO-CAPTIONS: LIMITATIONS OF AUTOMATED SPEECH RECOGNITION

bsp-admin-1 on September 20, 2023

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm, finding applications in personal and professional spheres alike. In the captioning industry, AI can be used in the process of automatic speech recognition (ASR), which converts speech to text. While ASR technology has never been more advanced than it is today, our research shows that even the best engines perform below industry standards. This means humans are still a mainstay in producing high-quality, accessible captions.

THE ACCURACY OF AUTO-CAPTIONS

In the captioning world, accuracy rates are used to gauge the precision and quality of a caption file, subtitle file, or transcript. Since accuracy is crucial to providing a truly equitable accommodation for d/Deaf and hard of hearing audiences, the industry standard for minimum acceptable caption accuracy is 99%. But what does this really mean?

When measuring the accuracy of an ASR engine, there are a variety of factors to consider. As outlined by the FCC, “Accurate closed captions must convey the tone of the speaker’s voice and intent of the content.” Proper spelling, spacing, capitalization, and punctuation are key elements of accurate captions, as are non-speech elements like sound effects and speaker identifications.

Because ASR engines are driven by artificial intelligence, their capabilities are limited to what they’ve been taught via their programming. Despite continuing advancements, AI-powered technology doesn’t have the same capacity for logic or understanding context as a human being. In practice, relying solely on AI for transcription/captioning may produce spelling errors and inconsistencies that a human captioner may not.

3Play Media’s 2024 report on the State of Automatic Speech Recognition evaluated the performance and accuracy of 10 engines in captioning and transcribing pre-recorded content.

We uncovered that some engines are better suited for particular content (e.g., educational versus cinematic), which adds nuance to possible use cases for auto-captions. But overall, zero out of 10 engines produced output measuring over 95% accuracy, when looking at Word Error Rate (WER). Using that same metric to analyze accuracy by content type, we see a spectrum of results. While the WER in the Goods and Services market is relatively low, it almost doubles in the Tech market.

The discrepancy between different types of industry content demonstrates that ASR technology is still not independently sufficient to produce accessible captions. Ultimately, a human-in-the-loop approach to captioning offers the most potential for highly accurate output.

THE IMPACT OF AUTO-CAPTION INACCURACY

The repercussions of inaccurate captions may reach further than you think. People with disabilities and their families wield spending power in the billions, but their willingness to spend drops significantly when online experiences are inaccessible. With the 2023 WebAIM Million Report finding accessibility failures on over 96% of website home pages, this represents a real gap in potential revenue streams.

Not only do low-quality captions make content inaccessible, they can have a negative impact on your user experience across the board. The limitations of ASR make their transcripts more susceptible to substitution errors, hallucinations (text without audio basis), and formatting errors—which can confuse your audience and the algorithm. Further, video transcripts have an impact on SEO, which is an essential aspect of many brand marketing strategies.

Search engines rely on text associated with video content in order to index and rank results appropriately. This makes transcripts and caption files some of the strongest contributors to a site’s keyword density and relevant search rankings. If your brand relies solely on auto-generated subtitles and transcripts, errors could bog down your search strategy. Incorrect long-form queries and keywords create a disconnect between you, your target audience, and their engagement potential.

On top of the technical disadvantages, presenting poor-quality captions calls your whole brand into question. In the UK, 59% of consumers report that spelling errors and bad grammar would make them doubt the quality of services being offered. In other words, inaccurate captions undermine your marketing efforts and erode the confidence of your audience.

HOW TO USE AUTO-CAPTIONS WISELY

AI is an essential tool for creating auto-captions efficiently at scale. ASR-generated transcripts streamline captioning by providing a foundational first step for human editors to review. This eliminates the need for the manual timecode association, which is typically the most time-consuming part of caption production. So the combination of professional human transcriptionists and technology makes for a more efficient quality assurance process, while keeping costs low for customers.

3Play’s patented process creates highly accurate transcripts and media accessibility services using human professionals alongside top-of-the-line technology to guarantee an average measured accuracy of 99.6%. To make video accessibility easy, we integrate with popular video platforms like Brightcove to make it work where you already do. In addition to making content accessible and keeping up with compliance, the integration between 3Play and Brightcove increases the value of your video investment with one click.

MAXIMIZE YOUR CONTENT WITH LINEAR TV STREAMING

bsp-admin-1 on September 13, 2023

Today’s landscape for viewers seeking their next piece of content can be summed up in one word: options. Shows about eccentric art pieces from Africa, the latest cricket match, specific genres of anime, or restoring Gothic Victorian furniture are all just a few clicks away. Whether on mobile, laptop, or the family room TV, the labyrinth of content choices can seem endless (and daunting), with each vying for viewer attention.

Despite so many options, the growth of linear TV streaming demonstrates that audiences still long for a curated and passive experience. For example, the revenue associated with Free Ad-Supported TV (FAST) channels—a subset of linear TV—is poised to triple by 2027.

Why? It depends on who you ask.

For consumers, scrolling through vast libraries can induce decision fatigue, which makes the simplicity of scheduled programming seem refreshing. The curated content of a thematic channel makes for a more relaxing experience, as opposed to seemingly endless browsing for programming that fits their current mood.

For media companies, expanding their brands to new audiences and opening up new revenue opportunities can be difficult with a single platform and media catalog. On the other hand, presenting content across multiple channels, whether single IP (genre-specific) or branded mainstream programming, can more efficiently reach audiences across the globe.

Advertisers are also very much aware of the opportunity offered by linear TV streaming. Unlike VOD services, which depend on active viewer engagement with individual content assets, linear streaming services deliver content (and ads) until the viewer leaves the channel. In other words, they can reap the same benefits of the traditional broadcast and cable linear model with the advantages of targeted advertising available on digital streaming.

CHALLENGES FOR LINEAR TV STREAMING

Building a linear TV service requires expertise in a few key areas that will ensure efficiency and deliver viewer satisfaction.

  • Global reach. Reaching audiences across the globe depends on multi-CDN delivery and content localization, including support for multiple language tracks, subtitles and captions, and options for automated transcription and translation services. Engaging those audiences will vary but should include immersive playback experience on the web, mobile, or CTV platforms, and potentially interactive options like chat and quizzes.
  • Flexible integrations. Since you’ll likely have a variety of content sources and delivery mechanisms, seamless and adaptable integrations will be key for technical success. This may include app framework providers for OTT, ad servers, payment processing, subscriber management, and social media platforms.
  • Optimized workflows. Success in new markets is also dependent on streamlining your operational resources and shortening your time-to-market. But managing a high volume of content through multiple systems will ultimately be cumbersome and inefficient. A single, unified system for all video content can transform your fragmented processes into a smoothly orchestrated, end-to-end streaming engine.
  • Data visibility. Streaming services provide valuable data on audience behavior, content performance, and the streaming experience. But all of that data must be aggregated and harmonized across distribution strategies and services to have value. This could be presented via in-platform reports and dashboards, but it should also be accessible through easily integrated APIs.
  • Revenue visibility. Not only will you need your revenue data integrated across distribution strategies, you’ll need to show results aligned with executive revenue targets. This is where a technology partner isn’t enough; you’ll need a partner with industry expertise. Working closely with media veterans who have built and launched some of the most successful streaming services is essential to competing in burgeoning markets.

SOLUTIONS FOR LINEAR TV STREAMING

To overcome the challenges of building a linear TV channel, it’s essential that your video platform allows for the appropriate metadata.

When it comes to linear TV, metadata isn’t just a nice-to-have to aid organization, discovery, and descriptions. Rather, it’s the linchpin that helps both optimize the viewing experience and extend your reach to other platforms and streaming destinations.

For starters, by leveraging the information that metadata offers, users can more easily find the content suited to their taste by simply entering a few keywords.

Metadata also plays a crucial role in curating intelligent playlists. Suggestions can now be more personalized and intuitive, creating a smarter playlist based on the movies, episodes, series, and seasons viewers have been watching.

Another key benefit of metadata for your linear TV service is deeper analytics and insights. Beyond top-performing content or time spent watching, you’ll be able to break down data by multiple dimensions. Series, seasons, genres, and ratings are just a few of the filters you can use to get more granular intelligence on your content and your audience.

Additional reach through syndication rounds out the use cases for linear TV streaming. In fact, Pay TV operators, OTT services, smart device manufacturers, and other providers require detailed video metadata exchanges to ensure seamless integration and discoverability.

Furthermore, syndication requires a TV schedule in conjunction with descriptive video data (and imagery) in order to power on-screen guides and discovery. This ensures that audiences can always find and enjoy their favorite TV shows, movies, and sports programs.

NEW BRIGHTCOVE SOLUTIONS

For these reasons, Brightcove has extended the metadata associated with the video assets in our platform to include metadata from the Gracenote schema. Gracenote, a Nielsen Holdings company, licenses a database of editorial and contextual data and imagery that has been widely adopted by streaming services providers.

Thanks to this extension, Brightcove users can classify a video asset as a movie or an episode. They can also specify its Display Title, Description, and Release Date, as well as its Genre, Rating, Production Country, and Keywords with Controlled Vocabulary. And most importantly, users can note its TMS ID, which is specifically used by distribution platforms that license Gracenote data to power content distribution and discovery.

When an asset is classified as an episode, you can also create a hierarchy and associate it with a series and season. This content hierarchy means a season can inherit missing metadata from its season, and an episode can inherit metadata from its season or its series.

To enhance our UX experience, we have introduced typeahead user-assisted entry to relate a video instance to a series or season. And, if a series or season is not present in your database, you can simply create one in the video details, avoiding unnecessary navigation.

In addition to extended metadata, we have also introduced a scheduler that enables the creation of a 24/7 channel and an Electronic Program Guide (EPG). This allows delivery to a variety of streaming destinations including your owned-and-operated websites and apps or partner destinations where you want your channels to appear.

Thanks to our scheduler, you can manage the programming slots of your week and the necessary ad pods, including pre/post jumper selection. You can quickly add videos, playlists, and series; resolve conflicts by moving, deleting, and swapping content; and configure slates for fallback during program gaps. Once you have defined the destinations that will receive your channel, you can review and publish it to your apps.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR LINEAR TV STREAMING

For media companies with rich VOD libraries, linear TV streaming presents an opportunity to get more value out of those assets and reach a wider audience.

Whether your audience wants to focus on a specific piece of content or enjoy the programming on a 24/7 channel, it’s important to cater to their different needs. The right video platform will offer the flexibility needed to manage different experiences while offering the appropriate monetization models to best suit your content and audience.

You may even decide to try some solutions for a given timescale to observe your audience behavior and make content decisions, like novelty pop-up channels. You could showcase films from a film festival, play holiday content throughout the season, broadcast past sports events, or even supplement a trade show.

LINEAR TV IN A STREAMING MEDIA LANDSCAPE

Maximizing content across multiple platforms can be a logistical nightmare. Each platform may have different requirements, workflows, and analytics tools, making it challenging to optimize your streaming operations. By consolidating your on-demand and linear content on a single platform, you can simplify your content management process and increase efficiency.

However, that single platform must have the detailed metadata Pay TV operators, OTT services, smart device manufacturers, and other providers require. And that platform must have the ability to create EPGs through a scheduler so your content can be delivered by those distributors. Media companies know this, and Brightcove Media Studio can not only deliver on those demands, it can bring the incredible value Brightcove is known for.

For example, you could enhance your content with Ad Monetization, our fully managed ad-ops service, or add FAST distribution through our partner, Frequency. Solutions like Ad Insights and Subscriber Insights can also provide a more comprehensive picture of the viewer engagement and preferences that lead to audience loyalty and content monetization.

The streaming media ecosystem presents both challenges and unprecedented opportunities. While the sheer volume and variety of content will only continue to grow, the potential to nurture a variety of audiences through strategic partnerships and robust media platforms has never been greater.

SOCIAL COMMERCE: REACHING NICHE AUDIENCES WITH MICRO-VIDEO

bsp-admin-1 on August 29, 2023

If you’ve ever made a purchase via social media, congratulations, you’ve joined the 96 million people who also participated in social commerce over the past year. And while social shopping isn’t particularly new, the amount of growth predicted over the coming years shows that it is far from reaching its peak. In fact, Statista forecasts that the amount of sales via social media will reach nearly $3 trillion by 2026.

Of course, the growth in social commerce won’t happen in a silo. Generating brand awareness, influencing purchase decisions, and building trust requires an omnichannel approach. The increased fragmentation across digital channels means there’s a good chance that customers will see your brand on other channels before heading to your social channels for further exploration.

Niche audiences especially won’t always respond to broad traditional marketing tactics, due to having more peculiar interests. The key here is to quickly grab their attention, like through short form or micro-video, and then turn that interest into engagement.

Imagine browsing social media and getting a suggestion for an Instagram Reel, Facebook Reel, or TikTok video. If you went on to further engage with the original creator, then you already know how effective this approach can be. And most likely, the more the suggested content appealed to a niche interest of yours, the better it was at capturing your attention and engaging you.

This scenario plays out across channels, social networks, and the web at large non-stop—24/7. So whether you’re new to social commerce or already have an established presence on several platforms, understanding how to leverage it and incorporate it into your overall e-commerce strategy will pay dividends for years to come.

SOCIAL COMMERCE AUDIENCES

The good news is that you don’t have to go to the depths of the web to find these niche audiences. It’s more a matter of tapping into already existing audiences and appealing to the members with niche interests within them. Take a look at some of the typical social commerce audiences, how to reach them, and where to find them.

Audience Landscape Best Ways to Reach Them Top Platforms
Broad Brands and retailers Establishing a social presence or running targeted ads Facebook and Instagram
Influencer Less broad than brands and retailers, but seeing astonishing growth Partnering with influencers TikTok
Niche Audiences looking for specific content based on their interests, regardless of brand, retailer, or influencer Crafting engaging content related to their search queries Pinterest

SOCIAL COMMERCE VIDEOS

One thing these audiences have in common is that statistically speaking, 84% of each of these groups will be convinced to purchase after watching a related video. However, different types of videos are more effective with different audiences. Below are just a few of the key categories that can support social commerce, depending on which audience you’re trying to engage.

LIVE VIDEO

Live streaming allows you to engage with your audience in real time, fostering deeper customer/brand relationships. The spontaneity that can occur during live streams gives viewers a clear, unedited view of the brand which creates a sense of authenticity and trust—both of which are invaluable for social commerce.

Live videos generally appeal to broader audiences, especially when they feature an influencer. They tend to work well for creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity, making them ideal for announcements, giveaways, and events.

LONG-FORM VIDEO

Long-form videos can appeal to every type of audience. The opportunity for robust storytelling makes them appealing for broader audiences, while the opportunity to take a deeper dive and showcase expertise makes them ideal for niche audiences. Keep in mind that in social commerce, purchase decisions are often influenced not just by the product but also by the people, passion, and values behind it. Longer behind-the-scenes videos are a great way to help brands effectively communicate them.

For niche audiences, who often have specific interests, how-to videos are particularly effective at visually demonstrating how your product can solve a problem or fulfill a need.

USER-GENERATED VIDEO

User-generated videos can be a strong asset for your social commerce efforts. The authenticity they bring provides strong social proof that people are buying, using, and loving your product.

Oftentimes, content like product reviews will dive deeper into many of the features, benefits, and use cases that might not be mentioned in official brand content. They offer diverse perspectives of your product and typically lead to high engagement as users may be more likely to interact with content from their peers. User-generated video will appeal to a wide range of audiences, whether broad or niche.

MICRO-VIDEO

The explosion of short-form or micro-video content is evident by the strong growth of platforms like TikTok and features like Instagram Reels. As digital attention spans seemingly grow shorter and shorter, micro-video helps ensure that your message is concise and can capture attention quickly. They offer a great way to engage the 85% of Gen Z who turn to social for shopping, while also spanning generations since the content is so commonly and easily shared.

Many platforms now allow your customers to shop directly from the micro-video itself, making them great for flash promotions or teasers that allow users to pre-order. While micro-video appeals to all audiences, you’ll find much higher competition for consumer attention on broad audience platforms.

SOCIAL COMMERCE TECHNOLOGY

When it comes to leveraging video for social commerce, if you can’t compare performance across channels and platforms, you can’t know how to optimize your campaign and content. Social media platforms can give you an overview of data, but you’ll get deeper insights and richer analytics by integrating your online video player (OVP) with your marketing automation platform (MAP).

Combining content data and marketing data can give you a clear picture of what’s truly resonating with your most loyal audiences. Add to that the data social platforms offer and you can start to test which types of content resonate best on which platforms and with whom.

For example, not only does Brightcove integrate with Facebook and Instagram, it also integrates with Pinterest business accounts. And Pinterest is notably increasing its foothold as a social commerce powerhouse with their shift to video and recent partnership with Amazon.

So, by integrating your OVP and MAP with your social content, you’ll be able to clearly tell whether Pinterest or other platforms are performing best and make strategic marketing decisions based on that insight.

For example, you might find that some videos perform well with your customers but don’t seem to perform well on Facebook or Instagram. Perhaps those platforms are too congested for your specific target audience to see them. You can try them on Pinterest, where you might find your target audience has an easier time discovering them. The deep analytics will help you uncover these types of trends.

It’s worth noting that if you lack an established presence on Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest is a great first step into social commerce, since you don’t need a big presence to be effective. The strong performance it sees from micro-videos tailored to niche keywords makes it an ideal platform to build your social commerce foundation on.

Simply repurpose the content that you know your customers already love into micro-videos that connect your product to specific queries, monitor the analytics, and optimize your approach. In fact, with Brightcove’s Pinterest integration, you can publish video pins directly from the same interface you use to promote the rest of your digital video content.

SOCIAL COMMERCE: THE FUTURE HAPPENING NOW

Social commerce has become an undeniable part of a complete e-commerce strategy. And just like the rest of e-commerce, a successful strategy needs a diverse distribution plan that can reach and engage broad and niche audiences alike.

Once you understand your audiences and how to best reach them on their preferred social networks, you’ll want to ensure that you have a centralized solution that can manage all of your content. The ideal solution will allow you to integrate your OVP, MAP, and social business accounts into a single platform. Not only will this provide efficiency and consistency, it will offer the deep analytics and segmentation that can help guide your strategy moving forward.

You’ll also want to understand which platforms offer which features and stay on top of changes that can further enhance your overall performance, especially on growing platforms like Pinterest.

Wherever you’re at in your journey, one thing seems certain: social commerce will see strong growth YoY for the foreseeable future. There’s no better time to start or optimize your approach to engaging customers on the platforms that have become so inextricably interwoven into the way we shop and live our lives.

LAUNCHING YOUR OWN OTT? THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

bsp-admin-1 on August 21, 2023

No matter how you measure it, the OTT streaming market is growing across every segment, from D2C brands to broadcasters and publishers. According to Statista, the industry will jump from $294 billion in 2023 to $397 billion by 2027—a staggering 35% growth in just four years.

As more companies look to capitalize on this growth, launching an OTT service is becoming an increasingly attractive option. But a fundamental question faces those who embark on this endeavor: Buy or build?

Some choose to build their own technology stack because it gives them total control over their service, its features, and its road map. However, they’re faced with high startup costs and navigating the complex technology requirements to make their service successful. Furthermore, building this technology from the ground up often detracts from their focus on actually growing the service. They find themselves shifting budget and resources to overcome challenges ranging from scaling to security to building an effective, compatible technology stack that serves their needs.

Others will choose to simply buy the technology for their service. This approach allows them to avoid much of the risk and complexity and can typically help them see quicker time to market. They’re also able to focus on building the business instead of the technology, and will have the proven reliability from an established platform.

In short, for those looking to launch a niche, highly customized OTT platform with full control, building from scratch might be worth the time and investment. Conversely, for those looking to quickly penetrate the market and leverage established infrastructure, launching with a technology provider could be the most strategic move.

Learn more in our PLAY episode, “Have You Outgrown Your OTT Solution?”

OTT TECHNOLOGY IS COMPLEX

Take a moment to appreciate the complexity of OTT technology. These are impressive systems that have managed to replicate every component along the media supply chain, and each component needs dedicated development and maintenance resources.

Just to manage and deliver video content, OTT needs content management systems (CMS), encoding and transcoding capabilities, and content delivery networks (CDN). Additional technology is also needed for both live streaming and live-to-VOD conversions.

To generate revenue, the tech needed depends on your monetization model. While Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD) may only require payment processing and customer relationship management tools (CRM), Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) also requires subscriber management software. Ad-supported Video on Demand (AVOD) is even more complex, adding ad servers, demand- or supply-side platforms (DSP, SSP), and client-side or server-side ad insertion options.

In fact, we developed our Ad Monetization service to simplify the AVOD model for our customers. Given that it’s increasingly necessary to adopt a hybrid monetization model, reducing complexity wherever possible is essential.

Consider this advice from Bleuenn Le Goffic, VP of Strategy and Business Development at Accedo: “You need to rely on external vendors to remove that complexity. You shouldn’t be spending all your energy and internal investment in finding out what technology will make a video service work well.”

OTT IS SUPPOSED TO GROW

Launching an OTT service isn’t a casual investment; it’s a substantial commitment of time, budget, and resources. This means you should be planning for ongoing growth well in advance of the service’s launch.

Perhaps the most important aspect of any OTT platform development is the platform itself. If it’s unable to scale, you can expect an untimely and disruptive migration. So in the early planning stages, choose a platform that aligns with your initial budget and features but is also easily scalable. Shortcuts and cost cuts may seem enticing, but if your service grows as projected, a tech revamp shortly after is the last thing you’ll want.

Streaming technology has grown tremendously, to the point where media giants like Yahoo are turning to Brightcove to power their streaming. Having a solution that can grow with you, from D2C fan brands to major media companies and publishers, is key to long-term success.

OTT DEPENDS ON CONTENT METRICS

Unlike traditional media, where metrics like total hours watched were key performance indicators, modern digital audiences require a shift in analytics. New subscribers, viewing frequency, and platform engagement can give a more accurate view of current and expected growth. And while metrics like monthly active users or total hours viewed are important, they shouldn’t be the sole barometers of success.

As with other digital experiences, OTT is fundamentally about content. And in today’s digital landscape where users demand more control over their viewing experience, business decisions must be driven by how they exert this control through consumption of and engagement with your video content.

Questions like, “How frequently are users engaging? How effective is the content at retaining audience attention? Does the content attract new users?” can offer valuable insights.

Furthermore, machine learning models have shown that the most valuable indicator for any video service is actually frequency of use. For example, if you have a user that watches an hour of content, it’s better for them to watch it in three 20-minute chunks over the course of a couple weeks than as one hour just one time a month.

The biggest challenge with getting actionable insights is aggregating content data with audience and service data, then harmonizing and visualizing it. Historically this has required manual data pulls and exhaustive spreadsheets, but today advanced analytics like Brightcove Subscriber Insights can quickly and easily provide a unified view of this type of data.

OTT SHOULD BE UNIQUE AND ADD VALUE

With so many digital content experiences for users to choose from, differentiating your OTT with a unique and valuable identity is table stakes. Le Goffic notes that, “Everyone uses the Netflix experience. This is the benchmark, the experience. But you shouldn’t be Netflix. You are this brand. You are someone different.”

While it’s natural to learn from other successful platforms, don’t try to replicate them. Your service is unique to your audience, so it only makes sense that your brand is well defined and primarily tested against the context of itself.

Rather than comparisons to other services, the focus should be more on what your brand represents and how it creates value for its community. Putting this in the context of a larger brand framework, your OTT should address questions like:

  • How do you differentiate?
  • What’s your tonality?
  • What’s the personality of the brand?
  • What’s the archetype?

The answers to questions like these should be reflected throughout the design and experience with your app. In addition to OOTB customization options, developers using Brightcove have access to robust APIs and SDKs that give them even more control over the brand experience.

BUILD A COMMUNITY, NOT AN APP

Deciding whether to build or buy is a critical step that can shape the future of your OTT streaming service in terms of growth and profitability. Moreover, it will determine where you will invest the majority of your resources—in the technology that powers the experience, or in the experience itself.

Unlike traditional media, experience is pivotal to an OTT business model. The best services foster a sense of belonging, a gathering place where enthusiasts of a particular content genre or sporting event rally together to become collective fans. It’s a shift in perspective from amassing viewers to cultivating a community.

Don’t think of your customers as subscribers or viewers. They’re members of your community. Ask yourself, “How do we nurture a community that eagerly anticipates our content? How can we bind our community in a shared experience? How do we make them want to return time and time again?”

Remember, before launching an OTT service, you still have to set your content and distribution strategy, your monetization strategy, and your marketing strategy. The right decision will enable you to craft a high-quality viewing experience that reaches your audience, builds a community, and keeps them coming back for more.