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BEST PRACTICES IN SOCIAL VIDEO: USING TWITTER FOR BUSINESS

bsp-admin-1 on September 22, 2016

If you’re a marketer, you use Twitter to read industry news, monitor competitors, and respond to customers. Yet, we struggle to craft, amplify, and track our messages. Beyond building a community, social network publishing updates can throw us for a loop. Remember when photos were released for tweets?

Now, social video is the next big thing: 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter. This popularity is hardly surprising when we consider that it’s short, visually-oriented communication. Let’s explore more how to better use social video Twitter to communicate the values of your brand.

Each social media network has its strengths. For marketers, Twitter and LinkedIn feel more professional than other social media forums, which is particularly important if you’re a B2B marketer. In fact, 65.8% of US companies with 100+ employees use Twitter for marketing.

Twitter wants to be a source of information that matters with live breaking news via trending hashtags and a “while you were out” section feeding you updates from the brands you interact with most. You can capitalize on these hyper-personalized algorithms by using a social video strategy that embraces both organic and paid strategies for building audiences and increasing engagement.

On Twitter, brands aren’t there to just push their messages, they’re also there to listen. Twitter is a great support vehicle: 77% of Twitter users feel more positive about a brand when their Tweet has been replied to. These types of interactions are expected at 140 characters. Twitter is a network that thrives on brevity and real-time. Craft social video messages that speak to these consumption habits.

Source: Sprout Social

Social video is the best way to educate and inform potential prospects, succinctly, but you need to know your audience. Twitter skews slightly more male, and the audience is relatively young, in the 18-to-29 age range followed closely by 30-to-49. The older population isn’t on Twitter, with only 13% of internet users in the 50-64 range using Twitter. This population shrinks to 6% for those in the 65+ age range.

The Twitter audience is also more educated and residing in slightly more urban environments. So depending on the type of video content you’re posting to Twitter, this information could give you an advantage.

So what kind of content should you be creating? As always, the way you use video can differ, based on your goals. Commercials or brand stories that promote and educate can do well here, as Twitter is very well suited to awareness and engagement. Don’t forget, Twitter operates on the recency paradox, so newsjacking and live tweeting are options to explore.

What Kind of Video Content to Create for Twitter

At the engagement stage, we want to converse and create a two-way dialogue. Social videos like an explainers, tip series, or how-to’s are perfect types of content that extend goodwill and build rapport. Also, consider creating product or service-specific content like demos, Q&A sessions, customer testimonials, and customer reviews. Video at this stage should highlight your solution but should also allow your viewer to share in the excitement, relief, or satisfaction felt after purchasing.

Social video on Twitter hits on the gray area between engagement and conversion. They might choose to engage with more of your content or experience it on your site. The experience you create will differ as a result.

In a “soft conversion,” you want to get them to the site, to a branded experience you can control and then supplement your video content with accompanying content that keeps them entertained. To do this, we can go back to an old standard of placing static images with play buttons like we do in emails, soliciting a click.

Lastly, Twitter is a great channel to listen and connect with customers. But you need to ask yourself, what kind of content will keep making them choose you over others?

So even if you’re just getting started with video, dedicate some resources to a retention campaign. Enhance their experience and make it super easy for them to use your product or solution. To do this, videos should center on related products—potentially how to use these products together, a tips series, or exciting company news like a feature or product launch.

Twitter Video
Counts as view	Click to play
Autoplay default?	Yes
Autoloop?	No
Audio state default	On
Maximum length	140 seconds (00:02:20)
Public view counts?	No
Metrics dashboard?	Advertisers only
Favors native video?	Yes

Upload Native Video

Just like Facebook, Twitter favors native video. In fact, native video on Twitter drives more engagement, including 2.5x more replies, 2.8x more retweets, and 1.9x more favorites than third-party players.

Optimize for Autoplay

Like Facebook, native videos autoplay on Twitter. So you need to have an optimized video lead-in that doesn’t waste time and is interesting whether the sound is on or off.

Twitter expanded the allowed length of videos from 30 seconds to 140 seconds, approximately 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Professional publishers, however, can utilize up to 10 minutes. But it’s highly unlikely in a feed swimming with content that a user is going to stay on your video for 10 minutes. On Twitter, 80% of users will watch a full video if it’s 30 seconds or less.

Utilize Copy Appropriately

Words that act as cues for content aid in attention, retention, and the ability to consume with no sound. Consider text within your video. These words and phrases can move dynamically and create visual interest. Also, optimize the copy surrounding your video as some viewers disable autoplay in their feeds, so you need to solicit a click. Draw interest and set the stage for what videos are about to be consumed.

Leverage Unique Hashtags

Utilize the unique attributes of Twitter. If you’re using social video on Twitter, host twitter chats, or public conversations. Individual tweets are linked through a hashtag and publicly searchable.

Remember, using mentions (@username) when posting a video are going to help get you attention from influencers. When responding within a chat, create a quick social video and keep the conversation going in an intimate and personal way.

Video works because it is naturally persuasive. Social video overcomes objections or a hesitancy to interact with the brand when paired with a specific cadence of communication. Twitter’s rapid-fire, short-form communications are curated by audiences who gravitate toward the brands that speak to them, craving real-time interactions.

HOW CISCO IS LEADING DIGITAL MARKETING WITH VIDEO

bsp-admin-1 on September 19, 2016

Anyone can find basic solutions to run videos on their web site, but few can operate, innovate and unlock its value at scale. At Cisco, users across the globe in departments as diverse as Marketing, Corporate Affairs, Investor Relations, and Support, are creating, uploading, and measuring video content. Cisco hosts 200 new uploads each month across 753 unique publishers located around the world.

And the videos are impactful: In FY2016, we had 58 million impressions, 4.9 million views, and over 258,000 hours of engagement.

Here is how we got there.

First, our goal is to enable—not control. Cisco is a globally distributed corporation and we recognize that it is impossible to centralize control of video. In fact, trying to control the creation and distribution of video would slow its adoption. We make the process as transparent and easy as possible, and that means integrating with the right tools. We also work with internal teams to establish rules for uploading videos to ensure compliance with brand guidelines and governance.

Six Critical Tools To Optimize the Adoption and Success of Video

These six tools have lowered the barrier to entry and optimized Cisco’s video initiatives.

1. Web Analytics

Integrating your video platform with your organization’s web analytics platform is the most critical tool for measuring ROI. You can track the viewer visits to the website, what they clicked on, where they went next in the website, and what they did during their visit.

This data helps structure the engagement based on how much of the video they viewed. It also helps producers decide where and how to focus their video production investments for new launches and campaigns.

2. Marketing Automation Platforms

The integration of your video and marketing automation platforms provides greater insight into a prospect’s level of interest. It identifies who specifically clicked on a video, how they accessed the video, how many times they viewed it and how much of it they watched. For direct marketing campaigns, you can identify viewers by name, providing account managers with a more complete picture of the customer or prospect’s engagement.

3. Big Data and Data Visualization systems

These enable you to combine video data sources, web logs, offer management systems, and CRM into a visually intuitive performance dashboard. Video publishers can visualize the omni-channel performance.

4. Search/Content Libraries

Leverage video platform APIs to index video assets and make it easy to search for video content. This also helps keep the asset library organized so publishers do not reproduce content or duplicate an upload. This goes for Corporate and Partner marketing organizations.

5. Web CMS and Communities

Creating video components and listing standardized embed codes for various usage is key to simplify web publishing operations and adoption.

6. Video Platform Technology partners

We integrated our video platform with innovative technology partners to improve global usability and reduce costs. Some of the key capabilities that are making an impact at Cisco are:

Caption authoring has saved our globalization team 50% year over year. We no longer have to localize files in multiple languages and host multiple assets.
Interactive video capabilities enable us to deliver relevant offers to viewers and increase response and revenue. This is the foundation for ROI for demand generation programs offering video.
Global self-publishing system enables anyone at the company to effortlessly upload and categorize their video assets to the online video system and YouTube, reducing the publishing time from 5 days to 1 hour.

Engagement, Response, Revenue: The Only Meaningful KPIs

Metrics influence what you need to produce, what you’re going to deliver, and what you’re measured against within your company. The number of video views is the most frequently discussed metric, but video views only measure how successfully you promoted the video. True ROI comes when viewers reveal themselves, become leads, and ultimately result in conversion, bookings, and revenue.

Our key metrics at Cisco:

The % of video viewed. That is a measure of the content engagement itself. Is the video content compelling enough for people to keep watching? Overall, our video viewers consume 10% of the total messaging opportunity across all assets.
Click-through rate from the call to action. Is the CTA engaging enough? How many viewers who clicked through were registered? How many identified themselves? How many were new contacts? These metrics enable publishers to relate the cost of video production to the cost of getting a new contact and ultimately to the amount of revenue that came as a result of the video. Current Call-to-Action click-through rate averages around 7%

Bottom line is to be smart about how you create and measure video. The goal is to drive business value.

OPTIMIZING YOUR OTT VIDEO PLATFORM STRATEGY

bsp-admin-1 on September 7, 2016

How do you reach viewers across the ever increasing and fragmented device landscape including web, mobile, and connected TV devices? How do you maximize audience growth and engagement on the platforms that matter for your business?

Let’s take a closer look at how to address some of these questions we’ve heard from our customers about launching an OTT service.

REACHING AND ENGAGING YOUR VIEWERS

When it comes to developing a platform strategy, more is not necessarily better and one size doesn’t necessarily fit all. Factors that you will want to consider when evaluating which platforms to prioritize for your OTT service include:

Target audience demographics. What devices are used to consume content by your targeted viewers? By region? By age?
Content type (Long form/short form). Is your content best suited for a lean forward (web/mobile) or lean backward (connected TV) experience? Both?
Cost of platform specific development. Developing apps for each platform can be expensive and difficult to maintain. Device manufacturers are not able to keep up with the evolving OS platforms resulting in a fragmented landscape. How many versions of Android will you need to maintain support for?
Monetization effectiveness. For your content and monetization objectives (AVOD and/or SVOD), are you choosing the right platforms?

There are a number of studies and reports that can assist you in better understanding your target audience, content effectiveness across platforms, and monetization by platform and service. For example, a PayWizard Survey found that Mobile devices are the most popular options for watching paid OTT TV content. Or FreeWheel’s Video Monetization Report indicates 63% of monetization is now occurring outside of Desktop environments.

TEST AND MEASURE

Getting your apps on your target platforms is just the beginning. How do you measure success? Are you maximizing the value of your content? Are you keeping your viewers engaged?

Measuring app downloads and app store ratings will help you understand your effectiveness in converting interested users into engaged users. Video and app analytics will help you take the next step in understanding how and where your content is being consumed, how your apps are behaving on each platform, and monetization effectiveness.

Do you want to know what the most popular content is on an iPhone, on a Saturday, in London? Is application load time resulting in user churn? Are users exiting at the first ad?

Taking this a step further, multivariate testing is a critical tool for optimizing your content and app design across your demographic profiles and until recently has been a rare utility. We’re very excited to have added this capability to our OTT Flow offering.

ABILITY TO ADAPT

Understanding viewer behavior will help you maximize viewer engagement and optimize your OTT apps to deliver the best user experience. However, this task raises additional questions.

What are the right updates to make? Do the updates apply to everyone or specific demographics or regions? Do I need to submit my apps for app store approval each time?

When taking your content over the top you are choosing to extend the reach of your content. This should be a calculated decision that allows you to get the most out of your content.

Brightcove OTT Flow, powered by Accedo, is designed to maximize your market opportunity, and enable you to do so without starting out in a financial hole. OTT Flow’s application management console enables you to get to your targeted platforms easily, is managed from an extensible, centralized console that enables you to support new devices quickly, and allows you to publish app updates without requiring the re-submission of your apps for app store approval.

OTT Flow ties this all together with rich analytics that help you measure content usage, QoE, and application level metrics at a glance and with the ability to drill down on specific titles, players, apps, and regions.

BEST PRACTICES IN SOCIAL VIDEO: USING FACEBOOK FOR BUSINESS

bsp-admin-1 on September 6, 2016

On Facebook, the consumption of information, particularly that of video is much more passive. Facebook averaged 8 billion average daily video views in 2016, but we watch videos of nieces and nephews, bratty huskies, cats, and celebrities in carpool karaoke. So how can B2C and B2B businesses fight for attention?

While social video is a key aspect of building relationships on social media, on Facebook you have to be particularly sensitive to what you’re interrupting and keep this front of mind when developing your social media strategy. To interrupt without ire on Facebook, we need to produce innately shareable social video while optimizing this content for seamless consumption and interaction.

Know Your Audience

Generally, Facebook has more traction with women, particularly in the 18 to 29 age range, followed closely by those aged 30 to 49. Education, income, and location are varied with no identifiable advantage for certain types of businesses here. Also, Facebook is the favorite social network of grandparents. Internet users in the 50-64 age range, as well as 65+, are more active on Facebook than Twitter.

Keep in mind that getting more specific with your audience parameters is even more important if you plan to utilize both organic and paid social video.

Know Your Tone

Facebook is overwhelmingly personal and thus engagement comes at a premium. A sense of community and mutual interest are vitally important. Local businesses thrive on Facebook; in fact, of small business owners and marketers who plan to spend money on social media in 2017, two-thirds plan to promote video on Facebook—more than any other channel.

Consider the local news stories you actually stay up to watch. The firefighters who raised money to give fire victims Christmas after a tragedy. The blind dog and the deaf bunny who help each other navigate their farm. These types of stories are uplifting and show a perseverance of spirit. Or in simpler terms: They make us sad, and then they make us happy. These types of stories are shared and re-shared continually on Facebook. It’s time to take your social video viewer on an emotional journey.

But what if you’re a multinational corporation with a global reach. Can you crack the code? Yes. Now answer this question: How are you helping the community and championing the causes your audiences care about? It can be tough, but users need to invite you to be a part of their everyday by not only liking, but following your page. Legitimize your brand by actively participating in your audience network regularly and then create a conversation (using video) around the things your followers care about. Your business can champion a movement.

Facebook Video
Counts as view	3 seconds
Autoplay default?	Yes
Autoloop?	No
Audio state default	Muted
Maximum length	2 hours or 4GB upload
Public view counts?	Yes
Metrics dashboard?	Yes
Favors native video?	Yes