Sites like YouTube and Instagram will overtake Facebook and Twitter to be the dominant social media force by the end of the decade, marketing experts claim. Experts at London School of Marketing have analysed the growing trends in social media and the use of image and video sites among different demographics.
Researchers have found that the millennials, those born c.2000 are using video and photo based social media sites more than any other. In this 12-20 year old demographic, Instagram is the lead, ahead of both Twitter and Facebook. Experts at LSM believe this shift is a result of the prevalence of smartphones as well as the trend for social media to become increasingly image led.
According to data, more than two fifths, 44%, of millennials use their smart phone at least once a day to access social media.
However, when it comes to video content and sharing, YouTube is king and having no challenger has opened up a new frontier in advertising and marketing. With 85% of adults outside China considering themselves to be regular YouTube users, it has one billion active users each month.
Additionally its appeal crosses more demographics than its other social rivals. Also, 83% of ‘generation Z’ claim to use it each month as do 30% of the ‘golden generation’.
As a result many advertisers have successfully mastered YouTube as an effective marketing machine, making more than $1 billion a year for the site.
For Jacques de Cock, faculty member at London School of Marketing, the key to a successful YouTube video relies on three qualities, namely relevance, engagement and consistency. He said: “For a video to work well the message should be relevant to both the viewer and the brand in question. It needs to also tell a story or assist the viewer. “What is interesting when it comes to engagement is that videos don’t need to be highly produced to gain the most views.
If you look at the stats, around half of the corporate videos from the worlds top 100 brands have less than 1,000 views. Compare that to the more than 822 million people who have watched ‘Charlie bit my finger’. “Where most brands go wrong though is around consistency. To market successfully on YouTube a brand’s presence has to be regular and consistent.
Many brands do one or two videos and then stop or chop and change their plan without building a strong audience. There is a huge possibility that photo and video sharing will be the dominant social media by 2020 and if brands are not ready to engage, they run the risk of ignoring an entire generation of consumers.”
