If your company is struggling with organic reach, getting in this space is a no-brainer. For media companies, doubly so! Beyond just Facebook, platforms of all kinds are refining their algorithms to be more attuned to user preferences. Sponsored Video is Bigger Than Ever – and it’s Here to Stay If you regularly read Tubular Insights, you’ve heard about this space before. That added reach can be a big factor, especially when trying to target niche, or previously unaffiliated audiences. For those audiences, just getting them acquainted with a brand is a big win. According to a Tubular Labs report from earlier this year, views of sponsored video content on Facebook jumped 258% since 2016. On the one hand, audiences appear to be growing utterly intolerant of interruptions in their media consumption experience. Taking an article, written for a text medium, and porting it to video is not likely to be as compelling as a story created for video first. Regardless of what “interesting” looks like for you, know that platforms have a vested interest in getting it in front of their audiences too – a trend we saw much more of in 2017.
Video is ascendant among media companies, brands, agencies, and creators alike, but the video ecosystem is not stacked equally in favor of all players. The past year in digital video can be distilled down to three intertwined trends that together are changing the industry, and provide different implications for many players.
Platforms are Putting Their Thumbs on the Scale
Video is a very compelling medium. On balance, it can be much more effective than text or audio in creating an emotional connection with audiences across the board. But on Facebook, it’s not a balanced playing field – the platform is putting its thumb on the scale.
As it did earlier with the launch of Instant Articles, Facebook is juicing its algorithm to better serve Facebook Live – the eminent live streaming option for media companies. If your company is struggling with organic reach, getting in this space is a no-brainer. For media companies, doubly so! And just last month, Facebook launched Facebook for Creators – a site dedicated toward bringing livestreamers together – as well as a Creator app that offers a new suite of creative tools for Live broadcasts.
Beyond just Facebook, platforms of all kinds are refining their algorithms to be more attuned to user preferences. You probably heard about the billion dollar purchase of Musical.ly by Chinese media company Bytedance last month. Musical.ly’s 60MM MAU base is certainly not on the same scale as a Facebook or YouTube, but the ways in which Bytedance is planning to infuse AI into the app’s content recommendation engine – and thus make it easier to surface content for niche audiences – should certainly be of interest for companies and creators in the coming year.
And not to mention that Google is preparing to enforce ad standards proposed by the Coalition for Better Ads – blocking offenders by default in its Chrome browser starting next year. Advertisers will need to move away from annoying experiences to ones that align better with user preferences. Pre-roll and mid-roll video may be exempt for now, but there is no guarantee that these would not be considered obtrusive in the future. Another more resilient option, that has the added promise of an “interesting” experience, is sponsored video.
Sponsored Video is Bigger Than Ever – and it’s Here to Stay
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