When you are developing your social media video marketing campaigns, it is crucial to understand that no two social platforms are alike. The types of videos on each platform are not only different, but their analytical basis or what counts as a view has also a significant difference.
Why should you care?
A view is still a view, right?
It’s a yes. And a no.
And to answer why you should care is because it affects your overall ROI of your marketing campaign. Since most social networks have a pay-per-view basis for a video ad placement, a user watching only 3 seconds versus 30 seconds can mean a huge difference in your campaign end-cost.
Thus, it is crucial that you know how different social platforms track as views.
Because Facebook is a one-size-fits-all platform, videos are just another thing in their collection of media content. However, the fact that Facebook is still the most popular social site across all demographics, causes advertisers to do their video campaign on this very platform.
For Facebook, the maximum video length is 240 minutes. Users seeing even just the first 3 seconds of a video of any length is already considered a view.
Instagram is a visual social media. It focuses on aesthetics since it allows users to share and post visual content. Thus, videos play a huge role on the site, providing a significant opportunity for video ads.
Unfortunately, the maximum length that you can upload on this site is only 60 seconds. Like Facebook, Instagram considers it a view is a user sees the first 3 seconds of the video of any length.
If you need help in creating engaging videos or increasing your presence on Instagram, consider hiring specialize marketing agencies like LosFamos.
- YouTube
This is the premier video social media platform. And unlike Instagram that focuses on sharing all visual contents, YouTube is only focused on videos. Although you can advertise with videos on this platform, you can also share YouTube videos or embed them on other social platforms such as LinkedIn. Thus, the advertising potential of YouTube is not exclusive to the platform.
The maximum video length on YouTube is 15 minutes for the unverified accounts. Meanwhile, verified users can upload a video of a maximum length of 12 hours. So what counts as a view on YouTube? When someone sees 30 seconds of a video or less if the video length is shorter than 30 seconds.
Although short “tweets” are still the most popular feature of this platform, Twitter has been heavily investing in video, particularly on live streaming.
For this social platform, the maximum video length is 2 minutes and 20 seconds. What counts as a view in Twitter is when someone sees the first 3 seconds of a video, however, that video needs to be 100 percent within the user’s view for the whole time.
Conclusion
So, now that you have a general idea of how the top social platforms measure video and what counts as a view, you can improve your video ad strategy. Knowing how various social platforms treat video views is the first step to creating a winning video advertising.
