The Future of Social Media: Video Content

Will Aleman | @SolaniSayz Facebook's video update brought new life to the newsfeed. Major updates like this usually take place when large social media platforms are trying to compete with other new and up-and-coming platforms. Prior to this change on Facebook, social media applications Vine and Snapchat were increasing in popularity (and still are for that matter). What do these two platforms have in common? Videos are their main content. Together, Vine and Snapchat proved that audiences were not just drawn to sharing and creating videos, but also the creative delivery. With the recent addition of Twitter mobile videos, all of the largest social media platforms are now vying for a piece of the video pie.

In addition to being popular, video content has the highest overall engagement rate. One social media giant that capitalizes on this is BuzzFeed. Calling themselves a “social news and entertainment company,” BuzzFeed has over 5 million subscribers on YouTube and over 2 million followers on Twitter. Their secret is that of all their content is easily shared on all social media channels. They leave no stone unturned. BuzzFeed knows that the masses enjoy and prefer video content.

Trying to determine what kind of posts are most popular for your business's target audience? The answer shouldn't surprise you. They want video content. Viral videos, heart-wrenching videos, funny videos, videos of celebrity interviews: all of these are very popular. Currently Snapchat has over 30 million active users and Vine has over 40 million users. These two social apps host strictly video content with little to no written content. So the question is: will video content be the future of social media? We certainly think so.