If you’re simply looking to get more YouTube views and free subscribers, know that video content has exploded beyond on all platforms. It has started to play new roles in people’s lives. If your business wants to take the lead with video marketing in 2021, then you might have questions like:
- What kind of videos should your brand produce — is producing and promoting your YouTube channel sufficient?
- What kind of budget should you allocate to video content production?
- How can you leverage video in your social media marketing?
Here are the top video marketing statistics you can use to guide your strategy. I’ve organized the video stats into three sections, so that you can jump to the most relevant section conveniently. Let’s begin.
Video Marketing Overview
How many small businesses pursue video marketing? Which platforms are favorites? How do the video engagement stats compare on different devices? Let’s look at a few general video stats to find out.
1. 85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and 59% of non-video marketers expect to start leveraging it in 2020. Further, 92% of marketers who use video report it as an essential part of their strategy.
2. 20% of video marketers said that they used video for the first time in 2019.
They were able to take the video leap because:
- 48% found it easier to convince others in the business of its value,
- 47% believe it’s become less time-consuming to create video content.
3. 92% of video marketers feel the level of noise and competition have increased in the last year. I can vouch for the competition as my new YouTube channel that I launched this year has seen surprisingly low numbers.
But you can still make money on YouTube (marketers, won’t you like another line of revenue?)
4. 66% of people said they’d prefer to watch a short video to learn about a product or service. 18% would rather read a text-based article, website, or post. HubSpot also found that 54% of consumers prefer video content from brands they support over other kinds of content.
5. The most commonly-created types of video are: Explainer videos at 72%, followed by Presentation videos at 49%, Testimonial videos at 48%, Sales videos at 42% and video ads at 42%.
6. The number one way customers are moving from discovering a brand to purchasing its products is video ads.
Next, let’s look at the major challenges that prevent marketers from integrating videos in their marketing?
7. 20% of non-video marketers say they don’t use video for marketing as it is too expensive. While 17% each saying that they don’t know where to start and don’t feel it is needed.
Remember that high production value and expensive gear aren’t important to start your video marketing journey. It’s more important to follow the passions of your viewers (at least on YouTube):
But how relevant is video content for B2B brands? Let’s look at a few branded video stats to find out.
8. In 2018, the average business video length was 4.07 minutes. However, 73% of business videos were under two minutes. For specific social media platforms, you can use the benchmarks on video length here.
9. 87% of all business videos are watched on a desktop.
10. The three most popular types of videos are webinars, demos, and social videos. Given the cancelation of major conferences and events in the wake of the coronavirus crisis in 2020, webinars are a great way to engage with business professionals.
11. A single webinar could net you $20,930. Wouldn’t that help you reach your marketing and sales goals?
12. Given that 65% of people skip online ads as soon as possible, it might make more sense to start a branded show on YouTube as it promises compounding ROI.
13. 95% of video marketers plan to increase or maintain their spend on video in 2020.
Now that you’ve a decent understanding of video marketing, let’s look at the audience’s behavior on video consumption.
Online Video Consumption
Visuals are an intimate medium to communicate, retain attention, and build relationships with your audience. But how much traffic do videos contribute? Here is some data of video content statistics on consumption to help you dissect user behavior.
1. A 2017 Cisco whitepaper forecasted that 82% of all IP traffic (both business and consumer) would be video IP traffic by 2022.
2. Also, live internet video will account for 17% of internet video traffic and grow 15-fold from 2017 to 2022.
3. For under 45 seconds, mobile is the leading device for video consumption in Australia (at 69%). But the non-connected living room widescreen is the king of the screens for over 55 seconds (at 61%).
Indeed, consumers are no longer using a single device to watch video content. Viewers watch on whatever screen is best available to them when they want to consume video.
As an intelligent marketer, you might know traffic is a vanity metric. Does online video even lead to new brand discovery and influence buying decisions?
4. There are over 2 billion logged-in users visiting YouTube each month. In total, users are watching over a billion hours of video on the platform every day.
5. No wonder, YouTube is the second most popular website in the world (after Google).
6. More than 50% of shoppers say online video has helped them decide which specific brand or product to buy. Indeed, relatable videos can inspire people to take action including making purchases. Here are three ways your online video strategy can incite action.
While consuming videos seems like a passive activity, it’s socially fulfilling.
7. Half of the people seek out videos that give them new perspectives about their own life. And 51% of people say they feel the need to connect with and better understand others through video content.
8. 4 in 5 people also use digital video for learning new skills. That’s why courses like Blogging for business by Ahrefs, even with a steep price over $500 are loved.
As a business, you can consider launching an online course to teach new relevant skills to your prospects and customers. Kickstart your course creation with Teachable right away.
9. 87% of video marketers say video has increased traffic to their website, and 81% claim that it increases the average time visitors spend on page.
Search engines award higher rankings to pages that engage visitors for longer periods. So you can consider creating YouTube videos for accompanying articles targeting competitive keywords. They might give you a better chance to rank in search.
Here’s an example:
Ryan Robinson embedded a video tutorial in his ultimate guide to starting a blog. As you can see, it’s also a great way to promote your YouTube channel.
While we’re on the subject of integrating YouTube videos on your website:
10. Remember that most users still prefer fast loading speeds. More than half of the people are willing to give up videos and other media for fast loading websites.
So don’t forget to optimize your landing pages for mobile. If you use videos, then they should serve a purpose. India’s first professional blogger, Amit Agrawal, shows a cool tactic to embed YouTube videos on your site without increasing page size.
11. Do you wonder how much online video people are watching per week, on average?
It’s 16 hours.
That’s a 52% increase in the last couple of years. In 2022, 86% of people would like to see more video from brands.
12. Due to law data rates, India has a huge market for online video. The audience is touted to reach 500 million in 2020.
So while the video marketing stats call for more production, what are the implications for social media? Let’s explore in the next section.
Social Media Video Statistics
Which social media network do users like to watch videos on? How does video content format stack up against other types? Here are the top social media video trends to help create a robust social video strategy.
1. 91% of marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing efforts on social media. Indeed, 93% of businesses claim to have landed a customer because of a video on social media.
2. No wonder that in its State Of Social report, Buffer found that merely 14.5% of marketers don’t publish any video content.
3. Facebook (at 81.2%) is the most popular channel for marketers that are posting video content. It’s followed by YouTube at 62.9% on the second spot.
4. However, HubSpot’s research found that YouTube is the favorite platform for watching videos, but Facebook is catching up with it. 88% of video marketers plan to include YouTube in their video marketing strategy this year.
5. A study of over 777M Facebook posts by Buffer found that videos manage 59% more engagement than other post types. Indeed, 81.8% of the top 500 posts were videos proving they are the best performing type of content on Facebook.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to repurpose your top trafficked blog posts into a video. For example, Buffer received 16k shares on this explainer video on the Facebook algorithm that they had created from one of their most popular articles (for the year 2018) on the same subject.
6. Live video is the third most popular social media tactic that brands are implementing this year.
7. In the last 12 months, video views have grown 220x on Twitter. Also, 93% of the video views on the microblogging platform happen on a mobile device (did someone say mobile-first?)
8. Tweets with videos are 6x more likely to be retweeted than the ones with an image, and 3x more likely to be retweeted than Tweets with a GIF.
9. Video is the fastest-growing advertising tool on Twitter.
10. The social media video app, TikTok, touched 500M monthly active users in October 2018. Only 1 in 10 video marketers have given the platform a shot and 66% of those that tried have seen success, so it’s an untapped video marketing opportunity.
11. In its survey of direct to consumer brands, IAB research found that advertisers have adopted new ad formats. They are more likely to spend on stories and shoppable ads.
12. A 2016 study of 1.5M pins found that only 0.3% of pins contain a video.
13. Early data (from the limited release) showed that native LinkedIn videos were getting shared 20 times that of any other type of content.
14YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are the top three purchase driving platforms.
But YouTube remains a widely used platform among marketers, with 83% saying it being successful for them. So, I encourage you to put your best foot forward on the platform.
Final Thoughts
If your brand still hasn’t taken the video leap, you should consider relevant platforms where your audience hangs out, then publish your first video. I hope that these video marketing statistics help you chart an informed video strategy for your brand.
Did I forget any crucial video stats that can help marketers create a compelling strategy? Tell me about them in the comments below.
Video Marketing Statistics 2020 [Infographic]
And if you’re a visual learner, I’ve collaborated with Graphic Rhythm Designs to create an infographic compiling the key stats we saw above. Enjoy!
