Facebook, Snapchat & YouTube: Where Should You Focus Your Video Strategy?

When HubSpot published its first State of Inbound report eight years ago, the future of video content seemed a bit out of focus — promising, colorful but not quite clear.

Today, video is no longer a future consideration, it’s the dominant social medium of the present, a fact underscored in the 2016 State of Inbound report. For example, the new SOI shares these statistics on video’s dominance:

• Facebook users watch 8 billion videos a day
  
• Snapchat users watch 10 billion videos per day
  
• 45% of respondents in HubSpot research watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week
  
• And 49% of 18-24 year olds of respondents in HubSpot research watch at least 3 hours of video on YouTube a week.

So a savvy marketer no longer asks “Do I include video in my marketing strategy?” Instead, the savvy marketer asks, “Where do I focus my video strategy?”

The answer could be Facebook, Snapchat or YouTube — or some combination. Here’s some guidance from the 4,500 respondents to the 2016 SOI:

Of the marketers responding to the survey:

• 48% are planning on adding YouTube in the year ahead and
  
• 39% expect to add Facebook video.

Ok, so that’s where marketers say they’ll be focusing their video efforts. What about their bosses? For C-level business leaders participating in the SOI survey, video was an even stronger focus, with

• 56% of C-level respondents planning to add YouTube as a content channel,
  
• 46% planning to add Facebook video, and
  
• 17% are looking into Snapchat.

Where you focus your video marketing efforts depends on the solid understanding you have of the audience you need to reach, something you learn as you map your buyer’s journey and create personas for your buyers.

It’s also worth looking at how top brands are focusing their video marketing efforts.

For example, Advertising Age recently reported on Instagram’s development of stories and how big brands, including Nike, are investing more on Instagram video rather than Snapchat. As the SOI statistics suggest, Google-owned YouTube is hardly a shrinking violet. There are many reasons why YouTube tops the survey results as the video channel earning the most attention from marketers and their bosses. Take a look at how the Associated Press is using YouTube to share history. Maybe you’re interested in Snapchat but unsure about how to get started. Here’s a great HubSpot blog that walks through this exciting new channel step by step.

Want to learn more about the state of video, social media and inbound marketing? Get a copy of the new State of Inbound for yourself!

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