There are over 6B people in the world. 4 Billion people, almost 2 out of every 3 people in the world, own devices where they can view and share content. In the next few years there will be almost 1B more people connected to the Internet. These people are watching, reading, and browsing. They’re generally, consuming content. In some cases, like with the iPad, content consumption is driving the adoption of new technology. More than 50% of people cite some form of content consumption, be it e-reading, photos, music, or surfing the web, as the reason they want to purchase an iPad. People like to be informed, to be taught--that’s why they are seeking out the information or the entertainment in the first place. At AOL/HPMG, we want to inspire, entertain, and inform the people who experience content on our sites. This gives us a great responsibility to create content of value.
We all have interests and we express them by our behaviors. Behaviors like going, seeing, tasting, touching, viewing, clicking, completing, sharing, liking, recommending. As content creators, these behaviors can inform us. They take us beyond the typical demos and deep into the psychographic. As content creators, we have the opportunity to create and program content based on those behaviors. This makes all content creators teachers in some ways. We help our audience learn something new or discover an experience that affects their world.
We are in a time of “Big Data” where companies have so much data that it threatens to overwhelm them. In fact there was more data transmitted over the Internet in 2010 than all the data ever transmitted online before. Companies are searching for ways to manage all that information. The new thing in Silicon Valley to ask is “How are you managing your data?” And in fact, one company after another is forming to make sense of the explosion in information. Companies that already have user behavior data have a serious advantage in terms of content creation. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft have treasure troves. But not all are creating content. Some are just platforms. We are one of those companies who both have the data and content production expertise and today, I’m going to share some nuggets that we’ve recently learned with you.
At AOL/HPMG, we’re hyper focused on what people are watching, when, why, did they share it, if not why? Did they complete the video, where did they drop off, what happened? Did behaviors vary based on what types of videos they were watching? All questions we wanted to explore because as content creators, if we are not thinking about these things, we will create stuff that nobody will watch and share. I’ve seen it happen people and it’s not pretty. Recently, we’ve noticed a high engagement level on content that has to do with a mashup of topics – politics which is always huge for us, style, the economy, and hip hop music. Because we can tell from our trending data which topics are hot and rising, we can then start to program against that data. So, what do you get when you combine hip hop, politics, style, and the economy? Steve Stout’s Tanning Effect – live right now on the Huff Post.
In addition to the work we do every day, looking at trending topics, we’ve recently teamed up with Comscore to dissect what was going on with some of our more popular video categories like food, style, and entertainment. I’m not a big fan of research at 9 am in the morning so I’m going to keep this light. The full findings of the study will be published in about a week or so. Here was the methodology: We took a list of almost 1000 individual videos from the first half of 2011 and identified key attributes for each one. For example, what was the length of the video? Was there a recognizable host? Was there music in the video? Then, we measured video views, completions, and shares for each one Finally, we worked with comScore to apply their interest trace technology to our best performing videos. We tracked exact points of interest within the video to better understand what elements people were responding to. Here’s what we’ve found:
Let’s start with style. We produce a ton of different style videos all around fashion and beauty. From runway reviews, interviews with fashionistas, street style portraits, and beauty basics.
The most-viewed videos were those that showed how to take a trendy look and make it your own—whether on the street or in the salon. Our audience is interested in being fashionable and feeling great about themselves, but like most of us, they like to see how the high-fashion world can be made practical. Not everyone can rock a meat dress and shoes shaped like lobsters to work, but we may want to wear wide-legged pants without looking like a sailor. So “how-to” and “make it your own” videos within style had the highest completion rate. People are not only watching them, but they’re engaged.
Fashion is intensely personal so we found that people who viewed the how-to or make it your own videos were less likely to share them with their friends. Girls can be such bitches! So, if you are a brand who cares about a consumer sharing with friends, stay away from highly personalized how-to videos. The most-shared fashion videos were those that featured a celebrities. Shocker! We are a celebrity obsessed culture. In fact, those videos are 7x more likely to be shared if they have a featured a celebrity Two reasons why this is happening: Fashion and celebrities are communal topics – and our viewers are using these videos as social capital. There is also a sense of authority to celebrity fashionistas. Viewers are more inclined to pass around something from a fashion authority than someone with street style. Brands who are aligned with a celebrity fashionista and can leverage both angles to produce videos that get shared.
Let’s take a look at one of the videos we tested with comScore. This fashion video features a well known celebrity and was one of the highest performing and also most engaging videos we tested. The pulse along the video will show you how engaged or not-engaged our viewers, who were all women, were during the video.
Second, Just like everything else in life, Trust Matters Most of All: As viewers choose videos to watch, It turns out that it all comes down to trust In fact, 72% of viewers say a trusted site is the most influential factor when choosing which online videos to watch. It’s not just about where the video is posted, it’s who it comes from: the #2 reason why people chose to watch a video they did was because it was sent to them by someone they trusted So having a brand that you trust also adds credibility. Remember, we are talking about 48 hours of video every minute – consumers need a way to sort through all of this and trusted sources including brands can help. (source: AOL & MarketSight, Sept 2011).
Let’s switch gears to entertainment. These were videos like interviews with actors, red carpet coverage, breaking celebrity news like Lindsay Lohan going to jail, as well as the exclusive music performances and interviews from AOL studios.
Unlike fashion videos, which were more likely to be shared if they featured celebrities, entertainment videos always contain celebs. With so many beautiful faces and real-time news outlets covering them, how do you create video that is going to be passed along between friends? For entertainment videos, it’s all about the exclusive. Exclusivity is cool--you discovered it and are able to bring it to your friends who may not have seen it before. Videos that were exclusive to the AOL network, like music performances from artists like Adele, filmed in our studio, were 2x more likely to be shared than other entertainment videos. Similarly, interviews with these artists, which we break out into individual videos, were 3x more likely to be shared. So, in the entertainment category, exclusivity matters. Exclusivity, however, costs money. In fact about 2x more than non-exclusive access. If the goal of the content is for people to share it and you want to play in the entertainment space, you will need to pony up for the exclusive. Now go beg your CMO for some money.
Let’s talk about completion rates. Prior to seeing this data, I was one of the people who bought into the notion of: “Time-starved, information overloaded Americans like videos of 2 minutes in length or the are going to fall asleep or die watching!! It MUST BE snack sized!!” While this may be true to on average, it is actually not entirely accurate if you create content for specific audiences and behaviors. In fact, we found that the completion rate was highly dependent on the type of video the audience was watching. It’s true that under two minutes on average were viewed to completion 20% more often than longer videos. But even though 20% more see it, they are garnering so much less information than a 5 minute video. So there is some trade off between completion rates and the amount of information somebody gets. If I’m a brand, I would probably trade off 20% of completion rate for consumers watching more of my content with my brand in it. However, some topics kept viewers watching all the way through, regardless of length of video. Celebrity news, music performances, and music interviews all had the highest completion rates.
Let’s talk about Food our last category. Something we all love, and something our audience loves to watch. So, how do you create food and recipe videos that are engaging?
We took our highest performing food videos which were a mix of branded entertainment and unbranded and just about the food. Among all the videos tested, half of the most engaged with videos were branded. These videos resonated so well with our audience, that their engagement rate was actually 40% higher than comScore’s benchmarks. Let’s take a look at one of these videos, which is a recipe video that featured brand integration. I must warn you, this recipe may not sit well this early in the morning. If you need to turn away, I get it.
Second, Just like everything else in life, Trust Matters Most of All: As viewers choose videos to watch, It turns out that it all comes down to trust In fact, 72% of viewers say a trusted site is the most influential factor when choosing which online videos to watch. It’s not just about where the video is posted, it’s who it comes from: the #2 reason why people chose to watch a video they did was because it was sent to them by someone they trusted So having a brand that you trust also adds credibility. Remember, we are talking about 48 hours of video every minute – consumers need a way to sort through all of this and trusted sources including brands can help. (source: AOL & MarketSight, Sept 2011).
So, the point of showing you a few of the findings from different video categories is that one size does not fit all in terms of creating video. However there are some best practices and trends that we’re seeing that apply across categories.
First of all, It all starts with your goals. Before you start creating video, decide what is most important to you. Determine what kind of engagement you want to get from your audience and build your content around those goals. Some production elements like having a celeb in a fashion video are better for increasing share rates, while others lead to higher completion rates.
Second, Just like everything else in life, Trust Matters Most of All: As viewers choose videos to watch, It turns out that it all comes down to trust In fact, 72% of viewers say a trusted site is the most influential factor when choosing which online videos to watch. It’s not just about where the video is posted, it’s who it comes from: the #2 reason why people chose to watch a video they did was because it was sent to them by someone they trusted So having a brand that you trust also adds credibility. Remember, we are talking about 48 hours of video every minute – consumers need a way to sort through all of this and trusted sources including brands can help. (source: AOL & MarketSight, Sept 2011).
Third, Be Authentic: In every category of video we tested, we saw that authenticity impacted all viewership metrics: The celebrities that tested the best were described as “relatable,” “pleasant,” and “genuine.” How-to and advice videos, especially in some categories such as health and finance, tended to be shared more if they were hosted by a non-celebrity person You don’t necessarily want a celebrity telling you how to manage your 401k.
So What? What does this mean to us at 9:20 in the morning?
It means that we can produce better original video that we are doing today. But to do that, we need data. We need a better understanding our audiences behaviors, motivations, and interests.
Brands are becoming content creators, and that trend is only going to grow as the value of authentic content and compelling original video takes off. With content creation tools now easy to use, brands and eCommerce companies are beginning to tell their story in video. TV is all about mass market and 30 second spots that increasingly getting DVR’d away. This new medium, if it’s done right using data, targeted to specific markets, can be incredibly powerful in spreading your brand message. Brands are becoming teachers and ambassadors of learning. Remember the mash up of hip hop, the economy, politics, and style? State Farm is our ambassador of learning on that series. Couldn’t have produced the show without them. Samsung Home Appliances are is teaching you how to make snacks for your kid’s birthday party. Whole Foods teaches you how to cook. GMC Trucks are teaching you how to install dry wall. Lenovo Laptops are teaching you about space travel.
If your brands can teach us and relate to us, they have a chance to connect with consumers in ways significantly more powerful and at the same time in more intimate ways than ever before. All of us working together can turn that possibility into a reality.
