Have you noticed that Facebook and Instagram posts with videos generally have more views than those with static images?
Creating videos is easy with smartphones and many now have in-built editing facilities. No longer does one have to upload videos to YouTube before sharing them (although it's still a good medium). Facebook and Instagram take direct uploads of your video content.
For example, a UK client set up an Instagram account at the end of 2018 and each post received up to 15 likes. The medium was used infrequently and their first video was posted a couple of years later, which has been played 173 times, to date.
Their next few posts (images) still didn't break the 15 likes barrier so another video was added in March 2021. It was very short, created with their social media tools and, to be honest, quite irritating (if only Instagram would facilitate post-editing) but it has, to date, peen played 271 times.
The next post - a lovely photograph - managed 13 likes followed by the next video - a very good one - which achieved 304 plays.
- Two more posts (each had fewer that 15 likes) and another video with 155 views;
- Fourteen posts (each had fewer that 15 likes) and another video with 100 views;
- Four posts (each had fewer that 15 likes) and another video with 78 views;
- Four posts (each had fewer that 15 likes) and another video with 104 views...
... and so on, clearly illustrating that videos are better than images for Instagram.
Their Facebook statistics are slightly skewed because there are paid 'boosts' on some posts. That said, posts often reach 500 people, recently a post reached over 1,000 views with a boost and, over the Christmas season, another post had over 7,000 views.
Of course, views and likes are not the same thing but there was also an increase in website traffic. Visitors via Social Media rose from under 30 a day at the end of last year to almost 100 a day during January, dropping down to an average of 55 so far during February. Most visitors originate via Search Engines, of course.
Finally, YouTube is not dead. The client featured below has had over 70,000 views of their videos.
