Video

Facebook wants Live Video to be the future, paying close to $50mn to celebrities and publishers to create live video and prioritizing it in their newsfeed algorithm. While Facebook may be making the most headlines right now, it’s not the only company putting the spotlight  on live video. In the last year Meerkat (now pivoted), Periscope (now owned by Twitter), YouNow and most recently YouTube and tumblr launched live streaming.

So, why is Facebook prioritizing streaming video? Because it “is looking to compete for television advertising... [and] is anxious about the future. People are sharing less about themselves, which slows Facebook’s growth and cuts at the heart of its most profitable product, the News Feed…[this] is one attempt to solve that problem.” 

Live streaming may very well be a Facebook driven play for revenue and relevance, and not necessarily a question of demand. For instance, this recent Reuters study reports that over 3/4ths of people rely on text for their news, finding it faster and more convenient than video. What’s more, these findings apply to video at large -- not just live video; a majority of people prefer text to any type of video when getting their news.

Here, we look at different video formats:

Stop trying to "go viral"

Re/Code published an article by SocialBakers CEO Jan Rezab titled "stop trying to go viral". Simply, it says focus less on virality and more on shareability. That "the attention that virality brings goes just as fast as it comes." As per the below image:

I agree with the sentiment, but for different reasons. Virality is by its nature about shareability. It is about appealing to a segment of the population, and reaching a vast proportion of that group.

Yet, if you don't have the content that appeals to that group on an ongoing basis, why should they continue to return to the site? Why should they give you their attention? 

Consumers, I expect, are suffering from viral fatigue right now. They are presented with pieces that appeal to large crowds, or pieces presented as doing so.

4x the engagement of his normal posts... It almost "went viral" itself.

I imagine this anger would not be the case if the offending organisation did more to capture attention and interest beyond that viral single post.

Virality is not the answer. Shareability is not the answer. Retaining attention and maintaining engagement is what media companies and brands need to be focusing on.