Online Video: Bringing Social Media to Life

Explore the growth of video media online and learn how to turn it to your advantage

Contents
Executive Summary An update on online trends in the UK A quick introduction to this paper The latest updates on the online landscape If the Internet was just 1 hour What are the most popular online video sites? How do people use online video websites? How often do people visit video websites? Who visits online video websites? Online video case studies How brands can use online video to improve their digital marketing strategy Conclusion Capitalising on online video 3 4 4 4 6 7 8 10 12 13 13 16 16

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Executive Summary
Between September 2010 and September 2011 UK Internet visits to online video sites grew by 36%. In September 2011 there were over 785 million visits to video sites from the UK Internet population, accounting for over 4% of all Internet visits. 86% of the UK Internet population visit a video site at least once a month. The average Internet user will make 18 visits a month to video sites, with nearly half of the population visiting at least three different video sites in a month. 3.4 billion hours a month are spent online by British Internet users, of which 800 million hours are spent on social networks and forums. 240 million hours are spent watching online video content, of which 184 million hours are spent on YouTube. The average visit time to YouTube in September 2011 was 20 minutes. YouTube is the most popular video website, accounting for nearly 70% of all visits to video websites from the UK Internet population. YouTube is now the third biggest website in the UK after Google and Facebook, and has 48 hours of content uploaded to it every minute worldwide 1. The biggest driver of traffic to video websites is music content, which accounts for a third of all searches sending traffic to video websites. 17% of search clicks are for TV content, thanks to the increasing popularity of video on demand websites such as BBC iPlayer. Film (11%), Gaming (10%) and News (9%) are the next biggest drivers of traffic to video sites. Online video can be employed effectively to build brand awareness, to bring more traffic to your website, as an educational tool to demonstrate a product or service, as a customer service and PR channel, or as a way to attract a completely new audience to your website. Yeo Valley trebled traffic to its website through innovative and effective multichannel advertising campaigns which also attracted a younger, affluent audience to the brand from the Liberal Opinions Mosaic group.

86% of the UK Internet population visit a video site at least once a month

YouTube blog http://hitw.se/nLcNcr

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An update on online trends in the UK

A quick introduction to this paper Experian Hitwise provides insight into the digital world by analysing the online trends and behaviours exhibited by the Internet population. In October 2010 we wrote Getting to Grips with Social Media, an introductory overview of the social media landscape. This was then followed with a second paper, Carpe Diem: Seizing the Moment in Social Media, which expanded on the analysis of the first paper and showed examples of how brands had effectively incorporated social into their wider digital strategy. This paper focuses on online video, a slight sidestep from social media but still a massive growth trend within the industry. As YouTube is the second biggest social network in the UK and the biggest online video website, it made sense to write about how the growth of video media online is having an impact not just in social but on the Internet as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to online video, to describe the growth of the industry over the last few years, and to show how companies can use video successfully as a core part of their digital strategy.

The latest updates on the online landscape In the last three years the biggest growth sectors online have been in social media, entertainment and news. The unifying theme between these three categories is content. British Internet users are voracious consumers of content, and in particular online video content is expanding massively across these three categories, with 785 million visits to video sites every month. Since September 2008, UK Internet visits to video websites have increased by 80% with significant growth in both professional video and user-generated content. Social media continues its extraordinary growth trajectory and remains one of the fastest growing sectors online in 2011. When writing Seizing the Moment in Social Media we predicted that social media would grow by 10% in 2011 and so far this prediction is on track, with year-on-year visits to the Experian Hitwise Social Networks and Forums category increasing by 11% between September 2010 and September 2011. In the last three years social media has grown by 35% and now accounts for nearly 13% of all UK Internet visits according to the September 2011 figures.

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However, social media is no longer the biggest category online in terms of UK Internet visits. Entertainment has witnessed 14% year-on-year growth and has reclaimed first place as the most visited category online, accounting for just under 14% of all UK Internet visits in September 2011.

Growth in the Entertainment category (and to a certain extent social networks) has been driven by online video, with UK Internet visits to video websites up by 36% yearon-year. The rise of YouTube and video on demand services like BBC iPlayer have put social media and entertainment firmly ahead of the search, retail and business sectors of online, in terms of Internet visits.

Entertainment has grown 14% year-on-year and reclaimed its place as the most visited category online

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If the Internet was just 1 hour Although entertainment websites attract the most visits online, user engagement is still strongest within social media websites. The Experian Hitwise data allows us to see not only where the UK Internet population are visiting online, but also how long people spend on a given website. Combining this visit data with the average visit session time, we can see the most popular categories by time spent online. In August 2011 there were 3.4 billion hours spent online by the UK Internet population, but if we distilled all usage into a single hour, this is how it would look.

The biggest proportion of time spent on a single category is on social media. In total there were 800 million hours spent on social sites in August, which translates to 14 minutes of our Internet Hour - almost a quarter of all time spent online. YouTube is the second biggest social network in the UK and accounted for 184 million of those 800 million hours spent on social sites. Entertainment is the next biggest category, accounting for 9 minutes of our Internet Hour, with video again driving a lot of the engagement through websites like BBC iPlayer, Daily Motion, Blinkx and Mega Video.

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What are the most popular online video sites? Online video is dominated by two websites: YouTube and BBC iPlayer. Together these two websites account for 80% of all Internet visits to a video site in the UK. YouTube alone accounts for almost 70% of all video visits, which has secured its place as the third most visited website in the UK behind Google and Facebook. As the UKs most popular video on demand site, BBC iPlayer has witnessed strong growth this year with a 22% rise in traffic from UK Internet users between September 2010 and September 2011 and a doubling of visits in the last three years. YouTube had its biggest ever month of traffic in September 2011, accounting for over 3% of all UK Internet visits. YouTube now accounts for 1 in every 35 UK Internet visits and has been the fastest moving social network of 2011. YouTube announced in May 2011 that 48 hours of content is uploaded to the website globally every minute. A big part of YouTubes success is thanks to the uptake of video content consumed on mobile devices. Since January 2010 UK Internet visits to YouTube mobile have quadrupled, with a doubling of visits in 2011 alone. Now 1 in 20 YouTube visits comes from a mobile device used on a home WiFi network and this doesnt even take into account the millions of videos watched each month using the 3G networks. Factoring in the visits from mobile devices using 3G connections, we estimate that smartphones and tablets account for approximately 1 in 10 visits to YouTube; a significant figure considering the huge volume of videos watched on YouTube and the relatively short time that smartphones and tablets have been in mainstream use in the UK. Whilst the majority of traffic within online video is tied to YouTube and iPlayer, Experian Hitwise monitors visits to thousands of online video websites, some of which have experienced extraordinary growth in the last 12 months.

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How do people use online video websites? People are drawn to online video websites for different reasons. From the latest film trailers to a demonstration on how to cook beetroot, the variety of content which drives people to online video sites is vast. The diagram below looks at what search topics sent traffic to online video websites during June 2011.

The biggest driver of traffic to video sites is music, with 33% of all search clicks coming from a music search term. Lady Gaga was the most searched for artist within music, accounting for 1% of all video searches alone. TV is the next biggest driver, with catch-up TV of shows like Britains Got Talent and streaming of shows like South Park high on the agenda. Eastenders was the most searched for programme, accounting for 1% of total video searches. Film accounted for 11% of searches, with the majority of search terms looking for trailers of the latest movies. Almost as popular as film trailer searches were video game trailer searches, which indicate how the games industry is evolving to become more like the film industry. Game launches are becoming more and more like film premieres; with companies dedicating huge budgets to advertising and teaser trailers to generate interest in future games. There was also a high propensity in gaming searches to look for walkthroughs, with 4.4% of all gaming search terms including the word walkthrough. Topical news items accounted for 9% of video search, whereas 5% of searches were for sporting clips. Another 5% of searches were for viral videos, the most popular during the period of the analysis being Rebecca Black with her pop video Friday. Finally, 9% of searches were for Other videos, which included: product

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demonstrations, educational videos and all other requests. The interesting thing to emerge from the Other category was just how many videos were requested around how to search terms. 3% of all video search terms included the words how to making up nearly a third of the Other category. The word cloud below illuminates just how varied some of the how to searches were, with everything from how to tie a tie to how to fix a radiator.

Music is the biggest driver of traffic to video sites with 33% of all search clicks

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How often do people visit video websites? 4% of all UK Internet visits in September 2011 went to a video website, making online video more popular than both the Travel and Sports categories. Whilst viewing video content online might have been an activity of the elite early adopters a few years ago, the transition of video from niche to mainstream media now means that 86% of the UK online population visits a video website at least once per month. The average Internet user makes 18 visits to video websites per month. The frequency and diversity of visits to video sites is quite surprising. Given the dominance of YouTube and iPlayer within the video category, there is a very high proportion (46%) of people who visit 3 or more video websites a month. The cumulative frequency bubble diagram below shows how users consume video content across multiple video sites; 21% of Internet users watch content on at least five different video websites.

Cumulative frequency of visits to online video websites

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Looking at the breakdown of frequency figures by the number of domains visited, you can see that the highest proportion of people will only visit one video website a month. 21% of people online in the UK visit just one video website, whereas 18% visit two websites a month. As the number of domains increases, the proportion of people visiting multiple websites decreases. Having said that, nearly 1% of the entire UK Internet population visit 10 video domains a month, and 2.16% visit 11 or more domains.

The average Internet user makes 18 visits to video websites a month

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Who visits online video websites? Online video clearly has a wide appeal, but the consumption of video content is not universal across all groups online. Using Experians in house segmentation system Mosaic, it is possible to profile the demographics of Internet users that visit video websites and identify those groups which are more or less likely to visit these websites. There are 15 Mosaic groups, each with their own preferences and characteristics. The spider diagram below illustrates the propensity of those Mosaic groups to visit an online video site. Mosaic Demographics of Online Video Sites

The blue line on the diagram indicates an Index average of 100, whereas the red line shows where the 15 Mosaic groups benchmark against the online average. Three groups emerge as prolific consumers of video content online: Upper Floor Living, Terraced Melting Pot and Liberal Opinions. These groups are typified by young, mostly single or newlywed couples on moderate incomes living in urban areas. People in the Upper Floor Living group in particular are 20% more likely than the online average to visit a video website. As you might expect, the more mature age groups in Active Retirement and Elderly Needs are less likely to watch video online.

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Online video case studies

How brands can use online video to improve their digital marketing strategy How can brands maximise the potential of online video? A lot of this will depend on the overall digital strategy of the brand in question. Online video is such a diverse and rapidly growing media that it can be used to build brand awareness, to bring more traffic to your website, as an educational tool to demonstrate a product or service, as a customer service and PR channel, or as a way to attract a completely new audience to your website. Patrick Doyle, President of Dominos USA used YouTube in April 2009 as a way to communicate with Dominos customers in a time of crisis, after two employees posted a hoax video depicting them supposedly soiling pizzas with bodily fluids. The prompt response from Dominos in immediately firing the two employees, but also in recording an apology to be distributed on YouTube and other online video channels helped to turn around a highly volatile and negative situation and reassured customers that every possible action was being taken by the company to ensure this never happened again.

British Airways has similarly used YouTube to diffuse situations when crew members have gone on strike and when snow has disrupted travel, to reassure customers that they were taking action to resolve issues as quickly as possible. Increasingly, online video is being used as a channel to blend online and offline advertising by repurposing TV advertising content online. Distributing video content online has the effect of extending the reach of existing TV campaigns. In May 2010, office supplies chain Viking Direct increased its online traffic six-fold by hosting its video advert on YouTube.

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At the peak of traffic Viking Direct was receiving nearly four times as much traffic as Staples, its closest competitor, demonstrating how powerful even a modest foray into online video can be on Internet visits. In July 2010 Old Spice had phenomenal success with its Smell Like A Man campaign, which received over 22 million views on YouTube. At the peak of the campaign 10% of all traffic being delivered to the Old Spice website was coming from YouTube, and Old Spice witnessed a five-fold year-on-year growth in UK Internet visits. The advert became so popular that it spawned numerous online parodies including a Sesame Street sketch Smell Like A Monster, which itself received over 8 million views on YouTube.

Organic dairy producer Yeo Valley took quite a different approach with its online video. The companys Yeo Valley Rap was a slick and amusing advert which was quite unlike previous advertising campaigns, and clearly aimed at targeting a different audience than the traditional organic produce consumer. The advert first aired during one of the commercial breaks of the X-Factor on Saturday 9 October 2010, highlighting the companys desire to tap into a mainstream audience. The advert was also released online which resulted in visits to the Yeo Valley website trebling that week. Of all of the searches online for yeo valley advert during the week ending 16 October, nearly 50% of clicks went to YouTube in order to watch the advert. However, people were clearly clicking through to the Yeo Valley website after watching the advert, and the Mosaic audience visiting the website changed quite dramatically.

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Yeo Valley typically appeals to an older, more affluent audience and therefore overindexes for the Mosaic types Alpha Territory, Professional Rewards and Active Retirement people who can afford a premium brand in their food shopping, but also care about the provenance of their products and therefore buy organic produce. When the first advert went out in October 2010, Yeo Valley started to attract a lot more visits from Internet users in the Liberal Opinions and the Rural Solitude groups. Visits from Liberal Opinions doubled between July 2010 and October 2010. This group is a much younger and trendier group than the typical Yeo Valley visitor, but crucially still retains the disposable income to be able to afford the product. Rural Solitude is a group which identifies with the countryside and also are likely to care about the quality of their food.

You can see from the bar chart above that in July 2011, after the hype of the advert had died down, the percentage of visits from these two Mosaic groups dipped, but were still higher than the previous year. This would indicate that Yeo Valley had managed to retain some of this younger audience. When the second Yeo Valley boy band advert, The Churned, was released in October 2011, visits to the Yeo Valley website hit an all time peak, trebling from the previous week. Taking into account the total amount of traffic going to the Yeo Valley website, YouTube channel and Facebook page, 55% of visits went to the main website, whereas 45% went to the social brand pages. Once again, Yeo Valley attracted more support during the running of this advert from the Liberal Opinions group (12% of total visits) reinforcing the new brand image for the company.

Following the second Yeo Valley campaign 45% of all visits went to their social media brand pages
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Conclusion
Capitalising on online video Online video is a rapidly evolving medium and, as the amount of time that people spend online increases, video represents a great channel to deliver interesting content to a target audience. Social media and entertainment are the two biggest categories online and continue to grow in terms of online market share. By ignoring these channels, brands risk missing out on huge sources of Internet traffic. YouTube is now the third biggest source of traffic for all websites in the UK, accounting for 2% of all upstream visits to all categories. People are drawn to online video sites for all kinds of content, predominantly entertainment, with music, TV, film and gaming being the most popular topics driving traffic to video websites. However there is an extraordinary variety of content being searched for as witnessed by the volume of searches around how to videos. Video represents a huge opportunity for brands to drive more traffic to their websites, to educate consumers or to attract new customers. Some brands have already realised the potential of online video and have used it to increase their website traffic, but the potential remains to exploit this growing channel more. The key, as with most things online is investing in innovative content that will inspire users to click through to your site.

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