Twitter Sees 220X Growth in Video Views in Past Year: Video
Troy Dreier: Hi everyone, this is Troy Dreier coming to you from Streaming Media East 2016. I'm having brief conversations with some of the thought leaders of our industry. I'm joined now by Nina Mishkin, content strategist at Twitter. Thank you for being here.
Nina Mishkin: Thank you for having me.
Troy Dreier: Everyone please tweet this video because we're going to be talking about Twitter, and what video has meant to it. Video hasn't always been a part of Twitter, ...
Nina Mishkin: No, it hasn't.
Troy Dreier: ... but it's been a major part of it in recent days.
Nina Mishkin: Yeah, especially over the past 12 months. We've actually seen 220 times growth in our video views over the past year. A lot of that's just about the way consumption patterns have changed. There's so much video content out there. That's what consumers are really looking for. This shift to mobile, it's happened. People talk about the shift happening. It's already happened. We're a mobile first platform. There's a lot of consumption on our platform. Our product suite is innovating more than ever before. We've actually launched 10 video-focused products in the past year. A ton of innovation happening around the video space, knowing that that's where consumer habits are moving and shifting.
Troy Dreier: When I think of Twitter and video, it seems like brands are playing a large part in it, using that to get their message out.
Nina Mishkin: They are, yeah. Video has always been the DNA of brand videos, and the contents, and the advertising that they've put out, but what we're thinking about is how do you take video content that was made for TV, or made for other platforms, and start to adapt it so it really does well on that mobile first environment. We talk a lot about earning attention, and ways that you can do that, so how do you create stopping power in the feed to make sure that your content really jumps off the screen as people are going through their timeline, getting them to stop and engage? When I work with brands that is a lot of the conversations we have with them. What we're seeing from consumers is just a huge level of consumption, and then playing around with a lot of our video products like Periscope, and our new live-streaming capabilities. How can consumers integrate that into their daily lives? Lots of new innovation there.
Troy Dreier: Do you have best practices that you offer brands? How they can get their videos out there?
Nina Mishkin: We do. We talk a lot. I mentioned create stopping power. There's 3 ways we recommend brands do that. It's all about making sure there's a hook in your content, something that's going to get people to stop, and care, as they're thumbing through their timeline. The second is if you have people featured, make sure they are fun, and prominent. People like to have that emotional connection and human connection with others. Then finally, branding. A lot of brands will often sneak their brand in at the end. You want to make sure that it's front and center, so that you're driving impact on all the brand metrics that marketers really care about.
Troy Dreier: Are there re-purposed videos that work well on Twitter, or should things be custom made.
Nina Mishkin: No, absolutely. We recommend something called "sweat your assets," which is a fun idea of saying that you have a ton of content, repurpose it, use it, run it on our platform, and distribute it. That content does incredibly well. I showed an example in my talk of a Samsung mobile ad, the one where Lil Wayne is pouring champagne on his phone. That did incredibly well on Twitter. It ran on TV, and it ran on other platforms, but that's the kind of content that gets people to stop and engage because it's fun, it's interesting, it captures your attention with this action of champagne on a phone. So really successful. Those kind of keys are all about getting people to really care so that they want to share the content.
Troy Dreier: Awesome. That's what it's all about.
Nina Mishkin: Exactly.
Troy Dreier: Thank you so much for joining me, Nina.
Nina Mishkin: Thank you for having me.
Troy Dreier: This is Troy Dreier coming to you from Streaming Media East.
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