Illustration of current video marketing trends with the help of social media and video format icons – Levuro

5 Live Video & Social Media Video trends for 2023

Video has become one of the most effective marketing formats, thanks mainly to advancements in internet and cloud storage technologies. Here are the latest video marketing trends for 2023 for all the digital marketers and social media managers out there.

According to a 2022 report by Wyzowl, a person is twice as likely to share video content with friends than any other type of content. As a result, people consume live streams and social media videos in more significant numbers, turning them into trending (and sometimes viral) content.

The live streaming market, as per Bloomberg, will be worth over $4.26 billion by the year 2028 – a staggering 22% annual growth rate from now on. Even in 2018, this study showed that more than half of all the live streams taking place in the world were broadcast via social media. 

The reasons for the popularity of social media as the broadcast medium of choice are quite obvious: 

  1. You don’t need any extra equipment to go live on social media. For most users, their phone camera and the social media channels they already use are enough. On top of that, there are also social media platforms that are dedicated to live streaming, making it a breeze to go live anytime, anywhere.
  2. Social media, due to its interactive nature and widespread usage, acts as the perfect platform to communicate with your followers. No other platform comes even close to offering this level of engagement. According to a research report by Conviva, content that is live-streamed is viewed 27% longer than traditional video content, explaining the current video streaming trends.

The above factors are good enough reasons for people to take up live streaming and keep an eye on all the latest live stream and social media video trends:

1. Short Video Trend

More and more people now have an increasing appetite for shorter videos. “Snackable” is how one can describe these easy to consume videos. They are quickly eating into the market share of traditional TV channels and streaming providers. Short video trend, without a doubt, will dominate in 2023.

A young man enjoying a short video while browsing social media sitting in his apartment – Levuro

A brief look at the short video app TikTok’s numbers proves the above trend. As per Statista, nearly 800 million people watch short videos on Tiktok daily.

Another proof of the short video trend is that platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram have also added the facility to upload short videos on their platforms. Clearly, they all want to make the best use of the short form video trends.

Here’s why short videos are so popular 

Short videos not only save time but also help get the message across in a timely and easy manner. Many people watch these videos while doing other chores like traveling, walking, cooking, and even exercising.

How do you create a Short Video? 

As with everything else, there is stiff competition when everyone wants to become part of the latest trend. If you want to be successful at making full use of the short video trend in 2023, here’s a few things you can do:

1. Produce short videos for social media 

You can create short explainers or promotional videos for your audience on social media. It could be an exciting story about a product you just used, or an explanation of how to do a specific task. Remember, though, that you’ll need all your creative powers to get the message across in a short time. As Goethe once said, «I’m writing you a long letter because I don’t have time to write you a short one». Making shorts can be more challenging than it seems!

2. Create short video clips from live streams 

A great way to create short videos is by trimming your live streams into short clips. These can be the highlights or a recap of the live stream. With Levuro the process of clipping short video is super easy – you can even create clips during the stream thanks to our Live Clipping feature.    

Live clipping in Live Studio

This trend of sharing short highlights of a live stream is gaining momentum. It helps the followers quickly go through the important parts of the stream. For the content creator, it generates more views and engagement, possibly bringing more followers and as a result more viewers for the next live stream. Without a doubt, live streaming and short videos go really well together. 

To get the much-needed competitive edge, it is a good idea to use a professional social media management tool. It can support you and publish short videos with ease while helping you deal seamlessly with things like video size or format requirements for each channel.  

An important feature that your social media management tool should have is the ability to share single clips from your live stream. Levuro generates a shareable link for each short clip that you created from your live stream. You can then easily send that clip to someone. Moreover, Levuro also offers practical workspaces for sharing videos with partners and content creators. 

The right social media tool can help you efficiently create and share content so that you can focus on other things – like reading articles like this one about video marketing trends or creating high-quality content. 

Contact us to try Live Studio for free

2. Livestream on multiple channels (Multistream Trend)

With video streaming trends gaining traction, a popular thing nowadays is live streaming in parallel on multiple social media channels. It’s what we refer to as a “multistream”, “multicasting”, or “simulcasting”. Different words but the same meaning – streaming content to multiple destinations at the same time.

Why stream to multiple platforms?

There are so many social media channels offering live stream capability to make the best use of live video trends. So why limit yourself to just one platform? If you thought it would be hard to handle simultaneous streaming on multiple platforms, think again.

There are now so many apps, such as Levuro’s, that make it possible to restream live streams on multiple social media channels simultaneously. This means you reach your viewers where they are, instead of making them come to your channel of choice. Consequently, you reach a larger audience. 

Illustration depicting one of the biggest livestream trends: multistreaming – sharing a livestream on multiple platforms simultaneously – Levuro.

Are there drawbacks to multistreaming?

Most professional broadcasters tailor their live streams to user preferences. With multiple social media channels, these user preferences can vary from channel to channel. This means the more channels you stream to, the harder it is to meet each audience’s preferences.

3. Vertical Video Trend (9:16) 

There was a time when Snapchat was the trendsetter in vertical photos and videos. As is always the case, other platforms usually catch up to whatever is popular. Today, all major social media platforms are focused on vertical formats. 

Photo showing a young girl sitting on a yellow lounge chair, legs crossed, looking into her smartphone held in front of her face – Levuro

Why vertical Videos? 

With an ever-increasing smartphone usage, it comes as no surprise that most people visit social media platforms on their mobile devices. This was confirmed by a Comsore study as well.

It is quite obvious why the vertical video trend has taken off. No one wants to rotate their smartphones every time they watch a video. And this is backed by studies. According to an AdNews report, a study by Instagram reported that 70% of Millennials don’t bother rotating their phones when watching horizontal videos on their smartphones.

In short, social media platforms conform to the preferences of users, who want mobile-friendly content. The result: vertical video trend

What about square videos? 

Are square videos better than vertical videos on social media? This is an ongoing debate. Square videos have the advantage that they look good not only in feed views (like LinkedIn) but also in full-screen (like Instagram stories). There are no black borders when playing square videos.  

To see if square videos perform better than landscape videos, Buffer ran a series of tests on Facebook and Instagram. The results were startling: square videos performed better than landscape videos on all platforms regarding views, engagement (likes, comments, and shares), and completion rate. In some cases, square videos received 30-35% more views and an 80-100% increase in engagement.  

Here’s how to shoot a vertical video

Before you start shooting your video, consider where the video will be uploaded. While vertical format dominates on most platforms, some sites like Vimeo are viewed mainly in widescreen (16:9).

Sometimes videos need to be posted to multiple social media channels, with each channel having its own format requirements. In such a case, it is recommended to shoot in landscape (16:9). However, the camera person should make the necessary adjustments for the final formats that will be used. In post-production, the desired formats can be achieved by cropping.

One thing to note here is that video quality decreases when you convert a video from landscape to portrait. Lower quality might put off some users, resulting in poorer performance. Therefore, whenever possible, one should try to shoot in the same orientation the video is intended to be used in later.

4. Silent Video Trend

Silent videos are clips that work without sound. Sounds strange, but Digiday reports that about 85% of all Facebook short videos are watched without sound. And as per 3Playmedia, 80% of the viewers who watch videos without sound choose to do so out of personal preference rather than hearing issues. Here is an example of a silent video if you’re curious:

Why are silent videos so popular? 

It is not hard to figure out why silent videos are part of today’s social media video trends. Everyone likes to scroll through their smartphone while at work, at the dentist, on the bus, or while sitting at a café. The last thing you want people to notice is the sound of videos coming from your phone.

How does one create an ideal silent video? 

Video marketers use typography – subtitles and other visual elements – to convey the same information that traditional videos communicate through the soundtrack. Many platforms offer automatic subtitles features: YouTube is a good example. It recognizes the content using speech recognition technology and creates subtitles in different languages, making it accessible to a broader audience. However, one pitfall of this is that the resulting subtitles aren’t always accurate, something video marketers need to be extremely careful about.

Google searches for “video captions” have increased by a whopping 400% in the last 7 years. If one needed concrete evidence to prove silent videos are increasingly becoming a part of social media video trends, this is it.

Graphic showing the growing worldwide interest in the search engine query «video caption» – Levuro

The values on the y-axis indicate the search interest relative to the highest point. The value 100 therefore refers to the highest popularity of this term, with 50 meaning that the term is half as popular.

Why are subtitles important? 

Subtitles aren’t just an easy way to watch a silent video. They’re known to help improve View Through Rates (VTR) as well. According to Tabular, a video’s VTR can increase by 80% if it includes subtitles. For videos that end with a call to action, this is ‘the’ metric that matters.

The increasing popularity of silent videos also has two pleasant side effects:

  • When a video isn’t dependent on the audio, it becomes much easier to translate and expand to new regions and languages. Paradoxically, the lack of audio helps in making the content more accessible. And since people consume more and more content on the go, this accessibility becomes even more important.
  • Subtitles also help search engines recognize the content in the video. This helps in search engine visibility and improves rankings for certain keywords. As more keywords get indexed, your content becomes more discoverable to people. 

5. User Generated Video Trend 

User Generated Content (UGC) has been on the rise lately. Social media platforms figured out a long time ago that content generated by brands didn’t bring as much engagement as content generated by the general public. Clips created by users offer more value in terms of authenticity and aren’t always aimed at selling a product, which makes for pleasant viewing. A prime example of this is unboxing, where the user opens a brand’s product and gives their first impression of it. Here’s an example of the unboxing trend:

So: UGC works! Whether it’s employees showing us what their work day looks like, happy customers sharing their love for a product, or an influencer campaign, the truth is that UGC has become a powerful tool. Due to it being more authentic and engaging, it is also far more likely to convert compared to traditional marketing content. 

Why is UGC content so successful?

One word: Authentic. A person is much more likely to believe another user’s personal experience of a product rather than trust the brand’s own claims. 

Having said that, professionally made videos also have their own place on social media. They set the brand’s tone and drive people’s perception of their products. Once people know what the brand claims, they turn to user-generated content to see if other users found the brand’s claims to be true. 

@washingtonpost

Dave is gone until December 12th! Er, I mean, he’s at his desk if you need him.

♬ original sound – We are a newspaper. – We are a newspaper.

Consumers continue to look for authenticity and transparency from brands. In a study published by Sprout Social, 70% of consumers say they feel more connected to brands whose CEO is active on social media. In 2023, brands need to work on connecting to their audience on a more personal level. Keeping a close eye on the latest video consumption trends is the right place to start.

Marketers are also finding new ways to make their content look more authentic. A Hubspot report on social media trends found that 36% of the marketers surveyed used behind-the-scenes content to look more authentic. They realize the importance of authentic content. 

Takeaways

Videos are the current trend. Funny cat moments, fine recipes, DIY instructions, motivational content, inspiring travel stories, you name it. People are consuming more and more videos daily, forcing marketers to work harder on adjusting their content to the latest video marketing trends.  

In 2023, one can see how silent, vertical videos and authentic content, as well as live videos and multistreams will rule the social media space.

We have the following tips for social media and digital marketing managers who already have some experience with live streams:

  • Increase the efficiency of the content production team to leverage your content. Make the best use of your content during and after the event. 
  • Produce more vertical (9:16) content from your live streams and streamline the process.
  • Distribute your live stream to multiple platforms (multistream) – publish content to different social media channels while adjusting to their specific video formats.  

Levuro, the professional social media management app with live stream features: improves your work efficiency in a sustainable manner. Test the free version today and see how it boosts your workflow. 

Contact us to try Live Studio for free

 

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