Refresh video or lose visitors, study finds
Magazine media publishers failing to update their video content risk damaging their brands and losing visitors, a study has found.
The 2012 Video Engagement Study, undertaken by technology company Videobuilder, shows publishers failing to provide a steady turnover of fresh video content for readers to engage with are seeing declining viewers. Publishers who failed to update their video at all over the six months the study was conducted lost almost all of their viewers completely.
The study also showed publishers regularly refreshing their video content or making even small updates to it at least every two weeks, see both increasing viewing figures and lengthening stays on their sites, increasing the value of their media space. Publishers refreshing their content every two weeks typically saw a 20 per cent increase month on month in viewing figures, rising further if social media was employed to tell readers new content was available to view.
In almost all cases, it was publishers using curated third party video content that benefitted from the most engaged readers, mainly because they can afford to refresh their content more regularly. Publishers relying mainly on self-produced video content typically produce it less often, refresh it less often, and consequently see a steadying decline in engagement, the study found.
“If a publisher issued the same edition of their magazine every month, they’d quickly lose all of their readers. Old content makes newspapers and magazines look unloved, and it’s not surprising readers are going elsewhere and abandoning magazines or newspapers failing to provide them with fresh content”, said Andrew Petherick, business development director at Videobuilder.
“YouTube’s head of global partnerships predicted that by 2014, 90 per cent of all internet traffic will be video; Cisco independently predicted the same. Publishers ignoring this are taking a massive risk with their businesses. While it’s unrealistic to think they can produce video content in the sorts of volumes that readers are now, and will be, demanding, video curation is a quick, efficient and extremely cost effective way for publishers to reap the benefits that video has to offer”, he continued.
The report was compiled after studying exported Videobuilder analytics from 200 UK and US based B2B and B2C magazines between 15 June-15 November 1012.
The study also showed that the optimum length for video content differed between consumer and business viewers, with consumer viewers willing to spend almost twice as long watching content as their business counterparts.
