Mobile devices have greatly changed the way people communicate, interact and purchase the things consumers need on a daily basis. For this reason, it’s important for business owners to use the most effective tactics in trying to reach and persuade mobile consumers. While it’s no surprise that videos are important to mobile marketing, a new report shows how important optimizing video content is for mobile users.
Getting the optimization correct for online video is important. Just as you wouldn’t show a video that had good quality in 2002 for an ad in 2017 because of the huge change in quality standards, marketers need to ensure that the videos they show on mobile devices look correct on the devices people are now using to watch the videos. According to new research from Mighteor, most (77 percent) of those watching mobile video have stopped viewing if the content ‘didn’t look good’ on their mobile device.
Most adult consumers grew up with videos that were shown horizontally. That’s how movies are shown and even televisions were horizontally oriented. But in an age of handheld mobile devices, more people are getting accustomed to watching content in a vertical format. Data from the recently released Mighteor 2017 Survey on Mobile Video Viewing shows that vertical videos are becoming more prevalent.
A 2016 internet trends survey by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers found that 90 percent of smartphone users hold their phones vertically. Mighteor’s research suggests that many consumers aren’t flipping their phones to watch a video in a traditional horizontal way. According to Mighteor’s survey results, 58 percent of all respondents had seen a video in the last 30 days that was vertical in format. Vertical video viewing increases as age decreases. In Mighteor’s survey, three out of four (74.9 percent) of millennials had recently seen a video in a vertical format.
Besides the results showing that most (72 percent) consumers say they are now watching content with phones in the vertical positioning, another thing worth mentioning is that about 20 percent of consumers are watching videos silently rather than using headphones to listen to the content.
Some other things of note from the study include that fact that 20 percent of Millennials viewers prefer content between 5-15 minutes in length. A large majority of consumers (85 percent) are watching via apps rather than mobile browser windows.
“Call it the Facebook effect or Snapchat syndrome – mobile devices are changing viewers’ expectations for media consumption. It’s time to shed our perception of what media looks like and embrace non-traditional formats, which are increasingly appealing to viewers,” said Elizabeth Giorgi, Director & CEO of Mighteor, according to media reports.
These results highlight the importance of using multiple videos styles so content can be tailored toward the method being used to watch the video. Videos that will feature heavily on mobile should consider creating vertical variants that can be appealing to consumers who are holding their phone vertically.
For more recent research that can help business owners create better mobile marketing campaigns, read this article on the effects of user generated content on consumer opinion.