This just in: Video is exploding on social media channels?

Have you heard?

Yep–video is big business in the social media world these days. Just ask anyone. That news has been plastered all over the web the last couple months in all sorts of trend posts. We all know video is going to increase in importance and relevance across social channels in the year ahead. That’s not the trend.

The real trend, as I see it, is the increased scrutiny all this video production and sharing is going to bring to social video metrics.

Because, let’s just be honest: Social video metrics aren’t very strong right now.

Take Facebook, for example.

Video is a huge content format on Facebook right now. Just take a peek at this chart:

Social video views are skyrocketing! This slide told me so!

But, that’s the problem. Yeah, “views” are exploding. But, what IS a view, really? What constitutes a “view?”

As many know by know, Facebook counts a “view” as anyone who’s viewed the video for 3 seconds.

Which is about the length of time it takes to watch the intro slide most brands include in their videos.

Translation: Most of your customers are only seeing the equivalent to the headline on any given video.

And, try to dive deeper into Facebook stats and you don’t find much that’s better. The standard metrics Facebook gives you on any given video are:

• Minutes viewed
• Video views (mentioned above; very fluffy at best)
• 10-second views (probably the best metric of the bunch)
• Video average watch time (also somewhat helpful in determining drop-off points)

And, keep in mind, this is from the platform that is widely considered one of the better platforms when it comes to metrics!

So, essentially, the best metric Facebook is giving brands when it comes to video performance is how many people are watching your video for 10 seconds.

That’s not good enough, folks.

And, I think you’ll hear a lot of CMOs, directors and VPs saying exactly that in 2018.

Time will tell, I guess.