The emergence of real-time video on social media

Amplification has been a big word in social media for over a year now and Twitter’s Amplify product allows advertisers and broadcasters to push photos and video through Twitter Cards.

Facebook has reduced the reach of organic posts from companies and is consequently providing a clearer proposition to advertisers, particular with some of its mobile and location-based products.

Grabyo is a UK company that provides a video platform working with Twitter (through Twitter Amplify) and Facebook to allow sharing of real-time video clips on social media.

In a new report, the company has analysed 2,500 clips of live TV shared on social by major broadcasters and rights holders between September 2013 and March 2014.

Here are some of the findings.

By Ben Davis May 12th 2014 11:10

Mobile and sharpish!

Mobile devices account for 72% of real-time video plays through social. This is interesting as the mobile use of Twitter is thought to be around 85%.

Perhaps the mobile plays of real-time video clips is reduced in proportion because of heavier Facebook use on desktop (currently more than 30%), or possibly there are mobile users reluctant to play video in-stream and use their network data allowance.

The figure above shows the volume of plays each minute after the clips are shared across Twitter and Facebook. The traffic is split between web and mobile.

It shows how quickly there is an appetite for video on social at the time of a live broadcast event. The peak of video views seems to be five minutes after share. Given most of these clips are almost live, this means social users want to be able to watch again very shortly after something has happened.

This is unsurprising, given the culture already developed through YouTube of users uploading clips from sports and other events only minutes after they have happened. Of course, a lot of these clips are against copyright and are removed.

There’s clearly an appetite for instant and on-demand replays, and this has been exploited by Grabyo, who have provided European Cup goals on Twitter for Sky Sports and Brit Awards clips for VO5 amongst others.

The data displayed in the chart above shows:

41% of clip plays during the first hour occur within the first 10 minutes.
65% of clip plays during the first hour occur in the first 20 minutes.
Furthermore, 46% of clip plays during the first 12 hours occur within 20 minutes.

Clearly the appetite for these clips needs to be quickly sated.

Device breakdown

The device breakdown for real-time video plays on social shows iOS is dominant.

A previous study from FreeWheel shows that Apple dominates mobile video with 60% of views, a figure far higher than its market share.

Appetite from the morning onwards

This chart of clip views across the day indicates a high level of social engagement in real-time video during prime time TV hours, as one would expect.

However, the data also shows an unusually high engagement with real-time durin the day, when engagement on social is traditionally low.

Analysis revealed 63% of clip plays are outside of prime time TV hours. The most engaged with clips were also shared outside of prime time hours hinting that perhaps TV viewing habits during the day are changing, possibly at the expense of social content.

You can access the Grabyo report here.

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