Report: 67% of US marketers have paid to promote video on Facebook in past year

Video is making a serious dent in marketing spend and conversion, especially when it comes to social video.

Two-thirds of US marketers have spent money to promote videos on Facebook in the last year, according to a new report from Animoto, “The State of Social Video 2017: Marketing in a Video-First World.” The company surveyed 1,000 consumers and 500 marketers who work at companies that have produced at least two videos in the previous year to discover how marketers are using video on social networks and how the public is consuming them.

Of course, it’s not just Facebook getting marketers’ ad spend on social video. According to Animoto’s survey, 51 percent said they spend to promote videos on YouTube. That’s followed by Twitter and Instagram, both of which are used by 25 percent of survey respondents.

And going forward, each network should see increased spending on video; more than half of the survey respondents said they plan to increase their investment in video.

Marketers also say that Facebook videos drive more views, engagement and purchases than videos on any other social network; YouTube is, however, a close second.

On the consumer side, 64 percent of US adults said they’ve bought a product after watching a marketing video on Facebook in the past month.

Social = Mobile

It’s not just desktop users who are making this shift to video, the report states. With 1.74 billion monthly mobile users just on Facebook, there’s plenty of video to go around on mobile devices, too.

The survey reports that 84 percent of consumers watch social video content on their mobile devices, and 81 percent of marketers optimize social videos for mobile (which includes captions). And 39 percent of marketers said they create videos in the square or vertical formats, which are more mobile-friendly.