Online Video: The Next Social Media Frontier?

I work in online video and spend a good amount of time reading and talking about social media. Lately, however, I’ve starting getting a little frustrated with what I have been seeing in the space. As I watch social media completely transform a variety of industries, online video is continuously left off the playing field. Video is still mostly being looked at as a static side-note at a time when it should be front and center in social media strategy. What gives?

It’s not breaking news that we are in the middle of a paradigm shift in the way we communicate. We have gone from a culture of anonymity to a culture of over-sharing. It is now the norm for the average Joe to use technology to share thoughts, activities and statements that were traditionally kept under wraps. And whether you were begrudgingly peer-pressured into social media or went willingly, you are here and want to be heard. You don’t post a video on YouTube or write on someone’s wall on Facebook to read your own comments – you write, record and post for others to read, react and respond. You want to be followed and recognized. And not just from friends, but from your community, local politicians, supermarket, car company, etc.

In response, advertising, marketing and media are being swiftly overhauled in favor of a model that reaches consumers and users on a more conversational level. We are seeing ad agencies spending less on talking at customers (traditional marketing), and more on talking with them (social marketing). There are tons of creative campaigns coming out daily,  but with a couple exceptions, I can’t shake the feeling that video is not being seen as an integral part of the social media revolution.

At first glance, online video appears to be stuck in a model that resembles the ethos of the aforementioned “traditional marketing”. The majority of company websites’ use of video consists of a couple embedded YouTube clips and the occasional “video” tab in the site navigation linking to a dedicated video page. The videos on these sites tend mostly to be produced in house and can be counted on one hand. They can provide entertainment and information, but offer very little in the way of community interaction beyond outdated sharing and commenting features. (A few generalizations never hurt.)

It is clearly not enough. With a proliferation of video shooting devices (Most mobile phones, Flip Cams, Nanos), brands have to start using video as an interactive tool – to talk with customers, not at them. How? Encourage user uploads (why doesn’t your site offer a video submission option?) and harness user generated content that is out there (people have uploaded good stuff about your brand or related to your product that can be used, so use it). Facilitate a conversation with customers or users that is video based and respond to video posts as you would to tweets or blog posts. Live stream important announcements. Move away from thinking of video as a piece of segregated entertainment to a tool to talk to your customers and promote your brand.

Video will continue to grow exponentially and become an even bigger part of the social media eco-system and if we don’t start moving away from the static “here’s your video, watch it and like it” model towards a more interactive and social media friendly model, we are going to shoot ourselves in the foot. We are at a crucial time where brands and companies can actually mold the conversation of the next major social media frontier as opposed to running to catch up to it.