NOT US – Social Video is Profitable, Entertaining, Changing

Source – “I am Legend,” Warner Bros

“He had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate… literally cure it, by injecting music and love into people’s lives.” – Neville, “I am Legend,” Warner Bros, 2007

We’re not taking sides as to whether social media is good or bad. We can take it or leave it … mostly leave it.

And, unfortunately, we don’t live in a utopian world … yet.

But if AI is going to be our copilot, the trip will be rough for a long, long, long time.

However, the US surgeon general “discovered” a while back that social media can really s***w up people’s mental health – especially Millennials and GenZers who a lot of folks are hoping will fix everything we broke. He even suggested that the government should make it a law that every site/app should have a tobacco–style warning on it front/center.

Back in 2022, the EU established the DSA (Digital Services Act) that said all online intermediaries and platforms needed to ensure user safety, protect fundamental rights, create a fair/open online platform environment and place citizens at the center.

If you do something that violates the act in Europe, you get slapped with a huge fine –– $1.5B euros – and told …fix it.

O.K., they’re a little “rigid” on stuff, especially since social media is neither good nor bad depending on how much you use/rely on it and if you simply view it or get sucked in.

DSA is at its very foundation simply a set of rules that are set to make it safe for people to go online and not be hit with illegal or negative stuff while protecting people’s privacy and free speech.

The problem is that would probably cut out 30–40 percent of the content and put a big dent in the services’ data capture work.

Guidelines – The EU established clear rules for social media to “serve” users in their countries. Violate the “guidelines” and suffer the consequences while the US government bodies try to figure out what is going on.

In the US, they get invited to Washington D.C. and are asked to explain what’s going on and how they make so d**n much money. That’s about it.

Social media has been a thing since the early 1990s when Six Degrees was introduced to give folks a place where they could go to read something written by someone else.

Others like MySpace, LinkedIn and Photobucket started popping up like weeds, giving people an opportunity to show off their “wisdom, wit, brilliance” and made it possible for everyone to share everything with everyone everywhere.

Alone Together – Social media services have been very effective in marketing their products to people around the globe, especially to the younger crowd. The number of services people visit regularly continues to expand, which is good for content creators, marketers and service owners.

Today, according to Datareportal, more than two–thirds of the world’s population uses the Internet and more than half – 5B plus – use social media. And the average time they invest in social media each day is 2h 20min.

No, we don’t spend anywhere near that amount of time researching, studying, analyzing stuff on the sites; and we’re pretty sure you don’t either.

But … those other folks!

Missing Out – Social media algorithms are especially good at keeping users involved with them by constantly analyzing their activities and interests. Being connected means stuff won’t pass you by.

That means someone – often a Millennial or GenZer – is filling her/his “spare time” checking out what other folks are doing so they don’t miss something important while the world passes them by.

Yeah, it could be bad for you; but on the other hand, it might help you figure something out or simply give you a different perspective.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the market is worth about $28.5B this year and will reach more than $134B by 2032.

A lot of that value and growth can be attributed to the rapid expansion of 5G wireless technology around the globe and the fact that more than 5.5B people use mobile devices to stay in touch with each other and engage with news/information/entertainment sites.

Remember, using social media is free (we’ll discuss free later) so globally people have an average of 8.4 social media accounts for chatting/messaging, bragging/arguing, food, music, news, weather, health/fitness, games, sports, ads, shopping, following people (creepy), entertainment, ads, cat/dog/dummy tricks, ads.

Yeah, lots of ads.

Of course, the techies started using AI and trust â??em, “you’re gonna love how it helps you.”

We could go back and forth for days/months on the differences in the various social media services … which is number one, which is best for various messages and preferences, but they all boil down to two things – data and advertising.

Not Social – Perhaps in the distant past, techies had the idea that social media would be an excellent way for people to learn about new things and stay in touch with folks everywhere, but that was quickly replaced when social media services discovered they could monetize all of the personal information they were gathering.

All of the services collect data.

The more they collect, the better they get at giving users/followers connections/information they will find interesting and the better they get at understanding what ads will appeal most to the users so theoretically, everyone wins.

Facebook reigns supreme when it comes to users and capturing/using data.

But they’re far from alone because YouTube (parent company is Google) is hot on its heels and all the other social media sites are aggressively working to monetize their user and visitor/follower activities.

The biggest challenge/concern among adults is that the user audience is dramatically skewed to the younger crowd.

All of the social media folks promote how many users they have, starting with GenZers (18 and above), ignoring the younger and perhaps more susceptible Gen Alpha crowd.

They aren’t counted because management proudly notes that they bar youngsters from using the sites. And, of course, folks wouldn’t lie when they sign up for a site, especially if the site is limited to people of a “certain age” like 18.

Good, Bad – Social media has long claimed that it restricts the access to certain content by not allowing people under 18 entry. It turns out that barrier isn’t much of a hurdle.

The best example of this was the indigenous tribe deep in the Amazon forest where they have preserved/protected their way of life forever; but then they were given internet access thanks to Starlink thrusting them into the 22nd century.

Suddenly, the tribe of 2,000 had instant access to social media, videos and … pornography.

Have to be 18 to visit a site … no problem!

Click … done!

Okay, asking a person to list her/his age may not be foolproof because people tend to add or subtract from their chronological age depending on the circumstances.

Starting Young – Gen Alpha youngsters have had internet and mobile data access from the very beginning and short videos have been a natural attraction for them.

Video sites have quickly become the go–to sites for the younger generation (13–17), which has influenced the social media habits of other generations.

Social media has become heavily skewed to the younger generation with 84 percent of the 13–29 category using YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. And yes, Facebook has the highest number of consistent users.

The rising popularity of TikTok has drawn concern from parents and governments.

Parents are concerned because younger people are in their formative years and are often susceptible to positive and negative ideas, concepts and accepted norms.

Governments are concerned because this younger group has not only grown up online but also tends to be more open in sharing their personal information.

The issues arise because TikTok is owned by China–based ByteDance, and US government officials are concerned that government authorities will use/weaponize subscribers’ personal data.

A handful of other countries have banned the use of TikTok on government–issued devices and the US has gone so far as to threaten a nationwide ban unless ByteDance divest itself of the service’s activities and its proprietary technology within the country by next year.

That’s a little tough for a standalone company that Webbush Securities estimates would be worth $100B and very disruptive to the 170M users in the states.

Fun Life – Being a star on the video content small screen sounds (and sorta’ looks) glamorous but as with acting, few make it to the profitable tier.

Of course, we’re not big TikTok or video social media fans, but that break up sounds tough.

The sale, relocation of all user databases and the hardening/localizing of algorithms within the US would be complicated, difficult and expensive––especially for the estimated seven million small and large businesses that use it as a marketing and sales channel that adds an estimated $24B to the US economy annually.

TikTok is already banned on government–owned devices and highly discouraged for everyone else in Australia, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, EU, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, UK, and other assorted countries.

The ironic thing is that TikTok has never been available for mainland Chinese to use because …

Since TikTok is used by six in 10 Americans under the age of 30, it’s pretty valuable property – especially the underlying technology – that unfortunately is caught between two of the world’s largest coopitors (cooperative, competitors).

Satisfying both sides is … tough.

Dramatic Growth – TikTok began as a rather simple idea … develop a short video, share it with people and have fun. The service has enjoyed steady growth of content creators and users/followers and obviously advertisers.

TikTok officially landed in the US in 2018 and almost immediately became the most downloaded app in the country and the world.

With about 39K employees around the globe (11.5K in the US), the service has quickly become the fifth most widely used social media app by marketers, influencers and users.

Selling off to the highest (government–approved) bidder, relocating the data warehouse(s) and hardening the algorithm’s security will be expensive and difficult, especially with everygovernment around the globe looking over their shoulders and critiquing everything they do.

Unlike Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Telegram and others, TikTok made no pretenses of being about social connection but rather took its lead from YouTube, the world’s largest video exchange, entertainment site.

From the beginning, TikTok focused its appeal on the younger demographics and their attention span with videos limited to 15 seconds that would capture the user’s attention before they would move on to another and another and …

While movies/shows may be expensive to produce, short–form social media video is relatively cheap. All it takes is an iPhone or other smartphone, a little bit of lighting, a relaxed person in front of the phone’s camera and a great idea. But to build a following, it requires a constant flow of new, interesting topics.

It quickly became a way for influential folks – actors, directors, wanna be actors/directors, others – to reach, stay in touch with fans and people who just wanted to stay connected.

Of course, others joined in the rush to give people short video entertainment including Instagram, Facebook Watch (Zuck is great at creating after–the–fact services), Snapchat, even Twitter.

Yielding to the pressures of the new creator community and marketers, TikTok expanded video limits to 30 sec, then one minute and finally 10 minutes.

YouTube maintained its open video length policy but has always maintained that 30 secs should be the shortest. And while they limit video uploads to 15 min., note that 10–11 min. is best.

Effective Marketing – Almost every company – large and small – uses short videos to market their products and services. The most effective make the content fun and interesting first and secondarily (subtly) to promote what they’re trying to sell.

Social media video has become a big business worldwide with an estimated 45M professional (52 percent women, 48 percent male) and 162 amateur content creators.

The market is valued at about $17B and will reach $28B by 2028.

That’s not as much as this year’s movie house industry – $39B – but … it’s profitable.

No, it’s not dominated by the tired, old–fashioned “influencers” but by YouTubers and TikTokers.

Millennial and Gen Z creators (56 and 40 percent respectively) earned an average of $117K per year with a high of $82M (MrBeast) while the majority – 90 percent – earn less than $100K annually.

But the vast and growing audience has been enough for professionals – producers, directors, actors – to aggressively participate for two reasons … staying in touch with/building their followers and well, what the h***, pocket change.

The growing creator pool was also quick to attract the Hollywood 10 percenters or agents.

Popular Platform – Social media videos can be efficient and effective if people focus on entertaining and informing viewers rather than selling to them.

But the greatest growth has been in the use of social video by large and small marketers, whether it’s in conjunction with a creator or on their own.

Brevity and authenticity in social video are best according to studies in capturing 66 percent of folks.

According to YouTube, the cost–effective, highly shareable, bite–sized videos are 2.5 times more engaging than longer videos and folks say they find the shorter form more appealing.

As with streaming services, a big question is which one(s) will survive?

While TikTok boss Shou Chew has marshalled the firm’s US–based creators and smaller firms that make their living from the service, governmental banishment here and abroad wouldn’t create a big ripple in the universe.

Unlike other services like YouTube, Instagram, SnapChat, Pinterest, Facebook and others; according to US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and EU officials, TikTok’s algorithm isn’t built on a social graph so people can easily switch from one platform to another with very little loss of traction or audience.

Source – “I am Legend,” Warner Bros

Even if Chew can maneuver in the complicated world of international relations, the real question is will the entertainment/marketing crowd?

Right now though, Chew must feel like Neville when he said, “This is Ground Zero. This is my site. I can fix it. I can fix this.”

Tough … really tough!

Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 800 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software and applications. An internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields; he has an extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants.