Maybe you’ve seen this recently: someone working away on a laptop while beside them, the person’s phone is streaming video. This person is watching sports, a movie, a TED talk, or maybe the news. It’s not terribly unusual these days. And as you are using your smartphone or see others using theirs, the chances are improving that what’s being seen is not the user’s email, but a video.
Mobile is building momentum and fast, but it may be mobile video that will have the biggest boom. Not only is mobile video growing, but it’s proving to be a highly effective medium for attracting users and gaining mindshare. Here are just a few of the recent findings that have been announced.
- Mobile video outperforms online with 25% higher viewer retention rate.
- According to a Cisco Report, mobile video traffic will more than double every year between now and 2015 when more than two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video.
- Rhythm New Media reported that clickthrough rates on mobile ads are 79% higher when video is the call to action.
- YouTube is the top website with smartphone users.
These reports bring to light some very important implications for mobile content and video in general. For starters, it indicates that mobile video is not only a great way to deliver content to the mobile masses – it’s the preferred way for them to receive it. Whatever the reason – if it’s that the users seem accustomed to texting brief messages or using phones to send out Twitter updates of 140 characters or less – it seems in the choice between mobile written content and video, the overwhelming choice is video.
With viewer retention rates higher on mobile as well, it would appear the audiences are more inclined to view video on mobile devices than they are on desktops and laptops. Maybe it’s because we have gotten in the habit of switching between applications so easily on our PCs or because we are reluctant to put down our phones at all, but this suggests that when we have a mobile audience, we have a captive audience, one that’s actually paying attention to video content.
What this means for business is that video – and especially mobile video – could be your best bet for reaching out to increasingly mobile audiences. Video is both in demand and effective. Leaving it out of your strategy could leave your business behind.