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This is going to be pretty straightforward: Video is — and will continue to be — the most dominant form of media there is. End of story.

So, why should you care?

Well, whether you’re a developing social media personality, business owner or marketing executive, understanding how people think and respond to messaging is vital to grow.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Take a moment and look around. On the whole, contemporary media consumption tends to revolve around video. For example, of the average 10 hours and 39 minutes spent each day consuming media, watching television ranks the highest; the average American spends five hours and four minutes watching TV.

After television, the next four to five hours of our daily media consumption are spent on mobile, laptops and desktops (registration required), where users typically engage in TV-esque activities, i.e. watching videos on Snapchat, scrolling through Instagram or surfing Facebook and YouTube.

Today, it seems no matter where you look, video is present and fully represented.

A World Of Black Mirrors

Take a look at the dominant forms of social media and on-demand video (subscription services like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix) and watch how they’re moving — what they choose to focus on with each new update, feature and development. In most cases, there’s a strong emphasis on video. And year after year, the digital media industry has aligned itself with the idea that the most important form of media is video.

With Apple, it was the improvement of its cameras and its implementation of FaceTime to promote video calling. With YouTube, it’s the entire model, not only giving users a free platform to post their own video content, but allowing those users to effectively create a free digital entertainment network for the casual web browser. With social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, these tech giants are increasingly using videos to promote overall user engagement and inspire daily and active use.

Rise Of The Cable Cutters — Looking At The Data

Let’s take a look at current consumer habits.

Did you know that an estimated 22.2 million Americans will cut their cable this year? That’s not even counting the other 34.4 million who have never purchased cable in the first place. And that number grows higher and higher every year as many young Americans — particularly millennials — are finding their day’s entertainment through digital streaming services, social media and platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

Currently, Facebook has more than two billion active users worldwide bringing billions of views to its video content every day. At present, it’s competing with YouTube — and its Google backing — to become the dominant online video platform on the internet. Although YouTube certainly has the name and appeal, Facebook has a commanding data-intensive infrastructure that favors native content to such a degree that it performs with 10x the reach of an embedded YouTube link.

Instagram — owned by Facebook — and Snapchat have audiences of over 250 and 173 million daily active users respectively. Both apps feature a story functionality that courts users into engaging with the app almost exclusively through video.  

So given the access these video platforms present, how can marketers use them to their advantage?