August 19, 2010

The Impetus for Video

© 2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco ConfidentialPresentation_ID 2

Executive Summary

Is all social media content social?

Much of the content produced for use within a social media context is labeled social media because it is delivered through a social media channel – but is the content itself social? Or perhaps social enough?

This purpose of this case study is to:

Detail some empirical data which highlights the performance differences between text-only content and content which is augmented with or entirely consisting of video

Add value to any content strategy discussions

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The Problem: Captivating Editorial

Content truly is KING for any community manager interested in authentic community growth and sustainability. The struggle to provide engaging, valuable, and relevant content long-term while consistently maintaining quality is a challenge.

There are some inherent advantages to video and we can make some assumptions as to why video works so well:

Generally speaking, people would rather not read

Video usually requires less time commitment

More personal, appeals to our emotions

© 2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco ConfidentialPresentation_ID 4

Study Synopsis

We analyzed several prominent Cisco blogs in an effort to uncover any correlations which seem to indicate the value of video over text-only (or mostly text) content.

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Video impact, the results …

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Impact: Average Time Spent

Blog Community % Video Content Time on Site

Channels 77 0:01:22

Service Providers 60 0:01:14

Data Center 36 0:01:04

Collaboration 12 0:00:48

Security 4 0:00:53

Note: Time spent on site climbs to over one minute when video

exceeds 30% of overall content

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Impact: Social Mobility

Average retweets of videos exceeds 90 for active blogs which are mostly video

Average retweets of videos exceeds 105 even for less active blogs but with higher video nature

Texts fail to exceed an average of 57 retweets for an active blog of text nature

Average retweets per post

Most active blogs (mostly video) Most active blogs (mostly text)

Channels SP360 Security Data Center

105 92 67 57

© 2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco ConfidentialPresentation_ID 8

AverageReTweetBreak-Down

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

video

Text

Ave

rag

ae

Re

Tw

ee

ts

Security (3.92% video, 8.50 posts per month)

Data Ceneter Networks (35.53% video, 12.67 posts per month)

SP360 Service Provider (59.63% video, 13.42 posts per month)

Channels (77.12% video, 9.83 posts per month)

* only active blogs are selected (>8 posts per month)

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Take-Aways

1. Blogs which feature more video get more exposure

2. Video is in-fact a much more compelling content medium over text

3. Visitors are more likely to spend more time on-page with video rich properties

4. Simply having video doesn’t necessarily equate to success

© 2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco ConfidentialPresentation_ID 10

The Solution

The preponderance of our research data suggests that in-fact (on balance) there is a measurable benefit to a content strategy which heavily leverages video.

© 2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco ConfidentialPresentation_ID 11

Special Thanks To…

Hilal Chouman (for Ninja analytical skills) and Charlie Treadwell (for resource allocation)!

Thanks also go to Stephanie Marx, LaSandra Brill, and Zoya Fallah for their support.

Aaron Lewis | Social Media Manager

http://www.twitter.com/theaaronist

aalewis@cisco.com