Want to know how to entertain young people using video?  Well I’m sure it involves skateboarders falling on rails and getting racked, that always works.  But Defy Media’s Acumen Report lets us know you should probably put that solid gold video on YouTube because that platform rules for Millennials and Gen Z.  Geoff Weiss reports on Tubefilter Netflix was a distant 2nd, followed by TV then Facebook.  TV is still watched by youngsters, but it’s becoming increasingly less important.  36% said they couldn’t live without it, but 67% feel that way about YouTube.  They are more than willing to cord-cut, most saying it’s because of cheaper options, but 24% said they just aren’t interested in what’s on TV, like Two Broke Girls.  Here’s what you brands should know, this audience greatly prefers branded intros or outros over pre-roll ads, and 87% are fine with product placement.

 

Rohan Ayyar is trying to make us think.  And we don’t like that.  We like really quick, catchy, instant shallow answers.  That’s his point.  He thinks clickbait is destroying the world, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it because it just works so darn well.  He says don’t blame BuzzFeed, it’s us, our brains are wired to respond to maybe discovering some big secret.  But it’s never a secret is it?  It’s the same no-information, massively repetitive, just common sense crap.  And that includes crap from so-called “thought leaders.”  Rohan says here’s the price we’re paying for rewarding clickbait; our capacity to read long and complex sentences is shot, we’ll have less thought-provoking content, mind-challenging work will be ignored, more crap content will be created because only the headline matters, and we’ll accept lame garbage even when our questions are valid.  He hopes we as content makers stop following the herd and being slaves to formulas.

 

Michael Brenner poses an interesting poser; maybe B2B marketers aren’t happy with the performance of their digital marketing because they’re looking at B2C metrics, you know, the wrong metrics if you’re B2B.  Demandbase and Wakefield Research prove these people aren’t that happy.  71% say their digital programs often fail to meet expectations.  89% don’t think what they’re doing is working, and 96% say they’re wasting ads because they aren’t hitting the target.  But 33% are judging success by conversion rates.  That’s so B2C.  Michael says this might be why Account-Based Marketing is on the rise.  When you do that, you’re lining up the marketing and sales teams to target and convert accounts, get more revenue from accounts, and win accounts or at least get them in the pipeline.

 

I don’t have to go on and on about how mobile is a thing now, and an important thing.  Soon it’ll be the same story with podcasting.  Marketing Tech Blog points out that the world is shaping up nicely to facilitate the ongoing podcast explosion; a focus on mobile, better streaming capabilities, and audio interfaces in cars with podcast listening in mind.  Impressed with how people binge watch Netflix and spend enormous amounts of time on the platform?  Long commutes, which will be with us forever unless there’s a transportation revolution in the world – don’t hold your breath, set up binge listening very nicely.  Edison VP Tom Webster says the myth our attention spans are shorter is being subverted.  Some current podcast stats for you: the average podcast is 22 minutes and updates once a week.  The most popular categories are Christian, Music, Comedy, TV & Film, and Literature.  And 22.2M minutes of podcasting are produced per year.

 

More video metrics for you publishers on Facebook.  Jordan Novet writes that up now all you could get were number of views, number of unique viewers, and number of minutes a video was watched.  Facebook’s Anaid Gomez-Ortigoza says now you’ll get to see how many minutes a video was watched on a particular day, the number of video views for a day, and how many times people saw at least 97% of videos shorter than 10 seconds.  Facebook thinks that’ll give you a better feel for when your audiences are watching your videos.  As for getting the daily video data in the Insights API, you won’t get that until an officially vague “later.”

 

I want to stay on top of the news, but I’ve only got 3/4 of a second to devote to it.  Then maybe I should get my news over chat apps.  Don’t scoff oh ye fans of what journalism used to be, it’s happening.  And publications like the New York Times, Washington Post and the Economist are doing it, although in different ways.  The idea is to hook ‘em with a chat news bite that links to more info if, God forbid, the reader wants to know more.  Ron Miller writes okay, maybe you don’t get the analytics you get elsewhere, but messaging app consultant Eytan Oren says, “There are now more people using messaging apps than traditional social networks, so it’s a matter of going where the audiences go.”  The Economist’s community editor Denise Law says even though they’re known for writing in depth, smart stories, chat is helping them diversify their audience.  They use the chat app LINE by the way but Atlantic Monthly built their own.

 

Happy first anniversary to Periscope.  The first anniversary is the emoji anniversary isn’t it?  The people who work there probably have some job security because VentureBeat reports its owner, Twitter, is really counting on it for growth and revenue and a host of good things.  Why else would CEO Jack Dorsey but Periscope’s head on his executive team?  The focus is on live events with new features including GoPro support and viewing streams inside of tweets.  Fun fact!  110 years worth of live video is seen daily on the apps, up 91% from August.  Like celebrities?  Of course you do, they’re your Gods.  Stars like Jamie Foxx and John Mayer broadcast on it.  Blumhouse even did a live horror movie on it.

 

Okay, John Miller is from Scribewise and he wants you to buy their service, but a recent post of his had some pretty helpful stats for you if you’re wondering what it costs to get content made.  Are you paying too much?  Are you getting too little?  Nobody wants to feel like they’re getting ripped off.  And it’s hard to pin down what content costs because it’s all over the board, a very big board.  John points out that if you want articles that suck, you can get those from a content farm for 5 bucks, same as a foot-long sandwich at Subway.  Other firms want thousands, for one article.  Good articles but really?  Thousands?  Freelance writers usually charge by the word, but entities like a PR firm will charge you by the hour – up to $250/hr.  So they’ll want to take as long as possible while you want fast turnaround.  It’s tough for a content shopper out there these days.

 

You know those cool videos from BuzzFeed’s Tasty, the ones that show you step by step how to make something incredible, usually involving chocolate?  Pinterest wants in on that game, cause those are really, really popular.  They launched a new kind of rich media pin called How-To pins.  If you’re in the US, France, UK and Germany, you can get step-by-step directions for making what’s in the picture.  Home Depot, Style Me Pretty, ELLE, and Delish are among the first brands to dive in and naturally certain verticals are more perfect for it than others; think DIY, food and beauty.  And you might need this new angle if you want to stand out on Pinterest in those categories because right now there are 1B hair and beauty pins, 4B recipe pins and 4B DIY pins.  Really we should all be beautiful, full and perfect by now.

 

Scripps Networks Interactive just couldn’t be getting anymore serious about branded content.  They own Food Network, HGTV, DIY Network and Travel Channel, and claims to reach 190M “affluent and engaged” US consumers monthly on TV plus 40M weekly on social.  Scripps has its own branded content division of course, Scripps Lifestyle Studios, with clients like US Cellular and Lowe’s.  Brands get things like title sponsorships, product placement, custom digital videos and co-branded content, spreads in magazines, staged in-store demos.  Chief Content Officer Kathleen Finch says, “Food Network looks different on Snapchat than it does on Facebook or Apple News and we deliver nearly 1B video streams across platforms.”  Kelly Liyakasa of adexchanger tells us Scripps uses Facebook to amplify branded videos and guarantees x number of social views using its own amplification.

 

That’s it.  Follows rule @mikestiles.