Online video advertising as a communiction tool on Facebook

Abstract

Social media plays a significant role in integral marketing strategy plan of companies in order to create, enhance, maintain the relationships with their customers through mutual communication. The communication goes in two ways, so that, on one hand, companies are able to provide various information to educate users, entertain them or to acquaint with brand itself and its products; and on the other hand, users give their feedback in terms of what they like, what they do not, their preferences and needs. Consequently, marketers widely use social media platforms to assess the “thickness” of bond that they have managed to establish with their customers through communication, where “thickness” could be measured as engagement (number of likes, shares, comments a post gets). Hence, it is important to decide what message to deliver and no less important is to choose the format in which it will be sent. Video format is under a specific interest as it is considered to be a tool that is able to grasp users’ attention, retain it and finally make people engage with it. As a consequence, marketers use extensively the video format in social media advertising, trying to deliver the message that would help to build strong relationships with the users. The aim of the study It is important to investigate what type of content users prefer the most (for example, educational, product review, testimonials, etc.), what video style would be most appropriate for a specific content (for example, live action, animated, 360 degree, etc.), how long should a video be and should it be accompanied with call-to-action buttons. Moreover, it is necessary to make a contribution into a problem in choosing between informative or entertaining content of advertising video on social media. In other words, it is worth to analyze if users are more engaged with video content (educationals, product reviews, testimonials, etc.) that are delivered either informative or in entertaining way. And the last problem to resolve is finding out if videos with interactive characteristics such as 360-degree, choose-your-own-adventure and accompanied with call-to-action buttons do indeed increase users’ engagement. Consequently, the aim of the study is to answer the following research questions: What are the most engaging types of video content? What are the most optimal video style for the most engaging types of video content? What is the best length of a video that would retain the viewers’ attention? What advertising content is more preferable: informative or entertaining? Does interactive video increase engagement?