Right, but there\u2019s another trend that I have been noticing lately. Short-duration multimedia content is getting popular. I can think of a reason; people nowadays don\u2019t have the patience to sit through a 30-minutes long video.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
What are the other reasons? Are short video clips the future? Can it mark rich media\u2019s entry into the organic realm? Let\u2019s find out the answers here in this article.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
User-generated content<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
One of the hottest trends in the industry right now is user-generated content or UGC. Here\u2019s a list of all the formats<\/a> in which UGC is available. You can see audio, video and pop-ups are in this list and these are all multimedia content. Users can generate such content themselves and make them go viral.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n User-generated multimedia content (UGMC) has little to do with branding. UGC is sparse in the brand promotion landscape. The little density it has over there is because of consumer review sites. But the content there uniformly lacks multimedia elements.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n As the acceptability of UGC will increase, so will the demand for multimedia content. A lot of equations will change then. Brands will want UGMC to sing their praise, and they will get more and more into it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I think if UGMC is videos and 100% organic, their duration will be long, but if these are sponsored streaming videos or applets to be downloaded, the duration will be short. That\u2019s because when users rate brands, they tend to add details, but when brands promote themselves, they only fixate on their USP, similar to ads.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Every time we see animation and looping video footage receiving thousands of likes and shares, we are reminded of social media\u2019s indispensability for multimedia content. A close analysis reveals the dependency is not one-sided; just as social media is responsible for the upswing in multimedia content, the latter has also been helping the former to eclipse the online vertical.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The top social networks are the forcing houses for multimedia content, especially videos. More than 30 billion content are shared on Facebook each month<\/a>, making it a billion shares a day. In November 2015, there were 8 billion views on videos<\/a> shared on Facebook, the majority of which are only 2-3 minutes long.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n See the infographic below that shows how videos fare on Facebook:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n (Source<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Barring YouTube, all other channels espouse short duration videos. See a list of these channels below:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Instagram has Instavids. Just as the name suggests, they are instant videos and last only for 15 seconds. Vine, as we know, has an even shorter duration for clips – only 6 seconds. LinkedIn\u2019s case is a bit different; the videos there are for portfolio buildup<\/a> and short-duration.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n There are three reasons short videos are preferred on social media.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Reason 1<\/strong>: On social media, users are bombarded with status updates, images, likes, pins, upvotes and downvotes. They don\u2019t have enough time to watch an hour-long video in its entirety. Therefore, they prefer short videos.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Reason 2:<\/strong> It\u2019s easy to share short videos because these videos don\u2019t consume too much bandwidth. That\u2019s the reason 2-5 minutes videos on Facebook often become viral. Videos on Vine and Instagram are less than a minute long and sharing them is not hasslesome even if the network connection is slow.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Reason 3:<\/strong> We discussed UGC in the preceding paragraph. Social media is the hotbed of UGC, especially videos and GIFs. Unlike long videos, short duration and looping videos are easy to create.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Besides ads, social media is the only place where we see rich media content. More on this will be discussed later.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n It won\u2019t be a hyperbole if someone says the mobile experience is 90% dominated by multimedia content. As one moves to the mobile web from the desktop web, he\u2019s welcomed by apps. Smartphone apps can be utility-driven, productivity-based or just to kill time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n All apps are multimedia content and powered by HTML5. And they are often accompanied by short duration videos.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Below are links to two such videos:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSocial media<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
![\"Inforgraphic-on-Facebook-fares\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rankwatch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Facebook_Info.png?resize=640%2C413\")
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The mobile experience<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n