This week we want to share with you the latest trends in digital video, and how video advertising is essential to any marketing strategy. In addition, the time spent in particular in apps has continued to increase, consuming almost all user attention on mobile devices. Finally, visual content has been considered of high value to brands in telling a story to their customers. The good news is that Instagram, a platform known for sharing highly rich media, the opportunity to promote visual content and your brand’s message is now more compelling.

Digital video advertising has grown exponentially in recent years and followed the general trends of consumer attention turning consuming video on devices like iPads and smartphones. The virality of this video content is accelerating due to platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Therefore advertisers who take advantage are seeing high viewership and ROI from their video based campaigns. According to HighQ, 78% of people are watching videos online every week. In addition, 55% are watching video content daily. That means if you are not advertising with digital video you are missing out on a lot of people.

According to Nielsen, in a recent study, when TV advertising was combined with Facebook, an additional 20% of viewers were exposed to the brand's message with a further 30% seeing the ad on both channels. That middle segment is important as we have seen in our own research with Facebook looking at Email + Ads with that group exposed to both channels, 22% more likely to make an online purchase.

According to Yahoo, American consumers in Q2 2015 spent an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes a day on their mobile devices. That is a 24% increase since Q4 2014 alone. So where are people spending time when on their mobile devices? 90% of time spent on mobile is in apps, meaning only 10% is spent on the mobile web. Of the total time spent in apps, the top performing categories are social, messaging, and entertainment apps, consuming 51% of total time spend. Apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are attracting mobile user attention and are therefore are amongst the best places for advertisers to reach highly engaged potential customers.

Visual content is considered a vital asset to any brand interested in increasing their awareness and telling a story to consumers. According to eMarketer, 90% of marketers consider high quality photo and video as important or critical to their marketing strategy. Digital platforms today like Facebook, and now Instagram, offer the perfect space for advertisers to showcase visual content in their ad campaigns. Instagram recently announced their advertising API and Salesforce, is one of the advertising platforms offering customers now allowing customers to reach brand new audiences with highly engaging advertising. Social.com further extends capabilities for advertising and agency teams working with this type of content by offering an array of collaboration tools better allowing teams to work together in executing campaigns.

To learn about how ArcSoft improved their Facebook campaigns with the help of Social.com, download our full case study