How to shift users’ focus from social media to video platforms

There are 12,000 audiovisual media services available in Europe, three thousand of which are VOD services (including AVOD, catch-up TV, and video-sharing platforms). A third of them belong to US companies, which are also on the top lists of the most popular and financially successful platforms.

What does that mean?

European viewers have the widest variety of video platforms. However, these platforms struggle to compete with US platforms, which are backed by the support of their gigantic corporate owners. European platforms must also compete with each other, strive to differentiate themselves, and seek competitive advantages to achieve this.

Of course, a habitual competitive advantage is content. When you have enough quality and viewers’ favourite content, attracting and retaining them is easier, but… But is it, though? The duplicate content is often available on different platforms, and exclusive films or shows don’t guarantee that users won’t go to other platforms after watching. Brands must retain them and make retention growth an underlined point of the platform’s strategy.

Also, we should remember that smaller platforms get lost among gigantic rivals because they don’t provide specific features to users.

Thus, we have two questions to answer:

1. How should local and thematic video platforms keep the audience and struggle with the challenges of today’s online?
2. How can local players stand out and attract users?

The goals grow out of one another:

> To grow the number of users

> To retain them

> To grow revenue via a subscription model.

The goals are familiar, but video platform brand strategies often contradict them. So, when video platforms grow their audience on social media (SM remains the primary tool for audience engagement), audiences can even be gathered into communities. However, this still doesn’t affect the video platforms’ metrics since these communities communicate externally. Video platform companies invest in growing SM platform metrics, not their own.

Also, these brands tend to provide offline events and premieres to promote content. Such events require huge expenses, but they often fail to attract a large enough audience. The event's timing and location may not be convenient for everyone, including viewers and influencers. So, providing online events often becomes a pretty but meaningless waste of money and resources, just PR events and nothing more.

Where should video platforms look for a solution to achieve their goal?

Popular platforms with new approaches to consumption, such as Discord and Twitch

Look at Discord’s and Twitch’s permanent growth, their popularity among Gen Z, and their potential for Alpha. 

Twitch ranks #7 in the most common social media platform list, Discord is #9, and YouTube is #1.

Platforms for social viewing

Outstanding social viewing apps (Rave, Metastream, etc.) allow users to communicate while watching. Still, UJ has some difficulties (E.g., they must install additional apps or extensions), and it doesn’t work with small local platforms.

Aggregators and thematic social networks

LetterBoxd, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb allow users to share their opinions and reviews about films; regular digital media allow users to comment on content. Users have a strong habit of sharing their thoughts and reading each other’s reviews.

Users tend to unite into communities, discuss and comment.

According to the Global Web Index, 76% of Internet users participated in an online community in 2020, which is still growing. The number of social media users globally rose from 4.62 billion in January 2022 to 4.72 billion in January 2023 (Datareportal, 2023).

Socialisation directly on the platforms can become an easy solution with significant results.

If users want to stream, allow them to do it, too.

Let users unite into communities around your content:

1. Discuss it while watching (as Prime Video and Hulu do it already)
2. Or post reviews right after watching (as MUBI do)

Users have become accustomed to streaming or joining streams. When they want to stream a movie or series, they use external platforms, like Discord, and pirate content because legal platforms restrict it. By adding tools for streamers, you can achieve significant growth in subscription metrics, thanks to the streamers’ audience.

There are two ways to add these tools to a video platform:

1. Development on the platform’s side, as Prime Video, Hulu, and MUBI did.
2. Opportunities for users to comment, discuss, stream and build communities on any video platform can be integrated via SDK or WebView.

> Both lead to audience stickiness with the platform;

> Stickiness becomes loyalty;

> Loyalty leads to metrics growth and standing out from competitors.

After such an integration, platforms still face challenges.

1. Users’ safety and comfort are paramount in such online spaces. So, you should manage the moderation process, decide what users can do on the platform —send videos, communicate via audio, or just text —and determine if you plan to publish ads in this user’s space.
2. UX decisions will be the most complicated because they should work together with existing tools, and develop and improve user experience (firstly, users don’t like new things; they need time to get used to them). Integration into the player, placing chat entry points and a chat itself, and deciding whether it should be private or public, are among such user-journey challenges.
3. Take the first steps in community building until users fully realise how to socialise and accept these new tools. That means finding ways to transfer users from your social media accounts and then helping people overcome their fear of empty chat. Providing streaming with influencers would be an additional challenge in attracting their audience.

However, despite challenges, there is a significant advantage: socialisation can help video platforms (as well as traditional media) retain users, foster consumption of new trends, and maintain their audiences by leveraging today’s media consumption patterns and allowing users to engage in their preferred activities.

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Contact us to enhance user experience on your VOD or streaming platform with public or private chats, or other social-building tools, and we will help you find the best solution.