During the past year, we’ve seen an increasing demand for video on social media platforms, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Here’s what you need to know about video, including why it is so important and what you can do to create compelling video content on social media.

The Facts

In a release by Facebook last year, the company reported that the social channel has more than 1 billion video views every day. Along with that:

More than 50 percent of people who come back to Facebook every day in the U.S. watch at least one video daily.

Seventy-six percent of people in the U.S. who use Facebook say they tend to discover the videos they watch on Facebook.

The number of videos from people and brands in the News Feed has increased 3.6 times, year over year.

According to Financial Times, Snapchat isn’t far behind Facebook in video usage, with a staggering 6 billion views per day. The popular app has more than 200 million users, and while that number is less than Facebook’s, their audience is only comprised of smartphone users.

While both platforms generate an overwhelming number of video views each day, they still fall short of reaching YouTube’s numbers, which currently have more than a billion users—almost one-third of all people on the Internet.

According to YouTube, every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. The number of hours people spend watching videos (aka watch time) on YouTube is up 60 percent year over year, the fastest growth they’ve seen in two years.

Creating the Best Content

Knowing that an increasing number of people are watching videos shared on social media platforms, you need to know how to create videos for your viewers to enjoy.

In general, you want to create shorter videos that can hold the viewer’s attention. You also want to post raw videos that are compelling, shareable and include clips that no one else will have. As you produce videos, make sure to track the analytics to see what your audience does and doesn’t like. This can be done on Facebook by utilizing their Video Insights section.

Here are some things to keep in mind when posting videos to Facebook:

Focus on quality from the first frame . Given that videos autoplay silently in the News Feed, you should lead with imagery that will catch a person’s eye from the very beginning.

. Given that videos autoplay silently in the News Feed, you should lead with imagery that will catch a person’s eye from the very beginning. Premiere exclusive video content. Post exclusive video content to your Page to viewers with something that they can’t get anywhere else.

Post exclusive video content to your Page to viewers with something that they can’t get anywhere else. Provide context. Establish the context of your video by pulling out a key quote or moment from the video as the text component of your post. This will help set expectations for the experience ahead.

Quick Takeaways

Eighty percent of global Internet traffic will be attributed to video by 2019.

It would take 5 million years to watch all the video that will be shared every month in 2019.

Facebook currently has 8 billion video views per day.

Snapchat currently has 6 billion video views per day.

More newly uploaded Facebook videos hit 1 million views each month than on any other platform.

Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic.

Creating video content isn’t something that only nationally recognized brands partake in; it is also a great way to give smaller brands their own voice and identity that consumers can relate to.

Given that Facebook has more than 1 billion video views a day, it’s an important strategy for businesses to help bridge the gap between their company and their customers by establishing their unique personality through video, one of the most powerful media tools.