When looking at the recently released U.S.
Online Video Rankings for July of this year, it is obvious that there are some important
trends visible for those who know how to find them.
The most important trend is that more
United States internet users are watching online video. Since July 2007, the
number of users watching video online has risen from 135 million to 184
million, meaning that there are more than 50 million new users in the United
States alone, more than enough to warrant a video marketing strategy for any
marketing professional. While 50 million extra users sounds impressive, an
increase in viewers of 37.3% in just five years sounds even more impressive.
The amount of time the average American
internet users spent watching videos online also increased. On average, the
average American internet user spent 3 hours watching videos online in 2007,
and in July 2012, that number stood at 22.3 hours. That is an increase of 638.6%
in just five short years.
Of course, the time people spent
watching online video has to come from somewhere, people do magically have more
hours in the day. Compared to just a year ago, the numbers for the four big
broadcast networks in the United States are down around 6%.
In July alone, American viewers watched 9.6
billion video ads. More than 3.9 billion minutes were spent watching
advertisements. Of course, especially in a down economy, the money spent on online
video advertising has to come from somewhere. The answer as to where it comes
from is interesting though, considering that two thirds of the marketing
professionals that provided an answer suggested that they would pull money from
TV ads and use it to increase their budgets for online video ads. Judging by
the last five years, it seems that a shift towards online media consumption
over the traditional form is already in progress.
