This Week in Social: Facebook Videos, Valuable Posts, and Teens on Social

Here are some of the key things you should know from the world of social media this week:

Facebook Video Posts Are A Necessity

Over 50% of people watch at least 1 video each day on Facebook, with 65% of global views on mobile. And there is more video for them to watch - the amount of video in the news feed grew 3.6x in the past year. 76% of US Facebook users say they tend to discover videos they watch on Facebook. So, if it isn't already, add News Feed friendly video to your content plan for 2015.

Quick tips from Facebook for making your videos effective:

• Make the first 1-3 seconds strong to stop users' thumbs from scrolling by
• Make the rest worth watching once they do stop
• Design for autoplay with sound off too, perhaps with text overlays
• Use a combination of video and photo assets, optimizing for mutiple screen sizes and devices.

Facebook provided additional tips for News Feed video in a blog post.

How to Create Social Posts Your Users Will Love

Guy Kawasaki, evangelist and author, discusses the "NPR model" for creating posts that users will respond to in a short video for Entrepreneur magazine. A "valuable post" comes in one of 4 types:

1. Information - what just happened?
2. Analysis - what does it mean that this happened?
3. Assistance - how do I get this good thing to happen or avoid a bad thing?
4. Entertainment - eye candy or LOL material.

Kawasaki says that NPR gets away with doing their revenue Pledge Drive once a year because they have earned their right to promote the rest of the year. 

What Teens Think of Social Media Platforms

Andrew Watts, a student at the University of Texas, has written his thoughts on the various social platforms from a teen's point of view. While not filled with stats, his post does go through each social network and talks about when it is used and why. Some highlights:

• Facebook - while it isn't used much beyond looking someone up, it is something everyone has
• Snapchat - the as-it-happens service that lets teens share freely with just their friends
• Instagram - the curated, "best photo" platform for summing things up
• Tumblr - a judgment free zone unconnected with your real identity for your "true self"

The post is definitely worth a read through, especially for understanding how platforms tie users to identity and how that affect how they view and use them.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.