It’s the most important metric in social media today, the one that sport rights holders desperately want to see hitting 6 figures.  In the sports industry, high-quality video content lies at the core of digital marketing strategy, and the competition for views is fierce.
Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day.  This figure increases to 8 billion on Facebook, and rises still further to a whopping 10 billion on Snapchat.  Almost 50 million people watched the Olympic Games on Snapchat. These platforms are shaping the sports landscape.
But the question remains… what exactly is a video view?
If we asked you for the difference between a view on Facebook or YouTube, Twitter or Instagram, would you fire off an answer with calm assurance or fumble around for the facts?
Understanding what a view means is important for sports rights holders effectively to engage and form meaningful relationships with audiences in order to unlock new commercial opportunities.  We all want to know who is watching our sport and for how long.
You’d be forgiven for assuming a video view is measured uniformly; after all, we’re all watching within the same space/time continuum.  But the big dogs in social media can’t seem to agree on a universal metric.  A view on one platform can vary from another by as much as 30 seconds.  We’re here to help provide you with the answer…
YouTube:  30 seconds
Facebook:  3 seconds
Instagram:  3 seconds
Snapchat:  1 tap
Twitter:  5 seconds
Vimeo:  1 second
Vine:  6 seconds 
Facebook Live:  1 tap
It’s easy to see why Snapchat is scorching the rest of the field when it comes to views – if the video loads, the platform counts it.  But this depreciates the metric.  Organisations who are serious about campaign reporting won’t see a concrete ROI from Snapchat as long as a ‘tap’ is considered a view.  Platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram offer the most value because not only do they have a massive user base, but they also give those who have viewed your video the chance to register your brand within their brain.
For now, the future of social media marketing remains firmly with video.  Video posts currently have 135% greater organic reach than photo posts, and if trends persist it’s predicted 74% of all internet traffic by 2017 will be video.  That means more sports rights holders will be delving deeper into this world, and reporting will have to cater for those looking for that extra edge.
So next time you’re reviewing your last digital campaign, ask yourself this: did people actually watch my sport?  Then reach into your pocket, and pull out the REDTORCH cheat sheet to find out.