We’re much more likely to enjoy an activity when we have actively made the choice to participate rather than being told to. So why don't brands adopt the same approach for advertising?

Ads at the start of a video can feel forced and many viewers skip them when possible. Social discovery, on the other hand, is far more successful in reaching and engaging the target audience.

This is what brands should focus on. Rather than investing considerable sums into putting ads at the start of YouTube videos, which may or may not reach the intended audience, advertising budgets would be much better invested in creating content designed to be shared across social media by those who are actively interested in it. After all, there's no getting away from the fact that social networks are a great place to get targeted recommendations from those who you share common interests with.

It's no surprise, then, that social discovery is all around us. From film endorsements on Facebook to trending topics on Twitter or song recommendations on Spotify, we are all influenced by the opinions of others more than you might think. Facebook and Twitter are perhaps the biggest examples of websites fuelling social discovery. Thanks to a range of built-in sharing features these networks make it possible for any piece of content about a product, service or brand to go viral quickly.

Part of the reason social discovery has become so common, and why it’s now important for brands from an advertising and marketing perspective, is because there’s more content available online than ever before. So, by adopting this approach, brands can not only use social discovery as a form of native advertising, pushing their products to new audiences in a less aggressive way than with traditional marketing methods, but also to offer more targeted and relevant messages to specific demographics.

 

By Juliette Otterburn-Hall, Chief Content Officer at Beamly. 

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