Five Takeaways on Facebook, Video and the Future of Content

“The best way to tell stories in this world — where so much information is coming at us — actually is video. It commands so much information in a much quicker period so actually the trend helps us digest more of the information in a quicker way.” Nicola Mendelsohn, VP EMEA, Facebook

At Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit, Facebook's Nicola Mendelsohn suggested that the future of the platform would “definitely” be mobile, and would “probably” be “all video.”

It's just 18 months since Facebook started featuring native video in timelines but in that time we've already seen brands and publishers shift hard in response - Buzzfeed & Tasty, The Dodo, NowThis, Vice, Vox ..... they've all seen huge growth in audience reach.

Live video too is starting to break through with Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Twitch and Periscope. Throw in the huge growth in visual-first networks & tools like Snapchat, Vine, Giphy, Beme et al and there's a pretty obvious trend.

So what does it all mean for brands, non-profits. cultural organisations and educators? Here are FIVE of our takeaways:

1 - FOLLOW THE MONEY

Reaching pretty much anyone online (particularly younger audiences) necessarily means engaging with social networks. Those social networks - from Snapchat to Facebook to Twitter - are betting big on video. If you think social networks will continue to play a role in how you communicate online, you need to bet on video too.

2 - THIS IS NOT YOUR GRANNY'S VIDEO

Video itself is changing too. 85% of Facebook videos are played with the audio turned off and a 'view' is counted so long as someone watches at least 3 seconds. How does that affect the kind of video you make?

3 - DISTRIBUTION IS DISTRIBUTED

Making video work means a lot more than publishing to YouTube. Buzzfeed's growth in traffic to its website is pretty static, despite massive growth across social networks. NowThis no longer even sees the point of a homepage. Creating for a variety of platforms needs more than a copy & paste strategy.

4 - VOLUME MATTERS, WHICH MEANS COST MATTERS

Frequency has always been an important element in social media, a shift to video won't change that. How will you communicate with your audience when they expect to see daily updates in video form? Do you have the capacity to manage that - or pay for it? Take note of how social publishers are using standardised formats to allow them to deliver volume (see Tasty).

5 - WE'RE NOT DONE YET

Best practice, new platforms, changing formats and new technologies (VR anyone?) will keep shaking up this space pretty much forever. And chances are the pace of that change is only going to accelerate.

Adaptability will be key. If you don't have the luxury of spending all your time evaluating the latest thing, find good partners to work with. Perhaps more importantly, focus on understanding how content fits into your organisational strategy, and then let your tactics adapt accordingly.