Last week, Liveclicker hosted the 2012 Social Video Commerce event in New York with PowerReviews, the Social Commerce Company that recently announced the Essential Social Suite. The event was a huge success. Over 100 people registered with a 65%+ attendance rate. The audience was engaged.  20+ questions were asked before the event had to be stopped to ensure people could return to work! Many of the questions centered around the intersection of social and video. There were many questions about video commerce in particular.

Of course, there were plenty of important findings shared about the intersection of social and video. Among the findings shared at the event:

• 181 million viewers in the US watched 40 billion videos in January, 2012 (not counting video ads)
• Created social media and online video were 2 of the top 3 marketing trends cited by a Forrester survey conducted in the summer of 2011 in terms of confidence perception among interactive marketers. The future of both categories looks exceptionally bright.
• Online video ad spending is expected to double in 2012 vs. 2011 as a % of overall video spending (online video ad spending is growing twice as fast as TV spending)
• Online video is the fastest growing category of ad spend according to the IAB/PwC (Jan 2012), more than doubling the next closest category. Video ad spending is projected to grow at a 54.7% growth rate in 2012 vs. the next closest category at 27.0%
• Retail video views per retailer 2Xed in 2011 compared to 2010, with strong continued growth into January, February, and March of 2012 (according to Liveclicker research data)
• All age demographics are showing continued adoption of social networks. The fastest growing age group are those aged 50 – 64 years old.
• A sample of 7,000 videos among Liveclicker clients showed that the top 1% of videos accounted for 23.4% of all sharing activity. The top 5% of videos accounted for 52.0% of all sharing activity.
• The most shared videos had the smallest dollar contribution on a per-share basis. The least shared videos generated an average of $4.88 per share, compared to the top 25% most shared videos, which generated only $2.61 on a per-share basis
• The most shared implementations featured a video on the product page (e-commerce) that displayed by default. These implementations also featured a share button and multiple options to share in the video player.
• 9 of the top 10 retailers with the most shared videos also posted interactive videos to Facebook.
• PowerReviews shared a Step2 case study highlighting a gamification engine powered by the PowerReviews Essential Social Suite led to a 10X increase in user generated video submissions.
• The same strategy led to a 135% increase in Facebook referral traffic
• It also led to a 3x increase in revenue from Facebook-referred visitors.

If there was one theme to take away from the event last week, it was that the intersection of social and video is still in its early days. There are many unexplored opportunities yet. The magic formula is being converged upon, but no one has found it yet. With the help of technologies like the Essential Social Suite and the Liveclicker Video Commerce Platform, marketers are getting closer than ever. Many are already finding commercial success.  With smart marketers using smart technology, more breakthroughs are certain to come.