As digital video  continues to transform media for companies old and new, marketers need to embrace a whole new set of rules:

New rule #1: Embrace the world beyond YouTube. You have to.  Today, video distribution beyond YouTube is a required component of pretty much every video strategy. The new rules indicate it’s Facebook (8 billion daily video views) and Snapchat (6 billion), plus live streaming, short-form, subscription, over-the-top,  mobile, messaging, virtual reality and…the next thing that hasn’t happened yet. Challenge yourself to evolve thinking on where video views matter, where potential audiences are aggregating by the millions. It’s potentially a smarter strategy than trying to get millions of views on your own. Just ask BuzzFeed, which gets more than half of all its video views via Facebook and Snapchat.

New rule #2: Social media is marketing. Social belongs everywhere in your marketing funnel. But social media is not a task tacked onto the end of the marketing coordinator’s day. It’s strategic, it’s funded, it’s full time, it’s as well-thought-out as any other media strategy. And maybe it’s not every platform, because nobody can do it all.

New rule #3: TV is not dead. The nature of TV watching and the opportunities that come with it are simply evolving – for viewers, advertisers and publishers. If you look at the bigger picture, it’s growth, growth, growth, with people watching video in all its forms on all devices. Take over-the-top TV, led by Netflix with 69 million subscribers. We can now count 70 apps on Apple TV, and more are anticipated this year. Consider OTT as the next ecosystem that delivers on-demand, high definition, high quality, lean-back video viewing experiences, a place where former print publishers (like Condé Nast) and advertisers (like Red Bull) can now have a real TV channel.

New rule #4: Welcome ad blocking. Advertisers and media companies have done a disservice to viewers since the beginning of advertising. Often, it’s been too many ads selling us things we don’t need. Is it any wonder that ad blocking has become more of a thing? Yet advertising is not bad. In fact, it’s a necessary part of the media business, even in today’s world, where streaming subscriptions and micro-payments are fast becoming a viable option. Viewers often forget this. Without ads, there would be little to watch. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but the way to make changes is to put the viewer experience first.  Advertisers must make better ads that tell stories, and publishers can’t overwhelm with pre-roll and mid-roll and overlays, pop-ups and pop-unders. It’s too much.

New rule #5: Millennials aren’t the only generation that matter. Yes, millennials are huge. But hhere’s another generation that’s younger, more connected and very, very different from millennials. Some marketers are talking about them, but not enough. They are generation Z. The oldest of generation Z were born between 1995 and 2000. They are more Latino, more African-American, more Asian. They aren’t just video savvy, they are video innate, meaning they largely don’t know a world before YouTube, streaming video, social media and smartphones. Facebook is for old people, but they’ll take Snapchat. And they are less optimistic and more pragmatic.  

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