“Spiderman’s the best!” 

“Nope. Batman is.”

“D.C. Comics are lame. I’m Team Marvel all day!” 

People love their opinions and often make their consumption choices in direct correlation. Superhero arguments aside, the reality is sources play a huge role in the acceptance of their content. Whether it’s The New York Times versus The Wall Street Journal, CNN versus Fox News, or Marvel versus D.C., Americans are highly-opinionated, picky, and skeptical about the information they ingest, especially depending on where they get it. Good luck convincing Uncle Earl at the barbecue that your favorite news blog is better than his trusty channel-of-choice.

Video connects us. From lighthearted TikToks and Zoom happy hours to the sobering images from Black Lives Matter protests and the insurrection at the US Capitol, moments captured in video drive our conversations and shape our opinions.

The social isolation and turmoil of 2020 only reinforced the importance of meaningful connection and shared experiences. While we continue to be physically isolated from each other, journalism and technology have kept us current and engaged with the world around us. Reliable information has been crucial in the face of an ongoing global pandemic and tumultuous political climate.

However, bias and misinformation has called journalism’s ability to provide impartial, transparent information into question. With the very definition of truth up for debate, we saw a meaningful increase in video usage and viewership as people looked for ways to validate the news with their own eyes.

More Video Means More Video Clips

At SnapStream, we saw increases across all our usage metrics in 2020 - from video recording and search to clip production and social sharing. 

SnapStream customers created 25% more clips compared to the prior year, with a significant uptick in the months preceding the presidential election. News outlets, think tanks, and other media providers leveraged key moments to inform and persuade voters as they navigated a relentless influx of both facts and fiction.

SnapStream Clips Created 2020 v. 2019

SnapStream 9.4 brings you a new clipping interface, pre-roll and post-roll branding on clips, integration with Kaltura, and many other bug fixes and improvements. You can see these new features in action by watching our on-demand webinar. Here’s what we’ve added and improved: 

A few of the highlights:

• New Clipping Interface 
• Pre-roll and Post-roll Branding on Clips 
• Kaltura Integration

If you're not following The Maury Show on Twitter, you're missing out on some quality entertainment. The show has been around since 1991, and just aired it's 3,000th episode. The success of The Maury Show isn't waning anytime soon as they continue to make strides via social media and fan engagement. 

Paul Faulhaber is the executive producer of The Maury Show and realizes the importance of social media in the daytime television landscape.  He decided to bring in Snapstream as a tool for the digital producers, Eric Hanson and Kristin Scheele, to grow the social media presence of The Maury Show.

Kristin and Eric spoke with us about how The Maury Show is harnessing the passion of their fans to deliver real-time engagement

Government agencies have a unique challenge managing their presence on social media. It's not easy to balance a trustworthy and informative presence with a human voice - and maybe some occasional fun. Check out how these government agencies are keeping their audiences informed and engaged with the power of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Started in 2005 as a print publication, The Washington Examiner is today one of our most active social customers. They're dedicated to engaging readers by bringing them the latest in breaking news and politics.  

One of the driving forces behind this engagement is Sean Langille (fun fact about Sean, he started writing for his city newspaper when he was in 2nd grade). He was nice enough to chat with us about best practices for social engagement and what life was like before SnapStream.