I developed and run a Roku channel, and in promoting it, often use social media marketing strategies. It’s a viable option, affordable, free to just promote it, and once a base is established can connect with those who have the channel installed. The channel, is titled ‘Old School Social Studies Films’ and is loaded with archive & public domain films. One of which, is 1938 piece ‘Pygmalion’, a great film about some socialite aristocrats taking in a young woman from the down & outs. If it sounds familiar, it was re-interpreted as My Fair Lady, and Pretty Woman. Taking it a step further, Trading Places, with Eddie Murphy.

So, I often do Facebook ads and posts promoting the channels content, and recently, began doing greenscreen studio shoots with full graphics backgrounds. I posted the below video, on the channels Facebook page, which currently has over 1,300 followers:

So what’s interesting about this, is I then went back into the channels dashboard, and could see a bump in viewership of the promoted film, Pygmalion. I’ve pasted the below screenshot showing the past 30 days, singling out the specific title as you’ll see at the top.

Roku Channels Results

The post was done August 6th, which is the timeframe of the second bump towards the right. This data reflects directly attributable to the social media promotion aspect. This can be taken a step further, in that it isn’t simply just a ‘post’ that was made. It’s a high quality video production, using greenscreen aspect and graphic design capabilities.

Weapons Of Influence

You see, in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, he references a fact that if you give something to someone, they are more likely to to do business with you. It’s a form of returning the favor, embedded in human psyche. It’s why companies used to send you a book of stamps in the mail years ago, for free. Or why supermarkets give you free trials of food during the daytime. Contrary to popular belief, it is not to boost sales in said product. On the contrary, they find that the elevated boost one gets when receiving something when not asking for it. Gives a near euphoric rise throughout their visit. This in turn causes them to spend more overall.

Notice the fact they only seem to do this during the daytime, when its slower. This is due to the fact that during busier rushes, let’s say 5pm after work, shoppers are more in & out. Go in, grab steak and vegetables, and go home to cook. Grab milk & cereal. It’s a different type of shopper, akin to a visitor with a bathing suit on walking thru an Atlantic City Casino versus one playing the slots from 8pm-11pm at night.

In addition, you’ll notice, the previous increase, slightly further to the left, falls on a date of a prior post made July 29th, highlighting several other movies available on the channel. Showing they tuned in to the channel, maybe weren’t interested in the movies pointed out in the video post, yet browsed around and found this film that they did have interest in. This reflects the fact that they took Action. They saw the Facebook posting, and went to the Roku channel. That’s pretty significant action to take, proving the power of video in social media marketing.

Facebook Post Analytics

The post itself, was quite successful. The images below show both the ad, and some statistics, or you can view it here:

Facebook Advertising Success Rate

So as you’ll see, the post reached 294 people from a page of 1,300 followers, giving a reach of about 22%. Further, that posting received 45 clicks, or engagements, a result in 20% action. Quite successful.

Future Of OTT Advertising

Streaming devices have seen a rise in the past year or two, especially since the shutdowns and quarantine orders. In addition, limited sports and movies to goto is keeping people indoors. So, it’s been good timing to take a venture into original content and build out a more robust marketing approach for the channel. Soon it may be time to venture into original programming. It’s definitely time.

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