As one might expect, Halloween generates plenty of conversation on social video. According to video measurement company Tubular Labs, Halloween-related videos made for more than 6.67 billion views across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube in the month of October this year.
Brands were part of that total, with a surprising mix of industries involved. Target, an obvious choice, had 6.4 million Halloween-related video views on YouTube for October, followed by Lidl grocery stores’ German page, Fanta (France), Fanta (U.S.), and children’s TV series Thomas & Friends. On Facebook, there was some overlap with Lidl and Fanta making it, but Wilton Cake Decorating (5.5 million views) led the way, while LEO Thailand and Spirit Halloween were also in the top five for views.
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Instagram, on the other hand, showed beauty and cosmetics brands winning with video — the top nine brand creators (in terms of views) on the platform were all in that industry. Tarte Cosmetics led with 3.3 million views, followed by ColourPop, Morphe, Sephora, and Poshmark. Twitter was a varied group as well, with Countdown Supermarkets (New Zealand), battle royale video game Overwatch (which may have seen an uptick in traffic following developer Blizzard‘s much-criticized decision to ban a top player for supporting Hong Kong protests), Tesco, Burger King (Brazil), and TikTok (South Korea) in top five.
On the publisher front, Peppa Pig amassed 87 million views on its U.S.- and Spain-based YouTube pages, followed by a slew of kid-related creators. Facebook was dominated by publishers largely native to the platform, as LADbible (68.9 million views), Tasty (59.1 million), VT (46.4 million), UNILAD (37.1 million), and MetDaan (35.5 million) paced the field on Halloween content. Over on Instagram, 9GAG had 68.3 million views, followed by WorldStarHipHop (19.8 million), The Shade Room (15.3 million), Ellen DeGeneres (12.4 million), and 5-Minute Crafts (12.3 million). The top of the Twitter publisher list was far more focused on traditional media: Dancing With the Stars, DeGeneres, Sky News, ABC, and Angelina Jolie’s second Maleficent installment led.
However, it was influencers who really owned Halloween, with about 5.2 billion views (over 75% of the total) — a large majority of which came from YouTube. Ryan’s World, Crafty Panda, Kids Diana Show, Toys and Little Gaby, and Steve and Maggie (Mexico) each generated 35 million views or more. Influencers accounted for many of YouTube’s most-viewed Halloween videos, too, taking four of the top five. That list was led by Ryan’s World and Elephant Toothpaste Science Experiments Halloween Edition, which brought 44.5 million views. Altogether, kids’ entertainment and animated Halloween videos made up nearly a billion views on YouTube alone in October.
The surplus of much-viewed Halloween content compared to the number of videos that were actually sponsored shows a potential opportunity for advertisers across social platforms. While over 150,000 Halloween videos were uploaded in October, just 670 were sponsored. Particularly notable sponsored videos include: Ninja‘s Butterfinger-sponsored video, which garnered 5.1 million views, as well as videos made in partnership with GEICO, Amazon Prime Video, Jet-Puffed Marshmallows, and Wilton Cake Decorating, all of which brought more than one million views.
The disparity in total number of videos to the number sponsored, though, highlights where brands can potentially get more involved and fully realize the potential customer and revenue opportunities available through social video platforms. Vorhaus Advisors and Tubular Labs recently released a study showing that $13 billion in social video revenue could be left on the table each year. Brands not being sure of how to measure the obviously large audience for the content (see Halloween video views alone here) is part of that.
