Streaming Content Discovery: Beyond Chance, Ads, Word-Of-Mouth Are Main Drivers

• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, September 18, 2021

As the number of streaming service options  — and the numbers being used by consumers — have multiplied, content discovery challenges are consistently cited as one of the top drawbacks of the streaming experience. 

Now, Conviva has released a study that digs into how consumers actually go about discovering content. It was conducted June 10-14 by Dynata among 2,502 consumers who are over 18, use social media, watch television or other video content through internet streaming, and also watch linear (non-internet-streamed) TV. 

General “word-of-mouth” was found to be the top discovery source — cited by 59% — followed by advertising (52%), social media (49%) and recommendations from streaming services (43%). 

However, those top-line results overlap somewhat, since the study’s definition of word-of-mouth included social media, as well as in-person buzz: “chatting with or seeing social media posts from friends, family, or influencers."

When sources were broken out more finely, absent the broad word-of-mouth category, the top sources were “discovered by chance,” TV ads, friend and family recommendations, streaming service recommendations, in-person conversations, media reviews and social media ads. 

Various forms of social media word-of-mouth were also cited by significant percentages, including friends talking about content on social media (20%), recommendations by a friend on social media (18%) and recommendations by a celebrity or influencer on social media (11%).