• by Matt Smith , Op-Ed Contributor, December 28, 2016

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have become major communication conduits for celebrities, presidential candidates and professional sports players.

These social media and video juggernauts have become exemplary motivators for those looking to reach massive audiences on a multitude of consumption platforms.

Until recently, the process of creating and processing video assets has introduced an extra step, and sometimes, a separate workflow for media companies.

Therefore, consolidating these steps and simplifying the process of media creation, distribution and measurement is paramount for publishers and media brands.

For publishers and content owners, discoverability, audience reach and monetization have become pillars of their collective video strategy.

Historically, platforms like Facebook and Twitter could only handle URLs to sites where their videos lived or embedded third-party video players in their feeds. To maximize return on investment for their video content, many publishers have now started exploring off-site syndication deals and distribution to these social platforms.

However, reaching these massive destinations shouldn’t require separate, disjointed workflows that add to equipment, tools and personnel costs.

Like traditional broadcast and digital workflows meeting in the middle, social syndication tools must be simple, robust and helpful in enabling digital-first publishers and media brands to reach massive audiences — without being disruptive to their day-to-day process.

A great deal of effort goes into viewing a video in the palm of your hand or on your laptop. From compression and proper formatting to editing and clipping to publishing and measurement - a video steps through a number of hoops on its way to your smartphone.

To be successfully displayed on these devices, it is important for the publisher to ensure that content rights are enforced and viewing metrics are tracked on each social network and portal.

The ability to do all these things well is critical to the modern video workflow. In addition, it helps video publishers delight their audience while maintaining brand visibility and generating revenue.

The good news is that some of today’s modern video platforms allow companies to do just: engage their audiences and partner well with customers.