• by Alex Weprin , July 3, 2018

Users of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram increased their engagement with content from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu at a rate surpassing that of traditional TV shows, according to new data from the social media intelligence platform Shareablee.

While TV shows continued to make up the largest percentage of video views (driven by content from cable TV companies), engagement with streaming content was up 68% year over year, compared to an increase of 9% for broadcast TV and 0.2% for cable.

“That is a trend we have seen for a couple of years now,” Tania Yuki, CEO of Shareablee, tells Digital News Daily. “What is driving this trend is that streaming providers are coming out much more consistently with content, and some of them are being promoted very heavily on social."

And while social engagement "used to be predominantly all Netflix, you are seeing a lot of engagement with Hulu, and Amazon originals,” she added.

Shareablee’s data also showed a majority of social media users intended to watch the actual programs:  78% of respondents said they watch or intend to watch the programs they engage with on social media. Only 6% said they engaged with shows that they had no intention of watching.

“I think that really blasts through the veneer that social engagers are these social people that engage with social content but never actually watch the show,” Yuki says.

It isn’t all good news for traditional TV companies. Eighty-five percent of 18- to 24-year-olds reported they accessed their TV shows primarily through Netflix, even when they also had another video source available to them. In other words, younger consumers are watching video, but they may be less open to watching on some secondary platforms, or through a traditional pay-TV provider.