Whether you call it social video, video marketing or digital advertising, call it awesome in terms of generating brand power – especially in terms of getting your audience to send it forth to their friends and contacts. But only call it awesome if you’re planning to extend outward from just quick video advertisements.

A recent article on emarketer looks at how social video represents an evolved version of just a basic YouTube or company video, and how this medium if poised to change the way organizations create and use their video content. How is social video different than traditional video content?

1. Social video is video on a mission. Instead of breaking in to a viewer’s world with a brief advertisement, organizations using social video as part of a more in-depth, total message campaign are seeing higher successes.

2. Social video places a very high emphasis on encouraging fast sharing across social media platforms. At the same time, it allows for the creation of a “feature” style video. This means it’s more information-rich and more impactful than a quick video ad.

3. Social video, like all well-planned content creation strategies, provides valuable, engaging information that actually gives the viewer real benefit when they watch … hence, they want to share more often.

4. The viewers of video content are the key force for encouraging the distribution and usage of the videos – instead of random acts of video advertisement appearing all over multiple platforms.

The emergence of “experience” based video, including mini-moments, is also triggering a new interest in users sharing these video messages through their Facebook accounts. Organizations that depict the actual experience of their product, and even their team engaging in the product process, are seeing more viewers strengthen their brand message for them by rapid and enthusiastic sharing.

YouTube still retains first place for its volume of social video, but interestingly, Facebook is the preferred method when it comes to viewers actually taking the step of sharing the video onward. More than 70 percent of viewers will use Facebook to send the video on to others in their network.

However dynamic and engaging, video is only one element of a successful content marketing strategy that’s built upon listening and responding to customers across multiple platforms – so not random.