Brafton's video blog team polled some of our coworkers to find out a little more about their online video-watching habits.

When was the last time you watched a video online? If you’re like most of us here at Brafton (and everywhere, really), it was probably in the past 12 hours. We know everyone loves binge watching their favorite shows on Netflix – but what else are people watching online? Cat videos? Giggling babies? TED talks?

As the video blog producer on our video production team in Boston, it’s important to stay on top of online video preferences. Right now 70 percent of brands say videos are the most effective content marketing tactic, and by 2017, 74 percent of all web traffic will be video.

To find out a little more about their online video-watching habits, we polled some of our coworkers:

youtube increase trafficYouTube is still the fan favorite for online videos

No surprise here – 100 percent of respondents said they watch videos on Youtube. Other than America’s favorite cat video archive, we found that nearly half of our coworkers watch videos on Facebook, and others enjoy checking out news websites, Vimeo and company pages.

From cat videos to news briefs, keep it concise

Across the board we found that the most popular types of content are TV clips, music videos and, of course, videos of cats. However, it wasn’t all fluff – 56 percent of respondents said they enjoy watching informative videos too.

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Speaking of staying informed, we asked which websites people turn to for news clips and learned the most popular ones were the BBC, CNN, Vice, Buzzfeed and Facebook.

There’s so much to watch online, it’s important to produce videos at a reasonable length – or else viewers might drop off early. We asked our coworkers how long they like to spend watching each online video. The majority said the best video length was between 1 and 2 minutes, and only 11 percent were interested in videos the breached the two minute mark. On the Brafton Video Blogs team we like to keep our videos short and sweet to hold viewers’ interest.

Check out how one client’s video blogs became its most valuable marketing content within a month

But enough of me telling you what Braftonians are watching, let’s hear from some of them.

studioContent Marketing Strategist John Lynch on some of his favorite types of online videos – “I am weirdly obsessed with smartphone videos of soccer matches taken by fans in the crowd. The best are spontaneous, unique and visceral. I like the idea that fans can now record their own unique viewpoint of games, own the rights, and distribute them really easily. I think smartphones are very empowering in that way. There is also something really pleasing about goal .”

Writer Camden Gaspar, on preferred video lengths- “What draws me to long or short videos is my expectation going into it. If it’s just a stupid video of a guy hurting himself for cheap laughs or something similar, then I want it to be like 15 seconds. If it’s something more in-depth, like a lecture or documentary, I am willing to put in the time. Essentially, I don’t prefer long videos to short ones, it’s all about what I expect to get out of it.”

Here on the Video Blog Team, we’re obviously a little obsessed with online videos. Here’s what we enjoy:

Video Blog Manager Matt Rickart on what he likes to watch online – “Work reflects life in this case. I’m sort of partial to the short, informative, person-talking-in-front-of-a-camera web series. Especially when they’re about pop culture. The PBS Idea Channel is a really fun, fast and quirky take on intellectualizing pop culture through relevant questions like ‘are LOL Cats art?’ or ‘Are Bronies changing the meaning of masculinity?. I also really love the sister-series, PBS Game Show for it’s similar take on video games.”

Studio Blog Coordination Hannah Perlmutter on what types of short and longer videos she enjoys – “I like to watch short ‘viral-ish’ videos, like babies laughing and animal friends (goats and rhinos, man…) playing.  That being said, I’ve found some really cool longer videos online as well.  I like Upworthy videos if I have a few minutes to spare, but other than that, I prefer short videos I can watch in only a minute or so.”

And as for me (Video Blog Producer Julia Troy) when I’m not watching videos of adorable animals falling off of beds and couches, I really enjoy the Tiny Desk Concert Series on NPR.

How about you? What kinds of videos do you like watching online? Let us know in the comments section below.

Julia Troy is Brafton's Video Blog Producer, and was previously a writer on the Health team. She would say that her hobbies include running, hiking and crafting but that would be a lie. It's mostly just Netflix.