I talking with a brand manager in Boston this morning over Skype, and I was asked I thought their customers would be comfortable on camera.

“Are they anything like you” I asked

“Yes, of course” was the reply.

“Well we’ve never talked before, and yet did you hesitate to turn on your Skype camera today?”

The chance are that your team and customers have likely already used created video before, and usually the true barriers arise from a lack of understanding rather than video itself. We’ve pulled together the numbers from 10 of the most impactful video platforms in the market to show you how many people are creating video.

Stats from the top 10.

There are far more than 10 video platforms, but we’ve narrowed it down to our favourite 10, the most commonly used, the most impactful, and the most potential. In no particular order, lets start with an old friend:

Now in its 11th year, Skype has had one of, if not, the, greatest impact on video as a communication tool. Of its 300 million active users, 4.9million sign in daily, and 76% of these account holders are over the age of 24. Skype serves both the consumer market, connecting families and friends, but also the business market, and we use it on a daily basis for face to face global calls.

Instagram only recently launched video functionality in June 2014, however, due to its 200 million active users already creating visual content in the form of images, it is due to become a big player in the video space. Currently at around 8% of posts, Videos are limited to 15 seconds of creative beauty.

WhatsApp became the first Video ready platform to reach the benchmark of 500 million active users in April 2014. Whats even more impressive is that 70% of its users are active daily. Predominantly a messaging service, with 50 billion messages processed each day, WhatsApp’s media sharing is on the rise, with daily shares of 700 million images, 200 million voice recordings & 100 million videos, limited to 90 seconds.

Unlike Instagram and WhatsApp, 100% of Vine users make video, so though a smaller user base, the platform sees more than 1 million of its 6 second videos produced each day. This 6 second limit does tend to see Vine used by a more creative audience. With 271 million users on Twitter there is definitely room for growth.

Launched in 2005, YouTube did for amateur video publishers, what Skype did for video conversationalists, in championing the user generated video industry for entertainment. YouTube is predominantly accessed by casual viewers, but still boasts an impressive 300 million registered users, and though not all necessarily create video, a high proportion of these do.

WeChat is to China, what WhatsApp is to the Western world, and boasts almost as many active users at 450 million, 40% more users than the US population. As with WhatsApp, most content generated on WeChat is text & images, yet video use is growing day by day.

Born out of Israel, Oovoo, though less well known, has a healthy 100 million active users for its video chat service. 30% of its users are over 35, showing a good range of demographic penetration.

Apples native video chat platform Facetime, can be found on all IOS devices. Sources claim a user base of 250 million, however that said, it is difficult to know how many of these users are active. Great for IOS users as it is free, Facetime’s stumbling block comes from not being available on other mobile OS.

The Ying to Facetime’s Yang is Google Hangouts. Boasting a potential user base of 540 million users, as all of Google account holders have access. It is difficult however to see current activity, and how many users are active on the system. One of the major benefits of Hangouts are its extensions beyond simple calls to conference calling and Webinars, a big plus for business users.

Not strictly a “platform”, GoPro still deserves an honorable mention. Whilst they may not boast the numbers that the online services can reach, in an industry declining by 30% a year (compact cameras), GoPro has bucked the trend and experienced 100% year on year growth, taking the value of the business into the billions. GoPro’s success arises by providing access to video capability in extreme situations, and 4 million more people are putting serious effort into creating video in 2014, that likely were not before. The 5th largest brand channel on YouTube at 1.8 million subscribers, GoPro take video outside the comfort of our homes, and I’ve a feeling they are just getting started.

A few video stats from our books…

We see a lot of daily outreach for gathering user generated video, and possibly the most impressive stat we have, is that when asked in the correct manner, 85% of people are willing to be on camera, a far cry from the “barrier” many brands believe video presents.

Second to this, the majority of Verbate respondents are over the age of 30, highlighting that video is by no means a medium for the SnapChat generation.

Perhaps in reflection of this, most respondents are not actually active on smartphone video apps such as Instgram or Vine, however they are using technologies such as Skype & Video conferencing on desktops & tablets.

There is as of yet no single video platform used by all, but many that fill different needs. Video is here, and Verbate provides the most user agnostic way to collect user video.

A final note on the state of UGV penetration

In short, many of your customers, your team, have already started creating video, be it for entertainment, communication or pleasure. Our estimation of adult smartphone users that have created video content is at least 35%, as of 2014 Q3. By 2015 we expect this number to have crossed the 50% barrier.

So again, the question really is not “if” your customers & team are comfortable with video, but what inspires them to create this content, and more importantly, how you can inspire them to use video as a communication tool with you.

The statistics and numbers have been sourced from a number of sources:
Wall Street Daily, Digital trends, Techcrunch, Skypenumerology, AdWeek, Mashable, Telegeography, Econsultancy, Fool.com, Wearesocial, The Verge, DMR — Digital Marketing Ramblings & Statista.com