Facebook or Youtube: Battle of the Videos

Knowing which social media platform your video will be most successful on requires a deep understanding of each platform. We get it, you want to know “where should I post my explainer videos,” or “where will my video campaign be the most successful?” Harnessing that understanding can require a lot of time. But it is also important for your video marketing. We know you are busy, so we want to make your life easier! To simplify your quest for knowledge, let’s take a look together at video usage on Facebook and Youtube.

Facebook

Type of content

Although Facebook has a wide span of video topics, there’s a specific kind of video that does especially well on the social media giant. Video rips from television shows do surprisingly well on Facebook, and in turn, lower quality of videos are widely accepted. The successful content on Facebook is more lowbrow in nature. User generated content that has the element of surprise and/or comedy is also a strength to Facebook’s video platform.

Speed of growth

Video content on Facebook grows more quickly than video content on Youtube. According to Tubular Labs, 50% of Facebook’s total views come on the first day of the video being published. To put that into perspective, just 20% of YouTube’s total views come on day one. Conversely, the videos that see an immediate success are the shortest lived. This due to the nature of the newsfeed. A video may see wild success within the first couple of weeks but quickly fades out soon after. Not only is the newsfeed a reason for easily accessible views (it’s not a search and discovery platform, it’s placed in front of the viewer), Facebook also considers a view to be after three seconds of the video playing. Combine the three-second-view with Facebook’s native auto playing feature, and voila! You have a perfect recipe for more views.

What you can do

If you’re looking for a quick, impactful campaign, Facebook is the way to go. If your video’s style is suitable for Facebook, consider using Facebook the day you launch the campaign to give some initial “umph” to your video. Facebook incorporates autoplay on videos uploaded to its native uploader (the video uploader Facebook offers as opposed to publishing a YouTube link). With autoplay, your video will not have audio. So, pay great attention to the thumbnail of your video. You may even consider using a title card with text so the viewer knows what they are about to watch.

YouTube

Type of content

Youtube’s most successful form of content is music videos. The second is product reviews, specifically toys. This may come as a surprise to you, but the dominant millennials (18-24) active on YouTube, follow celebrities and big personalities. The content on Youtube holds a higher production quality, but because of this brands can be successful with longer videos. Unlike Facebook, YouTube is a search and discovery platform. In fact, it’s the second largest search engine in the world.

Speed of growth

On a macro level, YouTube has seen the greatest growth from the $6 Billion+ online video industry. YouTube is home to 164 million unique viewers in the US, as where Facebook sits at 97 million unique video viewers. YouTube’s videos initially receive slower growth, but the videos garner more views over a longer period of time because viewers keep revisiting and rewatching the videos on YouTube. This is known as the theory of long tail. The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. So, Facebook and YouTube can be considered the tortoise and the hare when it comes to videos. Facebook is the quicker but dies out sooner. YouTube is “slow and steady wins the race”.

What you can do

As with Facebook, ensure your thumbnail is eye-catching and don’t forget about title cards! Since YouTube is home to higher quality content, higher professionals so your message trumps the amount of video content on YouTube. Once you’re ready to go live, YouTube offers a lot of ways to optimize your videos for searches and discovery. Overall, Facebook and YouTube are both great platforms that have different personalities. Whether your brand should choose one over the other or both, is entirely up to the campaign (or video) and what you’re looking to get out of it. Ready to start producing your video? Your friends at Digital Brew are here to help! Connect with us on Twitter @DigitalBrew_Co or give us a shout at info@digitalbrew.com