Can you ignore YouTube for Facebook videos?

Although Facebook has grown tremendously, there are still plenty of benefits of sharing videos on YouTube as well. It’s just a time for a strategy modification.

Google’s video giant still has over 1 billion users

Don’t let Facebook’s recent success with videos fool you into thinking that YouTube is out-of-date. Google’s video giant still has over 1 billion users; millions of people over the world spend time watching videos each day and the number of hours spent on videos each month is growing upto 50% year over year. Most importantly, YouTube is still the world’s second largest search engine behind Google. If you want your videos to get discovered by new people via search, YouTube is still the place to be. Any video content you’d like people to be able to discover through organic search should be uploaded to your YouTube channel.

Facebook has also become the platform of choice for video advertisers.                                                                                                                

For Start-up’s, the social network makes it really easy for advertisers to target very specific groups of consumers, “When you have that much known information, tied to analytics, you can communicate in a way no one’s ever done before. That’s marketing bliss.” But Facebook isn’t only great for advertisers because of targeting; it is also great because of the engagement factor. YouTube is integrally good for search engine optimization and driving views. However, views have become a less important indicator to marketers and advertisers in recent years. The most important metrics when running video ads on social media, is placed on the fifth position. The key metrics is Engagement, shares, conversations, and total time spent watching. Facebook offers a larger opportunity for engagement and shares.

How's an advertiser to choose?

"You have to look at all the factors. Autoplay vs. skippable is the same thing. You have to look at targeting, cost and, most importantly, how your audiences are engaging with the content”

AUDIENCE

The objective of a visitor to visit YouTube is to consume & watch videos & music videos, so visitors may be more open to watch an ad -- and listen to it. "Unlike Facebook, a user watching a YouTube clip is more likely to be consuming content with music or sound. However, people are increasingly watching videos when they visit Facebook, which now averages 3 billion video views each day. (Source: ComScore)

TARGETING

To watch a video ad on Facebook, a person has to be logged on his/her account. That lets advertisers target their Facebook video ads very specifically to a potential audience's age, gender, location and interests. "In terms of targeting, Facebook is largely leading in both segments and accuracy.

YouTube offers similar targeting categories, but they don't match Facebook's particularity. Some advertisers have rewarded by contextually targeting their YouTube ads, aiming them at channel categories like fashion and do-it-yourself.

COST

Selling video ads directly, Facebook and YouTube both offer self-serve tools, which work in different ways. For both, an advertiser enters a budget and who it's targeting. Facebook's tool offers a fixed cost per thousand impressions and estimated impressions per day. YouTube asks the brand to enter the maximum it would pay for a completed view. YouTube then estimates the average cost per view and how many views a day.

What a brand spends may be less than its budget, depending on how many impressions Facebook can serve (even if they aren't fully watched) and how many views YouTube can deliver. Facebook's self-serve tool also sells video ads through auctions. Overall, the two products don't differ greatly in price when factoring in variables like goals and valued metrics.

AUTOPLAY VS. SKIPPABLE

Price and cost is not the same thing. “One huge pro of YouTube's skippable TrueView ads is that advertisers are only charged when the viewer views the entire ad, resulting in a more accurate cost per view. Facebook charges advertisers by the view and starts counting views after a video has played for three seconds.

"With Facebook, especially with it being autoplay (Optional which user can stop) and three seconds considered a view, it's important to make sure the reported views are translating, details like how many views lasted for 50%, 75% and 100% of the video, so that advertisers can calculate the effective cost of an autoplay ad.

So who’s winning the video marketing battle?                                                                                                                            

The truth is, both YouTube and Facebook are integral parts of an effective online video strategy. Use the strengths of both platforms to maximize the effectiveness of your video marketing strategy. Reach prospects with YouTube, and create and engage with your community on Facebook.