Facebook as a video platform

[john]

While looking at Scott Bradlee's Facebook page I noticed that some videos, such as a recent posting of the Habits video, have view counts associated with them. Apparently the one's with numbers are videos uploaded directly to Facebook, as opposed to links to YouTube. Maybe this is widely known, but it's new to me.

The FB numbers are amazing on the videos. The IWITW video featuring Shoshana has close to 3 million views, while Haley's Habits has more than 370,000 in three days. These are FB views and have nothing to do with Youtube. Unfortunately the FB "view" counter counts a view if the video plays for 3 seconds, even if it was auto-played by someone scrolling. Additional stats are not available to the viewer, although the uploader has additional breakdowns.

Quote:May 5, 2014
Introducing Video Metrics

With the goal of helping you better understand how people respond to your videos on Facebook, today we’re announcing that new video metrics in Page Insights and Ads Reporting are coming soon.
Today, as a Page owner, you can only see how many people started watching your video. When the new metrics roll out over the coming weeks, you will also see information like video views, unique video views, the average duration of the video view and audience retention. These new metrics are designed to help you learn what’s resonating with people and determine how to more effectively create and promote your videos on Facebook....

https://www.facebook.com/business/news/C...eo-Metrics

Quote:Facebook's Strategy to Take on YouTube Comes Into View
Autoplay Videos Plus LiveRail Ads Could Equal Trouble for Google's Video Service

...But for an ad-supported business like Facebook, views are only as valuable as the revenue they generate. While YouTube videos viewed on Facebook contributed some percentage of the estimated $5.6 billion YouTube reaped last year, Facebook didn't make a cent.
That may be why Facebook is shining a light on its own video player privately in meetings with online video execs and now publicly with its view count. Coupled with its acquisition of video ad-tech firm LiveRail and introduction of autoplay video ads, Facebook appears poised to make a run at YouTube's business. In one big way it already has....

http://adage.com/article/digital/faceboo...hm/294873/

[john]

The FB push into video could potentially change the video landscape a lot. Scott is starting to use it for PMJ videos and the results seem explosive. In the past he has put up promo videos directly to Facebook, and he just started adding some of the music videos already posted to YT. It appears that reach new people and those who have already seen the vid on YT. But then they have the potential to get shared to more new viewers and things can go viral in the FB world if it is popular.

[john]

Comment by Scott on his FB page where he posted a new link to the YouTube version of ShoShana's video

Quote:Scott Bradlee 1 hr ·
Nearly 800K views on YouTube (and countless more on Facebook) for our soul remake of "I Want It That Way," featuring the ridiculously talented Shoshana Bean! New PMJ video comes out tomorrow, btw- I don't stop just because I'm on tour...

Using the FB method of counting a view (apparently 3 sec) the video of IWITW on Facebook has 3.5 million views. Scott doesn't endorse that number.

Haley's has more the 500K (on top of the YT views).

[john]

Quote:Strategic insights
The Made Up Success of Facebook Video

Written by Thomas Baekdal on January 2, 2015
We have all heard about the amazing growth of Facebook video. Only a month after they started autoplaying videos, Facebook video grew by 50%. And last month, Facebook video outgrew YouTube in terms of what type of videos brands are posting on their Facebook pages.

This all sounds pretty fantastic, but it's a very manipulated form of growth.

First of all, that 50% increase in traffic wasn't really because people were watching more video. Most of it came from how Facebook is measuring it. On YouTube, a video view is measured as a real view. As in a single person choosing to watch the video. It's a deliberate and validated action.

On Facebook, a video view is counted if a video is in view for an auto-playing 3 seconds or longer. You don't have to be much of an analyst to realize that those two are not even remotely comparable. YouTube is measuring real people choosing to do real things, while Facebook's video measurements are as a bad as with banner ads.

Facebook is also deliberately skewing the exposure of Facebook video. To illustrate how, let me show you the result of a little test I did last month.

If you are following me over at Twitter, you will know that I have been ranting about how my Facebook Newsfeed suddenly appeared to be all about video. Every single day, I always see video, video, video... and them some other things.

So, I decided to test if Facebook were deliberately adding video posts to my feed in order to boost their own stats? And, if so, if it is done in a way to skew real organic popularity?

Remember, Facebook's Newsfeed is ranked, as they say, to always highlight the best and most relevant content. But is that true, or are they merely manipulating the stream to further their own goal?

So, last month, after being annoyed by yet another bunch of completely useless video posts, I decided to write down the type of posts I was seeing in my stream. This was the result: {see the left hand column in the image below}

As you can see, the top of my stream is filled with video posts. Facebook has even added video posts that weren't shared, but merely liked by another person.

The next thing I did was to look at the newsfeed as if it wasn't ranked at all, for the same period of time. And the result was noticeably different.



Obviously, this was just a very simple and unscientific test, but it matches what I have observed over the past couple of months. Every time I go Facebook, it seems like the top of the feed is always dominated by video posts.

In other words, Facebook video is not as popular as Facebook makes it appear. Instead, it looks like Facebook has twisted the newsfeed so that 30% of your organic newsfeed is being replaced by Facebook video posts.

Of course, Facebook will say that they are doing this to improve the feed to make it more relevant and interesting, but this is also the source of my biggest grief about Facebook.

If I compare the filtered feed created by Facebook's algorithms (and favoring video posts) to the unfiltered feed of organically published posts, the unfiltered feed is far better...

Obviously, if you were to ask me about tactics, my suggestion to you would be to posts Facebook video instead of links to YouTube. Since Facebook seems to be favoring that type of posts, it would be foolish for a brand not to take advantage of that. As a brand, your role is to generate the highest level of ROI possible.

Also keep in mind that this is the umpteen newsfeed change committed by Facebook. Only a few months ago the advice was to focus more on video as links. It's hard to define a Facebook strategy, because Facebook is constantly tweaking what tactics work based on whatever they are focusing on at the moment. And unlike SEO where you can always fall back on quality content as your overall strategy, you can't do that on Facebook.

My best advice to you, however, is the same as always. Focus on creating products and experiences that encourages your audience to share those things on their own. That is a far more effective strategy than anything you might share on your own Facebook pages. And, it's a strategy that has a long term impact, rather than just being a temporary optimization for the moment.

Video is tricky because of how Facebook is twisting the views. But, overall, YouTube is a far more long-term platform for building a video audience than Facebook.

On Facebook, your video is only viewed for the short moment it is promoted in the feed and shared by people. After that it disappears from view and is somewhat forgotten. On YouTube, we have far more long term viewing patterns, in which people explore playlists and search for specific videos about things they are interested in, not to mention the impact of YouTube SEO.

It is common for a YouTube publisher to have 60-70% of their views happen over time (as opposed to the initial attention). On Facebook, you have almost zero views over time, unless your posts are reshared and goes viral (which happens very rarely on a per video basis).

http://www.baekdal.com/insights/the-made...ook-video/

[john]