Video is the driving force on Facebook today and it is something that all marketers need to fully appreciate and take advantage of.
I am sure that many of you adopt this fact and use the video on Facebook as well as on your other online platforms – your website and various social media. A study updated by Quintly revealed a staggering statistic and if you want your Facebook videos to engage your audience you have to consider them .
Here's what they found: Facebook's native videos are shared much more often than YouTube videos posted on Facebook. Facebook's native videos are videos created or uploaded directly to Facebook. YouTube and other videos are published on Facebook by copying their URL into a status update.
The difference in sharing is surprising. According to Quintly, Facebook's native videos are shared 1055% more than videos posted on other sites, most often on YouTube. Why do these videos command a higher engagement rate than others? I think the answer is simple: They play automatically in Facebook's news feed.
This creates a small dilemma. As an online marketer, you want your videos to appear on your YouTube channel, on Facebook, on your website, and in other places. This brings us to the simple strategy you need to follow when posting videos:
Create your video on Facebook or download it directly to Facebook: Do not copy and paste the URL of a video from another website!
When you do that, you get that coveted "AutoPlay" and if your content is good, it will attract your audience and they will start to "like" and share your videos more often on Facebook.
What about other sites and older YouTube videos?
There are two other wrinkles to cover before leaving this topic. As I said above, you want to publish your videos on as many properties online as possible, but I have just given you information that, in many ways, encourage you to create videos on Facebook. How can you show these videos on YouTube and your website? Similarly, how can you publish existing YouTube videos on Facebook?
I go through the steps necessary to complete the copy of Facebook videos on YouTube this in my post How to Reuse, Reuse Facebook Live Videos for Your Content Marketing . There are some hurdles to overcome, but once you've done it, you'll understand.
If you want to go the other way – publish YouTube videos as native Facebook videos – there are two possible ways to do this:
- Take the original video file (if you still have it) and download it on Facebook, or
- Upload your YouTube video and download the downloaded file to Facebook.
If you have to upload one or more of your videos to your YouTube channel, the process is more complex and you will need a third-party tool to do it. YouTube does not make it easy because there are a lot of copyright issues. However, if you download a video that you have created, you own the copyright (unless you have copied another creator's work), so this problem should not be a problem.
The software to accomplish this changes quite often but fortunately Eric Griffith has an article on the PC Magazine website that is updated so you can go there to get the latest information.
If you regularly post YouTube videos on Facebook via their URLs and you have not seen the engagement rates you would like to have, switching to native Facebook videos might be the solution.