YouTube has controlled online video pretty much since its inception. There have been some challengers, but they have pretty much given up the ghost and concentrated on their niche. The platform has made stars of online talent who got in there early and understood their audience. And some of those have become very wealthy off the back of YouTube's ubiquity. But just recently there's been a sea-change that is a genuine threat to YouTube's dominance and this is happening quickly and as you read this.
YouTube has always had its problems. You have no control over the data, the ad returns are poor (if you require them) and targeting is very difficult. However it is/was the place where people go to find out stuff, be entertained, look for advice and more. Pretty much every music video, TV episode is up there. For a user, YouTube is great but for the marketer and the media company it just doesn't do what is required.
Facebook has its sights set on YouTube and it's no doubt causing sleepless nights with the Facebook video experience. Originally you shared a YouTube link on Facebook and you kind-of got the best of both worlds. Maybe not so now. Uploading to Facebook's native player has seen some stunning results. Take Apple's 'The Song' ad… that has been viewed 20.9 million times against 3.5 million on YouTube (as of 12th June). In terms of engagement Facebook also come out on top 208k likes, 8.8k comments against YouTube 30k likes and they'd turned off comments. Facebook can point to other successful campaigns such as the John Lewis campaign. Facebook accounted for 77% of video shares compared to 23% YouTube.
Facebook video autoplays on user feeds and brands have been drawn to this. We are sceptical about this. Media companies have often been criticised for autoplay and rightly so as autoplay does not mean an engaged viewer. It seems that quantity of views is valued higher than quality.
The main caveat on this is that Apple and all other brands that use Facebook video, pay them to get viewers to see the videos. YouTube's are organic (you can tell easily if someone has bought views on YouTube) and that since the film's initial release Youtube have add 600k views to just a handful from Facebook.
BuzzFeed Video, having championed YouTube in 2014, have thrown their weight into Facebook. With over 4 million followers and with views approaching million + and quite incredible engagement, this focus has paid off. BuzzFeed are a fantastic example to brands, to date the best examples of Facebook video success is in B2C but expect to see B2B brands embrace Facebook soon.
Twitter is rolling out its video programme in 2015. Currently you can post 6 second Vines and they have recently introduced 30 second videos that can be filmed, edited and uploaded from the Twitter IOS and Android apps. Twitter Amplify allows you to share longer video (from YouTube links for example). Twitter offers a more relevant environment against Facebook when it comes to B2B marketing and offers a more relevant range of business packages.
YouTube remains free. As a place to present your video from, within your own channel it is essential. However the additional targeting features offered by Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can now enable your video to be seen by the right people and in good numbers. All of these developments allow you to become a broadcaster. Publish, find your audience and promote across all social channels.
The opportunities to amplify your video have grown immeasurably over the last year and we will re-look at this regularly and update you with new developments and features (programmatic really can't be ignored any longer for example, that will be detailed in the next post). All in all it leads to very exciting possibilities for those of you looking to commission video.
Thanks to Jon Westbrook for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Jon Westbrook is Commercial Director of The Peloton. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.
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