In response to a question on the Digital Eve list, I’m writing this blog post. The question was:
Do you know if I can put a video in facebook (not just a link)?
And of course many people responded with information on how to post a video on Facebook.
I absolutely love Facebook, but I don’t love Flash (must be because I’m a “Mac girl” – read how being a Mac girl found me a husband here, in The #1 Thing I’ve Learned from the Life and Death of Steve Jobs, RIP). If you want to play a video on Facebook it plays it in Flash.
What I much prefer (but admittedly don’t use as much as I should) is the Youtube application for Facebook. Why? Because if people view videos via your Youtube tab on Facebook, Youtube counts the views. If you just upload a video file to Facebook, your views aren’t counted on Youtube. See How to Get Your Videos Found on Youtube in 4 Easy Steps for an explanation of why your Youtube views will get you farther than anything else.
So. Now that you know, here’s what the Youtube tab on our Facebook page looks like:
And here’s where you go to install the app and get it set up. It’s super-easy, so don’t think it’s a techie thing.
Please link to your Youtube tab on Facebook in the comments below – I’m a Youtube junkie and that’s why I’m here at Starbucks chugging away, because Youtube videos keep me up at night. :-)
Thanks for the tip!
Are you sure that video views on FB don’t get counted as views on YouTube?
Do you have any articles or studies that prove that?
Thanks for reading Aaron! Let me ask you why the views would count on Youtube. If you simply upload the file, how is Youtube supposed to know it’s the same video? It’s technically impossible, unless Facebook and Youtube were in cahoots. But let me remind you that Google (owner of Youtube) and Facebook are rivals. The only way your views will count on Youtube is if you post the link to the Youtube video. But then it plays in Flash.
I don’t know too much about the technology, but it would seem to me that YT would have no problem tracking the views because the are sending the video content to play on FB for each viewer. FB certainly isn’t uploading and hosting the videos. My understanding is that when you post a YT link on FB it is simply being embedded on the FB just like it would on any other page. And YT definitely counts views from videos embedded on other pages.
Just as a simple (imperfect) test, yesterday I posted a YT video on a FB page that I run with 114K fans. Today, when I look at the public video stats for that video, I see that there was a large increase in views yesterday (I assume that most of the FB people didn’t click over to YT). In addition, under the “Significant discovery events” in the video stats it says, “First embedded on – facebook.com” then 99 views (I know that there is often a delay in reporting actual view on YT). However, this would also seem to imply that YT is counting views on FB.
Am I mistaken?
I’ve always told my clients that FB is a great way to increase views of YT videos and if I’m wrong, I really want to know.
Thanks for taking the time to respond
Kol Tuv,
Aaron
To clarify:
If you upload a simple file to Facebook, then Facebook is hosting your video.
If you post a link to your video from Youtube to Facebook, then your views will be counted on Youtube. But the problem here, from my perspective, is that it plays on Facebook in Flash.
If you don’t want your video to play in Flash on Youtube, AND you want your views to count on Youtube, use the Youtube app for Facebook to publish to your wall.
I hope this makes sense.
