The team at Empowering Pumps regularly receives questions throughout the year, so we thought we’d address a couple of the inquiries we’ve received recently in case others have some similar concerns.

Should I upload video to YouTube or Facebook?

Both! It’s important to realize that Facebook and Google are competitors for digital ad dollars thus competing for engagement/time spent on their platform. Facebook is continuing to evolve as a platform/media enterprise. They are prioritizing video content particularly live video in their algorithm which determines what gets shown in the news feed.  A common mistake we see businesses making is creating posts with links to YouTube.  These link based posts don’t rank highly in their algorithm and will struggle to be seen.  Obviously Facebook wants people staying on Facebook to watch video and there is no way to have a YouTube video playing within Facebook.  Instead of posting that YouTube link- convert the video into an MP4 file and upload it directly to Facebook (and/or Twitter and LinkedIn).  There are some interesting stats out there in terms of how much video content is being watched on Facebook daily— it’s creeping up near YouTube levels.  Twitter is continuing to increase as well.

Facebook and social media will continue to evolve.  After some of the negative news concerning privacy and having to go before Congress there is and will continue to be changes.  Facebook has continued to devalue business page posts and placed more emphasis on groups and communities trying to get some of the original “social media”  feel back and improve user experience.  This means that as a business- if you want to reach people on Facebook you have to advertise there.  At the same time they’ve dabbled into some live video broadcasting which raises the possibility that they look to get into the fast growing internet based TV space with the likes of Hulu and YouTube TV in the near future.  This would bring even more changes and opportunities for business to their ad platform.

Differences in how video advertising is served between YouTube and social sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

There is much more similarity than difference but the primary difference between how video ads are served across social sites vs YouTube is the placement within the news feed for social ads versus YouTube’s reliance on pre-roll.  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all work similarly in that the ads are mostly served within the news feed that the user scrolls through.  Video ads just as with image ads are served to your target audience through that news feed space.  YouTube videos are largely found by search results or subscription notifications.  Video ads on YouTube called Instream (or pre-roll) meaning the ad appears before or during another chosen video.

In either example, if you’re looking to reach your target audience with video based ads- it’s important to get to the point quickly!  You need to capture the attention of your audience quickly within the first 5-10 seconds to avoid being “skipped” in a YouTube ad or scrolled over on a social site.

Another problem we commonly see with industrial businesses is not taking into consideration the differences in video content that is suitable for ads versus the long-form video that’s been used previously on their websites or YouTube page.  When creating video content for your company- consider a short form version (under a minute) that can be used for ad/promotional purposes of reaching new people and expanding your audience.  You can still use the long 5+ minute stuff for other purposes with the audience you already have engaged.

We hope this blog shed some light on some of the current trends in digital media marketing, but if you have any questions, feel free to CONTACT US for a Consultation!