Facebook is the Best Place for Trending Video, According to New Analysis

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BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Over the past year, alternative video platforms such as Facebook have become an increasingly important part of brands' media strategies. New data shows that Facebook has not only grown tremendously for total video viewing, but also that Facebook is now the most powerful tool for driving immediate growth in viewership for timely video content.

In March 2015, brands released 82 new video campaigns that generated a True Reach® of 437.5 million, and 53 of those campaigns used Facebook as a distribution platform. Views generated from videos posted on Facebook represented 35 percent of that total March viewership, while YouTube represented 65 percent, a sizeable increase from the single digit percentage that represented Facebook at the end of 2014.

For brands that post their campaigns on both Facebook and YouTube, Facebook dominates viewership immediately following a campaign's release. This is reflected in measuring the velocity of each platform, or how quickly the sites reach their total viewership. Amongst March campaigns, Facebook reached 85 percent of its viewership in the first week after launch, whereas YouTube only reached 63 percent of its viewership in the first week.

Over time, however, YouTube regains share and comes to dominate it. This finding was echoed in Visible Measures' measurement of 2015 Super Bowl campaigns. Visible Measures reported two days after the game that Facebook was responsible for 25 percent of Super Bowl campaigns' total True Reach viewership. Two months later, however, Facebook's overall share of viewership had dropped to 18.5 percent, even as overall viewership had increased by 63 percent to hit a True Reach of 475.5 million. At the same time, YouTube's share of viewership increased to 81 percent two months after the game from 75 percent two days after the Super Bowl.

This decrease in Facebook's share of viewership – from initial release to later in the campaign lifecycle – highlights how differently the Facebook and YouTube platforms function for both consumers and brands, explained Brian Shin, Visible Measures CEO.

"If something is hot and of the moment, such as a newly released campaign, the Super Bowl, or even a cultural phenomenon like Fifty Shades of Grey, Facebook and similar social media sites are incredibly effective for driving the spread of timely content due to the trending nature of the newsfeed," said Shin. "But the strength of Facebook to promote trending content also highlights how powerful YouTube remains as a platform for continued viewership."

Video viewership is very strong on Facebook in the immediate or short-term, whereas video viewership on YouTube sees more growth in the long-term and it's all a result of site functionality and consumer behavior.

Content discovery on Facebook is very much dependent on the Facebook News Feed, which is a function of what a user's friends are sharing, as well as recommendations based on trends and a user's interests. Because discovery is so dependent on sharing, viewership soon after content gets "hot" is strongest on Facebook.

Conversely, YouTube acts as a depository for video and millions of users go there first, or arrive via Google search, to find video content. This user paradigm enables videos to have a much longer shelf-life on YouTube.

"If social media platforms like Facebook want to be longer term video alternatives to YouTube, they will need to amp up video discovery and search options within their sites," said Shin. "Because, at this point, the more removed something is from being ‘hot' the more often YouTube is the only way to find the video."

About True Reach
True Reach is Visible Measures' proprietary viewership metric and the first viewership metric in the industry to be accredited by the Media Rating Council. It accounts for viewership of clips uploaded by the brands and their agencies, as well as viewership of clips driven directly by audiences, measured across hundreds of the Web's most popular sites and platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, DailyMotion, CollegeHumor, and AOL, among others. True Reach is used by leading media outlets such as Ad Age, Auto News, Variety, and The Wall Street Journal, among others, when reporting on the latest videos, branded or not. The public can now access the True Reach of today's hottest video content advertising campaigns at TrueReach.org.

About Visible Measures
Visible Measures is the leading content advertising company. Long considered the most trusted source for data and insights on video content advertising. Visible Measures provides an end-to-end solution for capturing consumer attention programmatically through video and native media. Visible Measures works with hundreds of global brands, agencies, trading desks, and publisher clients, which include Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestle, VivaKi and Conde Nast. Visit us online at www.visiblemeasures.com or follow us on Twitter @Visiblemeasures.

True Reach and Visible Measures and the Visible Measures logo are registered marks owned by Visible Measures Corp. Other company and product names may be trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners.

fama PR
Gail Scibelli, 617-986-5019
visiblemeasures@famapr.com

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