Why YouTube Videos & Facebook Don’t Always Mix

It’s becoming much easier to watch videos on Facebook. Now when you see a video in your News Feed, it plays silently, and if you want to see more – simply tap to play with sound in full screen. I appreciate this, because I am not a fan of auto-play videos – I want the option of scrolling past if I don’t want to watch.

In testing this feature, Facebook found a 10% increase in engagement with the videos – so more people are watching, liking, sharing and commenting on the videos shared by your friends.

We post videos for our clients often, so this seemed like a a win, but then we noticed that videos shared from YouTube or other outside sources — that were not uploaded directly to Facebook — received lackluster response.

Here’s why. Take a look at this example we found from Jason Adler of the same video shared from a website vs. video screen shot uploaded to Facebook. Purely from a looks standpoint, I’d click on the thumbnail on the left. It’s easer to see, it’s larger, and it’s displayed in a more attractive way.

So do we only post videos to Facebook if we upload them directly? Our answer is no. If you’re trying to promote a website or YouTube channel, uploading the video directly to Facebook will not help with SEO, so we’d recommend finding a balance of the two.

What’s next for Facebook? Video ads! Facebook has recently rolled out video advertising to select brands to begin testing the waters of auto-playing video ads in the News Feed  that come across just like any other shared video. Have you seen these yet?

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