Data Shows that Facebook is Better for Video Marketing Than Twitter

Mar 3rd 2010 View Comments

Continuing my series of Facebook sharing data (if you’re curious about my methodology, read the first post), I looked at articles that had the word “video” in their titles.

It turns out that those stories that indicated they contained videos were shared more than the average story on Facebook, while they were actually shared less than the average story on Twitter. This is likely because the Facebook platform makes it easy to embed multimedia content into updates while Twitter does not.

The takeaway here? Facebook may be a better platform for your videos to go viral than Twitter.

And again, if you have any other datapoints you’d like to see, please let me know. I’m really excited about my new Facebook analysis capabilities and I’ve got a ton more stuff planned for you.

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http://www.risingstarartists.com/ Deborah

Hi Dan,

I’ve been following your content for a few weeks and wanted to tell you I LOVE it. The statistics make a huge difference in decision makeing. Definitely going to buy your book as soon as my budget allows. Keep on keepin’ on

Deborah Diak
“The Music Marketing Maven”
http://www.risingstarartists.com
http://twitter.com/janblencowe_art janblencowe

I wonder if that will change now that tweetdeck allows you to open YouTube videos in a pop up box just like you can for photos. I know I am much more likely to take a look at something if I don't actually have to leave tweetdeck.

It's amazing to me how quickly things change in the world of social media!
http://twitter.com/graemethickins GraemeThickins

Dan, I think measuring business or work-related content vs. personal would be the most interesting thing to know about Facebook, and comparing that to Twitter. Don't know how you'd do that, but I think such data would be useful to many marketers, including how it's trending.
http://www.masstransmit.com/ Adam Q. Holden-Bache

This all makes sense. It probably has to do with how we use the two channels. Aside from the embedding issue, Twitter is fast/short/quick so it would make sense that users may be adverse to sharing video content, which usually requires at least a short investment of time. And most friends on Facebook are probably closer in relationship than Twitter followers, so something shared there may receive more attention which could allow it to spread faster and more frequently. But it's interesting regardless, and shows that marketers should take advantage of the potential benefits of video on their Facebook pages.
http://nateriggs.com nateriggs

I would add that as you embed links/videos etc on Facebook, the display renders much more visually and takes up more page space. For me that draws the eye. Clicks and views usually follow. You also have to consider how humans use the network. Most only connect to personal family and friends which breeds a higher sense of trust among content…

What's interesting is that if you are using something like hootsuite or Seesmic Desktop and cross posting across platforms, conversion and shares on the videos seems to go down on Facebook. Most of the time, a third party application does not display a image or video box. Again – totally an observation. Would love to see data against this idea.
http://bbromarketing.com/ William Robbins

I must admit I missed the boat of Facebook for videos. I primarily have used tubemogul.com (which is a great service) to post to the “video social media” sites.
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http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com John Paul

Seems like everyday we are hearing how facebook can offer you and your biz more substance and results then Twitter.

Twitter needs to step it up and make some changes to stay relevant, and not fall like Myspace.
johngrabowski

Ugh. I don't like watching embedded videos on Facebook – I click through to YouTube if possible (so the video gets credit for the views, etc). Also, iPhone users (like me) still can't watch Facebook videos within their Facebook iPhone app.

I agree that Twitter as a platform is less conducive to videos – most people who are there are there for short bursts of information instead.
mj62

this is basically an obvious statistic. people like visuals and i would more likely click on a youtube video on facebook over twitter because 1) there is a picture of the vid before i click on it. 2) i can play it in that same window. with that said, nonetheless, i like twitter being phrases and simple and not all bunches of stuff posted.
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http://twitter.com/heyrobertdavis Robert Davis

janblencowe, I love this feature too, but I think comparing Tweetdeck to Facebook ignores their scale differences. Twitter has more than 75mm registrations, and about 26mm unique monthly users – Facebook more than 400mm registrations, and 125mm unique monthly users. If Tweetdeck has 5 % penetration of the 26mm unique monthly Twitter users… well, you know. I think there's sometimes a tendency for us social media “power users” to confuse our own behavior with that of the world at large, where the mass audiences really move the numbers on content sharing, etc.
http://twitter.com/danzarrella Dan Zarrella

Robert? Do me a favor, go read my methodology in the first post that I link to. I'm not making a direct comparison of the number of “shares” on each network, and that is patently obvious. So please, go do some reading.
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