Blog Archives: September 2011

Social Sharing - Publish Your Videos to Facebook, Twitter & YouTube

by Meagan Palatino on 2011-09-25 10:10

Video shared within your social networks - you've seen it, you've watched it, you've probably even Liked it. Online video sharing is becoming increasingly popular among social media users, consistent with the upward trend of overall online social media usage. Social media now accounts for 22.5% of the time that that Americans spend online. These sites are where users are going to look for news, entertainment, and social engagement. In this post, we discuss why and how you should leverage Facebook, Twitter & YouTube for distributing your videos.

Why Publish my Videos to Social Media Sites?

We've grown accustomed to a culture where sharing content is second nature, social media is now an established part of the web, and video is undeniably more engaging. The content we share is often a personalized reflection of the publisher. It allows for a more intimate connection with the person, the product, or the goals of the business.

Sharing video is easy and effective

Take Facebook for example, which is currently dominating the social media scene. In fact, usage statistics for Facebook are still growing. These are some exciting trends, and provide reason to believe that they align with the numbers for online video sharing within Facebook.

Video shared on Facebook performs better than video watched elsewhere - that is, Facebook users are more engaged and tend to watch more (if not all) of the video clip. Back in April 2011, we published a blogpost on the ease of getting your videos on Facebook. One of the more exciting Facebook features introduced this year was the ability for third parties to publish & playback video content directly within their Newsfeed, allowing individuals to watch videos from all over the Internet without ever leaving Facebook. As a result, Facebook drives 11.8% of all referred video traffic to media companies.

Friends trust what friends recommend

Its no surprise that there is a direct relationship between social media referrals & viewer engagement rates. Friends, or niche online communities statistically have similar interests, and they trust each other. Social networks give users access to particular & pertinent content that they may not find elsewhere. Users give more weight to content suggested by their friends. This is the essence of viral video marketing - create good content, and it spreads by word of [virtual] mouth.

This trend holds consistent within Twitter. As a Twitter user, you've chosen to follow specific "tweeters", and are more apt to trust the links they post. If someone you follow pushes the content, its probably both relevant and interesting. Unlike Facebook users that expect to stay within the platform, Twitter users are already comfortable with clicking through to watch recommended content. This often works to video publishers benefits, in that it sends traffic directly to the source (i.e. your main site or product page).

Video stays online, forever

Just like online content, online videos are indexed by google and over time draw traffic to your site. YouTube.com has become the largest repository of online public video, much of it user-generated content. YouTube videos are watched more frequently and stay popular longer.

YouTube.com is not only the world's biggest video portal (and free TV), it is also the world's most popular video search engine, following the footsteps of its parent company, Google. According to their 2010 Stats, each minute 48 hours of video are uploaded, and over 3 billion videos are viewed every day. Since 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the U.S, its a great tool for expanding your content's reach. To make it even more accessible, it has a variety of specific applications for direct integrations with a wide range of devices, from smartphones to settop boxes and connected TV's.

What Actions Should I Take Next?

As you begin to build your video presence across key social media tools, we offer a few tips for getting started with each:

• Twitter - When posting on twitter, we recommend using a URL shortener for the full video URL. This allows you to focus your message on describing the content, and add in any desired external tracking links. The beauty of Twitter exists within its "retweet" functionality. Retweets from your followers help your content gain popularity across borders. Word travels in seconds from the US to China. In the end, its impossible to track who is at the receiving end of the content you post.


• Facebook - Publishing video to Facebook is simple. You can either publish the video URL directly, or embed it on a website with a customized JW Player (through the use of opengraph to share video online). If you prefer the latter, click here for implementation instructions.


• YouTube - YouTube allows you to create a real video presence. You can brand your channel and create a social media landing page. By using extensive titles, tags, and descriptions your video content will be better indexed by their search engine. Our own online video platform, Bits on the Run, offers an easy way to upload directly to YouTube, occurring simultaneously with your upload to the platform. Read our Upload to YouTube Tutorial for more information.


• From Your Site - The JW Player offers a variety of social media plugins that publish your video content directly to social media sites. We recommend starting with the Sharing Plugin. This plugin supports several sharing options: video embed code, video URL, and direct posts to Facebook or Twitter.

Conclusion

Whether your ultimate goal is producing video as core marketing material for your business, or you are an individual looking to create an online presence for yourself, social media will help you. It helps spread your name, your cause, and your goals. It brings viewers to your site, creates engagement around your content, and certainly gives you and your team instant feedback.

Comments (2)   Tweet   Share