Go Native: Videos Uploaded Directly to Facebook Net a 10.3% Organic Reach

Marketers understand the key role that social media networks play as a venue for content sharing.  Video is one of the most popular content formats distributed to social media sites.

For video content, most marketers will post the video first to the YouTube video sharing site and then create links to share on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  This approach enables organizations to gain video SEO benefits from the YouTube/Google search engines.  Additionally, since a YouTube web link is easy to create, it simplifies the distribution process.  One link can be posted across multiple social media sites.

However, posting video content directly to YouTube instead of uploading to Facebook and LinkedIn may mitigate both organic and viral reach.  According to research published by Socialbakers, videos uploaded directly to Facebook have an organic reach of 10.3 percent compared to videos shared via a YouTube web link, which only net an organic reach of 8.9 percent.”

Viral video engagement is even higher when the video has been posted directly to Facebook:  2.2 percent compared to a measly 0.2 percent share of YouTube video links.

As MarketingCharts noted, fans interact with video content in a similar capacity regardless of how the content has been shared.  Approximately three-quarters of an organization’s Facebook fans will “like” video content whether the video is uploaded directly to the social media site or shared through a pasted web link.

From a best practice standpoint, it behooves an organization to take video content and directly post to Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, etc..  Keep in mind that Facebook and LinkedIn are authenticated web sites.  This means that users need to be signed in to see and access content (and it is one reason why videos should be cross-uploaded to video sharing sites).

One final benefit of uploading video content directly to each social media site:  the visual appearance of the videos is much sharper than just sharing a YouTube link.

Jenn O’Meara is the Director of Client Services at Flimp Media.  With a diverse digital marketing communications background, Jenn enjoys working directly with Flimp Media’s clients.  A graduate of Providence College and Boston University, Jenn can be found rink side most winter weekends cheering on the PC Friars Hockey teams.  In the summer, look for Jenn at the beach.