Kate Funk
A good place for video advertising is YouTube, for the obvious reason that people log on to YouTube in order to watch videos. It does not take Richard Dawkins to figure that one out. However, some people are suggesting that Facebook is the better option for video advertising because it has more users and more people using it per month.
Here we take a look at the situation from both angles and describe the Facebook idea a little.
The Facebook comparison to YouTube
Facebook is used for a total of 645 million hits per day, whereas YouTube has two hundred million hits per day. Facebook has over one billion accounts of which 8.7% are known to be fake. However, their number of fake profiles still outnumbers the amount of actual profiles on YouTube. However, in YouTube’s defense, one should point out that people need an account to use Facebook (in most cases), but do not need an account to use YouTube (unless they want to watch age restricted content).
In a strictly marketing sense, it would make more sense to advertise with videos on a platform built for people who would like to watch videos. However, the argument for Facebook is that there are so many users on Facebook that even poor advert targeting is permissible.
How can one really judge an idea before it starts
In defense of the idea to use Facebook for video marketing, it has not started yet, so it is unfair to cast the idea adrift right away. The videos are to be fifteen seconds long and will be placed on the timelines of peoples profiles. The adverts will be PPC (Pay Per Click), which means the advertisers will need to pay for each click they receive. The adverts that run will be targeted based upon the preferences of the user and the things the user has clicked “like” on.
As a gesture of humanity, the creators of the scheme have made it so that the videos do not have sound unless the user clicks on the audio. However, the forces of online darkness will probably alter this policy if there is not a mass exodus from Facebook. In which case doctors are expecting massive amounts of custom as people realize their necks no longer have the capacity to look up from their mobile phones.
In another move of almost humanity action, the owners (no long Mark) have decided that people will only be exposed to one advert per day. The adverts are going to be tremendously targeted and are going to be charged per 1000 view, which may seem like a cheap way of making money, but you have to remember that each advert installed on a profile has the potential to be viewed by just one person. This would not be a good selling point if you tried to install adverts on a website that only has one user.
Facebook adverts are going to be more targeted
The account holders of Facebook have given away a massive amount of personal information which is going to be used to target people. YouTube does not have this sort of advantage. Furthermore, of the information that YouTube does have on its accounts, it does have to contend with the fact that lots of people use YouTube without an account.
YouTube does still have the edge
Facebook click through rates are very low. This is mostly due to the fact that Facebook requires a lot of user engagement, which means people are less interested in the adverts. This may also be because a lot of the adverts on Facebook seem to be pretty crappy. It seems to be dominated with adverts that nobody in their right mind would want to click on.
When people use YouTube, they are just sat there looking at the screen, which means they have plenty of opportunity to be distracted by the PPC adverts. YouTube also has the edge of Google backing, which means that the website gets a lot of traffic from the world’s biggest search engine.
The YouTube video marketing only works to charge people if they watch the video or watch it for a certain amount of time. This benefits the PPC advertiser as he or she only pays if the user is likely to be interested in what is being shown on the affiliate advert. Facebook advertisers however, will be charged per view, even if the view was just for seconds. This may be why Facebook are offering such good opening rates for their affiliate advertising.
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Kate Funk is passionate about different technology topics. She coaches individuals in writing and networking skills at Rushtutor.
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful information. It is very useful for video promotion. It will definitely help to get the targeted traffic.