<p>Video is everywhere! Right from the time you search for something on Google, to the moment you log into your Facebook account; videos are flashed before your eyes relentlessly! If this is any indication of what the future will hold, you can be rest assured that videos will dominate online advertising and marketing in the coming days. Of course traditional and direct consumer advertising will still have a substantial presence in the marketing world; but brands will slowly start shifting their focus to creative video content to engage with their fans online; especially on social media. Sample this- two of the biggest image sharing social platforms Instagram and Pinterest also had to diversify their strategy from just image to video also!<br><br><strong>The Beginning of the Video Race:</strong><br>The race for the top crown in the video marketing arena was quite boring till a few years ago. YouTube was the unquestioned master of the space and every video marketer or video content creator wanted a piece of the action on YouTube. This year however is quite special! YouTube is finally being challenged in its own territory!<br><br>Two of the biggest names in the Social Network realm - Facebook and Twitter have launched a full-fledged attack on YouTube. Facebook recently announced its video advertising model and Twitter is fine tuning its video strategy everyday with innovative additions like Amplify making the race all that more exciting! And for video marketers, advertisers and content creators; it might be quite easy to get lost in all this chaos. In this blog, we try to decipher the nuances of each of these platforms so that each stakeholder in the video marketing field can get a bird's eye view of what to expect from these developments.<br><br><strong>Facebook and Twitter - How they upped their ante:</strong><br>In the vast expanse of Online Marketing, one of the biggest news items this year was Facebook's announcement of its Video Ad Revenue Sharing Model. Right now, this feature is available only in the US for big advertisers like Nike and Coca-Cola, but it's just a matter of time before smaller advertisers are also welcomed with open arms. Twitter also raised the stakes by aggressively brandishing its Promoted Video feature and a new product called Amplify aimed at TV media brands. Oh, and not to forget their well covered acquisition of Periscope . In all probability, these new additions to their arsenal will bring about a huge difference in the world of online video in the near future.<br><br>But Twitter still has some straits to cross till it reaches a stage where it can really challenge Facebook or YouTube in the video domain. Hence, in the next segments of this article, we will concentrate more on Facebook and YouTube.<br><br><strong>YouTube and Facebook - Understand the differences:</strong><br>For years, brands have predominantly relied on the YouTube video views counter to judge the effectiveness of their video since it was the core platform for distributing and watching video content on the web. But Facebook's entry is changing the trend. Now, brands can't rely just on one platform to promote its content. They need an all-round strategy.<br><br>Before blindly carpet bombing each platform with videos, one should understand the nuances behind the working of each of these platforms and strategize accordingly. Facebook's content discovery relies on newsfeeds which show what the user's friends are sharing. Hot content spreads like wildfire! YouTube on the other hand is like a video library and viewers go there to discover new videos. That gives YouTube content a much longer shelf-life. If something is hot at the moment or is a cultural phenomenon, Facebook and Twitter are incredibly effective for driving the spread of timely content due to the trending nature of their newsfeeds.<br> </p><table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 500px"><tbody><tr><td><div><span style="color:#800000;"><strong>1. YouTube creators post on average five times more video on YouTube than Facebook.</strong></span></div><div> </div><div><span style="color:#800000;"><strong>2. 65% of Facebook's video views come from mobile whereas it is just half of the overall views on YouTube.</strong></span></div><div> </div><div><span style="color:#800000;"><strong>3. YouTube is still the second largest search engine in the world behind Google.</strong></span></div><div> </div><div><span style="color:#800000;"><strong>4. YouTube has already built an ecosystem of application partners and can even be played on Television! Facebook still needs time to be considered a viable TV platform.</strong></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br><br>Here's an interesting factoid - Facebook campaigns reach 85 per cent of their total viewership in the first week after launch, while YouTube campaigns only reach 63 per cent of their total viewership by the first week.<br><br>But one shouldn't neglect the effectiveness of YouTube in continued viewership. Facebook still falls far behind when it comes to long-term views and total video viewership. If it really wants to challenge YouTube on its home turf, it needs to ramp up its video discovery and search options. Here are a few more pointers to ponder:<br><br><strong>Revenue model - What content creators need to know:</strong><br>YouTube follows a 55/45 revenue split where the content creator gets 45 per cent of the ad revenue. It offers two types of videos ads - Skippable and non skippable. Skippable ads allow viewers to skip ads after 5 seconds and they can be inserted before, during, or after the main video. Non-skippable video ads must be watched before the video can be viewed. These ads may be up to 30 seconds long and they can appear before, during, or after the main video. Do note that allowing non-skippable ads in your videos may increase the viewer abandonment rate.<br><br>Here's how the ad serving works on Facebook - When a user clicks on a video in their regular news feed, the 'Suggested Videos' feed will surface and it will offer relevant videos that the user might like. These videos will be interspersed with autoplay advertisements. And just like YouTube, Facebook will take a cut of 45 per cent of the ad revenue generated from the feed. The remaining 55 per cent will be split among the creators of the videos that were watched in the feed, based on the amount of time spent watching the respective videos.<br><br><strong><a href="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/Facebook_YouTube_Infographic-lrg.jpg" target="_blank">Click here to view graphic</a></strong><br> <br><strong>Subrat Kar, the author, is the CEO & Co-founder at Vidooly</strong><br><br><br><br>inbox@businessworld.in</p>
