Where should you put your money when it comes to Facebook Watch vs. YouTube?
The publication Digiday gave anonymity to a Facebook Watch video maker who has amassed over 500,000 followers on the site in April of this year.
The creator, who was given the freedom to speak freely, gave out a list of concerns against Watch, beginning with their dissatisfaction with the game’s lack of stability.
According to them, “there are so many changes on a month-to-month basis that it’s incredibly difficult to survive in this atmosphere.” “There are those months when Facebook is really good. Every few months, they perform an update or make adjustments to the algorithm.”
Both the creator’s audience and take-home money have suffered as a result of this. In their words, “I’ve seen weeks where you’re making a couple of thousand dollars and then all of a sudden you’re like, what the hell?” ‘It dropped from $500 to $7 in one day,’ says the author.
The situation has deteriorated to the point where the creator is contemplating doing the unthinkable: sending his visitors to the YouTube channel.
In light of Facebook’s efforts to entice creators away from YouTube, I’m guessing that the execs in charge of Watch weren’t overjoyed when they read that article.
When Facebook Watch started in 2017, its goal was to provide premium, episodic content to users.
The majority of Watch’s video inventory had been commissioned directly by Facebook, with the social media company contributing upfront funds to cover production costs and distribution costs.
However, last year, Facebook opened up Watch to all publishers and began offering artists — at least those who exceed a minimal audience threshold — a share of the advertising revenue generated by the ads that appear next to their videos on the platform.
Publishers with limited video production costs are now faced with the decision of whether to use Facebook or YouTube for their videos.
While it is possible to cross-post videos to both Facebook and YouTube, it is tough to develop content that will appeal to the audiences of both platforms.
In addition, Facebook uses silent autoplay, which means that most users will see video content when navigating through their Newsfeed.
As a result, films that are successful on Facebook have a tendency to capture your interest immediately. Because YouTube is a destination for deliberate viewing, it provides more breathing room and exposition than other platforms.
A video that is successful on one platform is unlikely to be successful on another, and vice versa for the same video.
So, which platform should you put first on your list? Starting with the core point stated by the anonymous Facebook Watch creator above: that Facebook is untrustworthy, we should go from there.
When it comes to news partnerships, everybody who has been paying attention to the media industry’s travails is well aware that Facebook is a fickle operator that can change its strategy at any time.
After paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover your production costs and prioritizing your videos in the Newsfeed, Facebook suddenly decides not to renew your contract, and you are forced to lay off your whole workforce and sell your firm for a fraction of its original price.
With Watch, Facebook has made a number of strategic shifts. In its early stages, Watch was intended to be a destination for high-quality programming that was comparable in quality to that found on traditional television broadcasts.
However, as one Facebook official later conceded, the network was unable to attract a significant amount of attention to this type of content.
A rapid adjustment in strategy was implemented as a result of the increasing pressure, according to the unidentified executive.
“We were going to take the Band-Aid off, and then the entire video was going to be in Watch,” says the crew member. It seemed to run opposite to the narrative we had been constructing in the market.”
The publishing industry has had to continually adapt to Facebook’s various policies for Watch over the past two years, and this has been particularly difficult for smaller publishers.
After making the decision to stop supporting short-form shows in March 2018, the company began investing its funds in lengthier films.
Later that year, it requested that publishers create material that would appeal to older viewers, notably “post-college millennials around the age of parenthood and older.”
Although YouTube does vary its objectives from time to time — both in terms of how it shows content and where it places advertisements — most publishers believe it to be more constant.
YouTube has proven to be a reasonably solid platform where the rules have become somewhat formalized, according to Scott Mebus, vice president of entertainment for Inc.
YouTube videos are more consistent and compatible with the free web than other video-sharing sites. In addition to embedding them in articles, linking to them on social media, and promoting them in newsletters are also options for publishers.
The fact that YouTube videos are properly indexed on Google search is the most significant thing.
While the YouTube recommendation system plays a significant part in generating views for a video, publishers can have some influence on the video’s success by promoting it on their own websites.
The success of Facebook videos, on the other hand, is nearly entirely based on the algorithm used to determine what appears in the Newsfeed.
Despite the fact that it is feasible to connect to and embed Facebook videos on third-party websites, this is an uncommon practice.
Then there’s the question of how to make money. While some publishers have claimed Watch revenue in the seven- to eight-figure range on an annual basis, others have found it to be disappointing.
According to one publisher, it generated $264 for every million video views on Facebook, compared to $2,200 for every million video views on YouTube, according to another.
For them, a Facebook video view is equivalent to approximately 12 per cent of a YouTube video view, as reported by Digiday’s Sahil Patel.
The final choice on which platform to prioritize for a publisher is based on a variety of criteria, and media organizations that have had earlier success on Facebook may want to consider actually investing even more time and resources on the platform going forward.
However, on the whole, publishers have more faith in YouTube and perceive it to be a more dependable custodian of their material than other platforms.
In spite of the possibility that Facebook will one day discover the perfect recipe for driving purposeful viewing to Watch, the audience just isn’t there, at least not to the amount that it is on YouTube. When it comes to generating video views and income, YouTube is still the undisputed champion.
