Facebook's 8 billion video views boosted by freebooting?
Facebook recently announced in its Q3 report that it receives 8bn daily video views, however, content creators are claiming that a proportion of that is actually stolen under what they call "freebooting." Smarter Every Day and In a Nutshell are among YouTube content creators that claim Facebook is ripping videos from YouTube and re-publishing them to Facebook. Facebook video views are counted even if only 3 seconds are "watched" and the sound is off, which further suggests its 8 billion figure is a little inflated, as Facebook's introduction of auto-play videos meant users could "view" a video just by scrolling down their Timeline. Snapchat generates 6 billion video views daily, and as videos need to be played manually, their figures suggest more engagement with users than Facebook.  

Facebook Video View Counts Mean Nothing. But Snapchat and YouTube’s Matter.

Last week both Facebook, and its strongest new rival, Snapchat (who turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook in 2013) released new daily view counts. Facebook now boasts 8 billion daily video views and Snapchat states they’re getting 6 billion video views a day.

However, Facebook counts a view as only 3 seconds “watched.” And the sound doesn’t have to be turned on. So all you musicians out there claiming that your videos get way more views on Facebook than YouTube, I encourage you to take a step back and actually check your Facebook video analytics and see how many people actually watch past the 30 second mark (where YouTube counts a single view) and how many actually click the video to turn the sound on (they give you this info).

I experimented with this back in August and noticed that of my 6,830 “views” from my video uploaded directly TO Facebook, only 787 people watched past 30 seconds. Contrast that with my YouTube views of 1,934 on the same video (all past 30 seconds). Also worth noting, I shared, promoted and “Boosted” the Facebook uploaded video and its numbers still couldn’t top my YouTube views. I paid no advertising for the YouTube video. The average time watched on the YouTube video was 1:42. On Facebook? :23. And only 444 people actually clicked the Facebook video (to turn the sound on). For a music video, that’s kind of important.

These numbers are fairly consistent with others who have run similar experiments.

+Facebook Lies Cheats and Steals To Win The Video War

So, although “8 billion daily views” makes for a great headline, it shouldn’t be taken at face value.

Views, just like followers, mean nothing. It’s now all about engagement.

That’s why Snapchat’s numbers are so interesting.

Snapchat’s videos, like YouTube, need to be manually played (in Snapchat’s case, by touching the purple square next to the user’s name, or loading their “story”). Every single view on Snapchat and YouTube is actually engaged with by the user, whereas it seems most Facebook views happen by accident – from people scrolling through their newsfeed.

So, don’t completely abandon YouTube for Facebook just yet because Facebook’s views seem like they are so much greater. Once you dig in a bit deeper, you’ll notice that YouTube’s engagement (and views past 30 seconds) is still much stronger than Facebook’s. Some artists are releasing just clips of music videos to Facebook (like 15 second previews sent from Instagram) with links to the original video on YouTube (to maximize view counts). YouTube videos can be monetized, Facebook’s currently cannot. However, YouTube monetization nets around $.00111 per play. Because the payout is so negligible, it’s not really worth choosing your video platform based on the payout. But YouTube also offers Cards which can be overlaid on the video and linked to a store, email signup or website. Facebook currently offers nothing.

Also worth noting, Facebook downgrades YouTube embedded videos and prioritizes Facebook uploaded videos in the Newsfeed. So, embedding your YouTube video TO Facebook won’t get you many views. It’s better to upload a Facebook preview video directly to Facebook and then post the link to the full YouTube video in the description. Or upload the full video to both Facebook and YouTube simultaneously and run your own experiments. That’s what BuzzFeed does. (8.1 million Subscribers on YouTube and 7.8 million Likes on Facebook).

Snapchat is a different beast altogether. Its direct competitor isn’t Facebook, but Periscope, Twitter’s live streaming app. Periscope streams stay active on the user’s profile for 24 hours (like Snapchat Stories). Both apps encourage real-time, real life moments. Nothing edited or posed – unlike Facebook and Instagram’s focus.

Facebook is betting big on video. They will be upgrading their video integration and will eventually enable search. We can only hope they will also incorporate their version of YouTube Cards, enabling Pages to link to external stores. Or, even sell directly to users on Facebook. How great would that be? Like this music video? Download the song right here (within Facebook). Or purchase the vinyl record, concert tickets or t-shirt right here. In Facebook. No need to link externally. I can’t imagine Facebook Commerce is that far off.