Facebook is fast becoming a go-to choice for online video marketers, catching up with Google's YouTube.
A report released by Ampere Analysis yesterday showed online videos are the fastest growing category of Internet adverts. A separate report released by media-buying firm ZenithOptimedia showed online video will overtake TV advertising in 12 key markets, representing 28% of global ad spending by 2017.
The two reports were released as the week-long Cannes Lions international advertising conference opens this week.
The competition for online video viewers opens up a new front in the clash between the Web giants that already compete in other types of advertising given their appeal to young and international consumers, the Ampere Analysis study states.
"If [Facebook's] own video ambitions are to be realised, and if it is to convince content owners it is a viable alternative to YouTube, it must deliver comparable returns," said Ampere research director Richard Broughton, quoted in a Reuters story.
"Marketers are definitely starting to consider the opportunities in the Facebook environment," says Mike Sharman, founder of local digital agency Retroviral. "However, the video conversion rate is not quite as good as YouTube yet.
"This is because Facebook users are sceptical about leaving that environment to go to another site to buy tickets, for example, and this is not the case with YouTube users."
The three advantages of using video advertising for each platform are, according to Sharman:
YouTube:
1. Embedding videos from YouTube to another site provides a "slick" user experience.
2. Ease of discovery: YouTube is most people's default video search.
3. Google's servers help reduce buffering.
Facebook:
1. Anyone can set up an advert.
2. People spend a lot of time within the Facebook environment.
3. The network has a very large captive audience.
In April, Facebook reported its users were watching four billion videos a day, compared with three billion in January and just one billion in September.
Last year, it was reported that more than 4.5 million South Africans visit YouTube every month, making it one of the most frequently visited Web sites among local Internet users.
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