Facebook embedded videos

So this is actually part of a long-running experiment that we have been doing here at Newschoolers.

Please note, I'm preparing a simple report on this to really showcase it using hard numbers. It will take about another month to really finish getting enough data to prove my points, but the initial numbers show my hypothesis is correct. So if you want to challenge my proof, wait until my report is prepared.

Lots of people say "If the video doesn't play on Facebook, then it gets less views. Videos that I post online, must play directly within facebook."

The assumption I'm taking here is that the reason that someone says that is because they want more views on their videos. So note, all of this is about getting more views on your videos.

As well, note that this assumption is about getting more views on skiing videos. Newschoolers' power is in the distribution of ski videos.

Here's what the numbers have shown:

-When your video plays on facebook, compared to similar or previous videos you've done - the view increases are usually about flat, with some experiencing a 5%-10% gain.

-When a user watches your video on Facebook, they do not watch other videos they just move on in their feed.

-When a user clicks on a link that takes them back to view same video on newschoolers, you get on average almost as many views as those that play on facebook

-When a person clicks to visit newschoolers to watch a video, on average that user turns 4.8 new pages, of which many are subsequent video loads

-When visitors are brought to Newschoolers through a video link, there is a delayed spike in Direct visitors within the next 24 hours and each direct visitor turns an average of 5 pages.

Please note, this data is being meticulously captured, and all chances that something else other than the video changes have been completely eliminated.

What these numbers show is that there is a huge correlation between people coming back to Newschoolers, and generating subsequent views on videos. As well, there is no evidence that there is meaningful amounts of people that won't watch a video if they have to click through to a site.

As well, we're seeing huge cases of if people come through to Newschoolers from Facebook, they return as a direct visitor within the next 24 hours. This correlates to the idea that they remember that there is a place where they can consume all skiing content, vs. Facebook where your skiing content is mixed in with your friends' status updates.

Its initial data, but its looking like for every video that plays directly on FB, you gain a maximum of 10% extra views but you sacrifice a potential 10 views within the video system on Newschoolers. Gaining that 10% costs you a huge amount of future potential of a ski-only video system.

So even though its slightly longer-term thinking, there is immense value in getting people to click back to Newschoolers. Not only do they return after remembering how awesome the place is, but they watch more videos and subsequently more ads.

For those who are beginning to get to be a part of our monetization program, its a disaster to have less people watching less videos on the site. The revenue made from that extra 10% of views pales in comparison to the revenue potential of even a 5X increase in per visitor video views.

The issue is that you don't get the immediate benefit. However, if we all do it together, the entire system benefits and really you actually aren't losing views on your videos. Most videos don't even see a meaningful increase by being embedded on Facebook - its only a couple that see a few more.

Again, let us run the end of our experiment for another month, and I'll give you guys super hard data on all of this.

The real thing here is that we're trying to break the habit of skiers watching videos on Facebook. When they do that, they don't consume other ski videos they simply wait for Facebook to tell them what is cool. Overall the ecosystem of video producers that we're trying to build here will suffer. The absolute best thing that we can do is bring back people to the site to watch videos, and keep them here by being surrounded with awesome ski content.

If we work together to do that, we're going to see a far better future where producers everywhere can make solid money off of what we're doing here at Newschoolers.