YouTube Pulls Ahead of Facebook in the Video Battle—For Now

YouTube and Facebook have been battling like titans to see who will rule the Internet video market. YouTube has something of an advantage since it’s been around longer, but Facebook has been closing in fast. With innovations like its new video-only feed, the social media giant has been getting almost as many views as YouTube.

In fact, Facebook has been actively taking the war to YouTube by turning its newsfeed algorithm against the video hosting site. If a user shares a link to a YouTube video, relatively few of his or her friends will se it. However, if he uploads the same video organically through Facebook, it will receive far greater exposure. This has led many Facebook users to rip videos from Youtube and publish them as their own, resulting in lost revenue for the actual content creators.

However, YouTube has made some smart moves in the final weeks of 2015 which have allowed it to pull ahead of its competitor and better attract the attention of marketing companies.

Trending

Youtube fans and marketing companies were excited to see a new tab on the YouTube browser which allows them to immediately see all the most popular videos on the service that day. For marketing companies, this is extremely valuable because it allows them to easily see what sorts of videos are going viral and how their target market is reacting to various marketing efforts.

This new feature has won YouTube a lot of positive press and new engagement.

Year in Review

The other event that has given YouTube a boost is the huge attention which has followed its year in review video. This homage to the best videos of 2015 has gone smashingly viral, attracting more than 50 million views already. Facebook too has released a year in review video, but rather than being upbeat and celebratory, it focuses on more somber news events like the Paris Shooting and Nepal earthquake. By comparison, it only has 27 million hits.

Tanner Wadsworth writes for Fusion 360, an SEO and content marketing agency. He writes for many other clients as well. Follow on Twitter.