Facebook To Challenge YouTube By Sharing Ad Revenue With Video Creators
Facebook is planning to roll out its next big feature this fall: video revenue sharing. Video is one of the most popular forms of content, and until now, was dominated by YouTube, a Google property. Although Facebook has offered content creators the reach they need, it hasn’t offered site users an opportunity to earn money, something that YouTube has done for years, according to Recode.
YouTube allows video creators to connect their Google Adsense accounts to their video channels. Whenever an ad is clicked, channel owners earn 55 percent of the revenue share while YouTube keeps the other 45 percent. Facebook plans to offer a similar share.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, opportunities for marketing online are increasing with the use of affiliate programs and mobile marketing. Ecommerce businesses have an opportunity to easily grow their businesses with these platforms.
Facebook offered up several reasons for why it will be a better platform for video creators to use in the future. The first is that Facebook will offer to actually show the video. Unlike YouTube, where users have to search to find videos, Facebook will show the video even without users following your Facebook page.
Dan Rose, VP of Facebook partnerships, told Recode that this will give video creators a greater incentive to publish their videos on Facebook.
“A lot of [our partners] have said this will be a big motivation to start publishing a lot more video content to Facebook. That’s exactly what we’re hoping for.”
The new feature will also allow video content creators more opportunities to get their videos seen. With the related videos feature, additional videos will be available to view. If the user watches more than one video, the revenue will be split among the video creators whose videos were watched.
Before investing effort in creating videos to upload to Facebook, it’s a good idea to understand that the rollout won’t start until the fall, and currently Facebook is only appealing to major brands. For the average Facebook user, revenue sharing won’t occur for some time. Currently, Facebook is offering the new monetization feature to sites like the NBA, Fox Sports, and Funny or Die.
As reported by CNBC, an anonymous spokesperson for Facebook said that the video ads will be posted intermittently among videos and would be seen once for every three videos watched.
“We’re running a new suggested videos test, which helps people discover more videos similar to the ones they enjoy. Within suggested videos, we are running a monetisation test where we will show feed-style video ads and share revenue with a group of media companies and video creators.”
Facebook’s ultimate goal is to cash in on a previously unused marketing opportunity: video ads. The added benefit for those who use video to market their businesses is that it will allow them to earn additional revenue and give video creators the incentive to post their content.
What do you think about Facebook’s bid to compete with YouTube? Will they succeed in dominating the video market?
[Photo Credit Digiday]
