Facebook is now second to Google as the biggest traffic referrer to online video, according to a new report (.pdf) released by Brightcove and TubeMogul.
Facebook drove 9.7% of video referrals in the study, beating out Yahoo for the first time. While Twitter sends significantly fewer referrals than search engines and Facebook, “(it) was the highest average engagement source across the categories, and also accounted for the highest engagement rates specifically for broadcasters (1:57 minutes) and online media properties (1:40 minutes),” said the report.
It’s yet another metric that shows the power of social media as a video discovery device, not just for professional video, but on the consumer side as well. “I think that right now we’re about to enter a time where video is more important than ever for social media,” says Sukhjit Ghag, who works as Sony’s social media evangelist. She points to the increasing ease of sharing video straight from devices via services like TwitVid, Facebook and YouTube — and the fact that Sony consumers are asking for super-simple sharing functions built into cameras themselves. When it’s seamless, sharing will explode.
By the way,there’s one element of the Brightcove study that’s more surprising than the social media metrics: newspapers have surpassed broadcasters in total minutes of online video streamed. BUT, broadcasters still lead newspapers in minutes viewed per video clip. The likely reasons, says Brightcove, is that newspapers are uploading a higher volume of mostly shorter-form clips compared to broadcasters, which on average upload longer form video. The study has plenty of disclaimers, by the way, and I’m not entirely sold on the numbers. But, it is evidence that newspapers are making strides into the video arena.