That Facebook have started to seriously challenge YouTube’s monopoly when it comes to video has been clear for a while. Facebook have introduced feature after feature and are catching up with YouTube. That more advertisers plan on spending money on video ads on Facebook than YouTube speaks volumes and YouTube must be feeling shell shocked by the latest developments. YouTube needs to start innovating, and that sooner rather than later if they want to keep up their lead in the video sphere. But we’re here to talk about the big players’ video embed feature and what’s best for you. Facebook introduced embeddable videos at their annual F8 Developer Conference a couple of weeks back and brands now have the dilemma of choosing either Facebook or YouTube embedded videos for their website or blog. So let’s examine the options.

How To Embed Facebook Videos

Embedding Facebook videos are as easy as it is to embed Facebook posts, a feature that has been available since back in the second part of 2013. You simply click the little arrow in the upper right corner of your video and choose embed video. Copy and paste the code into your website/blog and you’re good to go.

The result:

How To Embed YouTube Videos

Similarly to Facebook, YouTube videos aren’t hard to embed, just click the share button and copy the embed code.

The result:

Facebook or YouTube embeddable videos – What’s The Difference?

So what’s best for you? Using embedded videos from YouTube or Facebook on your site? Well, it depends on who you are and what your intentions you have. If you are a publisher relying on income from pre-roll ads then it’s safe to say that sticking with embedded videos from YouTube is your best bet. Facebook doesn’t have any monetization strategy for publishers in place yet, but they probably will soon. Until then you should keep embedding your YouTube videos on your website, but try experimenting with some Facebook videos to see if the added social engagement layer is worth the loss of income from YouTube. If you’re NOT dependent on income from pre-roll ads before your videos, you should definitely try embedding videos from Facebook. You will, of course, lose YouTube views from your website, but the added social layer will most likely be worth it if you’re spending time on community building on Facebook. The ability to like and share your Facebook video on your site makes it easier for your to get viral reach with your videos. Remember that videos are now auto-playing on Facebook, something YouTube videos probably never will. If you start your video by showing your branding, you might plant your brand in the mind of the viewer who just happened to lay eyes on the auto-playing video his or her friend shared.

Conclusion

Choosing if you should use embeddable video ads from YouTube or Facebook is at the moment dependant on whether you’re trying to make money off your YouTube channel. If so you should continue to embed videos from Youtube. If you’re not trying to make money from your YouTube channel, try switching to Facebook embeddable videos and see if you have any success. The questions is if/when Facebook will help creators to monetize their Facebook videos, and when that happens, there might be no case to be made for using YouTube embeddable videos depending on how much advertisers are willing to pay for a view on YouTube vs Facebook. But in any case, you should always be experimenting about what gives YOU the best results. Have you tried out Facebook embeddable videos? Tell us in the comments.