Skift Take

Being transparent about performance metrics on both organic and paid videos should be a given.

On Twitter’s last earnings call, CEO Dick Costolo and CFO Anthony Noto put its video capabilities on a pedestal, but the metrics brands can get on organic videos are not on par with Facebook and YouTube.

Travel brands have the capability to a upload videos directly on Twitter from their desktops and from their mobile devices. When looking at the engagement metrics of a particular tweet, it is easy to gather retweets, favorites, replies, and clicks, etc. However, performance metrics on organic videos on Twitter are too basic.

Twitter doesn’t show view count in-tweet and that’s a missed opportunity to attract more viewers. These numbers pique users’ curiosity to click and watch the video or engage with the tweet. Twitter claims that the engagement on video tweets drives more engagement than third-party players. However not having enough metrics on organic content kills any incentive to upload videos directly.

Both Facebook and YouTube gives a much fuller picture of how a video performs whether it is promoted or not. In addition to providing video view count, they show how long people watch the video — 25%, 50% 75%, 95%, and 100% — and determine points where they start to lose interest. Having video metrics is just as important as obtaining metrics about posts because producing and creating videos — paid or not — is labor intensive.

Facebook counts a video view from its auto-play after three seconds, while Twitter and YouTube start the meter as soon as the play button is clicked.

When it comes to promoted video content all three platforms provide a bit more analytics. Facebook provides a breakdown of people who watch by demographic, including age, gender and country. YouTube provides a view on how keywords for videos are performing as well as the ad spend by impressions and clicks per view on various ad formats like TrueView in-display and in-stream, etc. Twitter also provides a look into ad spend, who saw the ad and where they are from, and conversion metrics.

Facebook Video Metrics for Non-Advertisers:

Facebook_Video_Analytics

YouTube Analytics for Non-Advertisers:

YouTube_Analytics

Turkish Airlines’ has outperformed the rest of its peers with its videos on YouTube. However, the airline uses Twitter more as a video distribution platform. YouTube captures the video views but there is no accurate picture of how it is being consumed by the Twitter audience. Isolating video viewing habits on each platform is beneficial in optimizing the video experience.

In the past, Vegas’ Cosmopolitan Hotel and Airbnb have partnered with Twitter on Promoted Videos and converted audiences with higher click-through rates to booking pages. They have also  managing their reputations and pushed brand awareness. Louisiana Travel has been able to pull its audience back to viewing the full version of videos on its website to explore more culinary adventures.

Despite the fact that 82% of Twitter’s users watch video, Lonely Planet, one of the most prolific tweeters in travel, leans towards Facebook for uploading more organic and paid videos. Its video content on its Twitter channel is mostly GIFs, Vines and links to YouTube videos.

“In essence, we see video as a vehicle for us to provide travel-related content in a more entertaining way, regardless of which channel that piece actually goes out on,” said Sebastian Neylan, social communications manager at Lonely Planet.

Travel brands are somewhat ambivalent about the channels they push video content to because it is mostly about distribution. In the end, advertising dollars are better spent on channels that have the largest captive audiences — and data to offer.

Video on Twitter Infographic:

Twitter_Video_Research_Infographic_V3-01

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Tags: lonely planet, turkish airlines, twitter, video

Photo credit: The "Wedding Above The Clouds with Turkish Airlines" YouTube video, which was uploaded as a link on Twitter. Turkish Airlines

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