A study published by Quintly shows that videos uploaded natively to Facebook receive 530% more comments than videos shared from other sources.
The original study was published back in March, but has since been updated with data collected between January 2017 and July 2017.
In total, 187,000 pages and 7.5 million posts were analyzed. From this sample size, it was found that native videos make up 92% of all videos published to Facebook.
Video in general is rising in popularity on Facebook, with 48% of pages analyzed having uploaded a video to their timeline at some point between January and July.
Of the pages that have posted a video, 92% posted at least one Facebook native video. This includes Facebook Live videos as well.
YouTube videos were only published by 26% of all pages analyzed — three times less usage than Facebook native videos.
Videos from Vimeo and/or other sources were published by a combined total of only 7% of pages analyzed in this study.
When analyzing just video posts published by pages in this study it was found that Facebook native videos were used 89% of the time, YouTube videos were used 8% of the time, and other video sources made up less than 5% of videos used.
Facebook Videos vs. YouTube Videos: Performance Comparison
Quintly compared the performance of the top two video types, Facebook and YouTube, and the results were heavily skewed toward Facebook videos.
Interactions, which include reactions, comments, and shares, were 168% higher on average for Facebook native videos than YouTube videos.
In addition, Facebook native videos received 8 times more comments and 477% more shares.
After arriving at these numbers, Quintly concludes that Facebook native videos are the dominant video format on Facebook.
With Facebook’s timeline being algorithmically controlled, it’s also possible to arrive at the conclusion that native videos are displayed more prominently and therefore will receive more engagement.
However, from a user’s perspective, it can also be argued that Facebook has made native videos easier to engage with. They can be played directly in one’s timeline, with users being able to react or comment as they’re watching the video.
When it comes to YouTube videos, and videos shared from other sources, users have to view the video off-site and then go back to Facebook in order to like, share, or comment. By that point the user may have already moved on to something else.
No matter what the case may be, these numbers indicate that sharing videos natively to Facebook is the way to go if you want to attract the most engagement.