Embedded Videos from Facebook

By Jon Dupree

Facebook has announced now that we can embed their videos directly into our websites just like YouTube and Vimeo.

Although, it has always been easier to add video to Facebook, especially from a mobile phone, in the past, I would normally recommend that we post the video to YouTube and then share it on Facebook. This was because we could use the Youtube video on the website with their embed code.

This new announcement from Facebook changes everything. Now we can upload a video to Facebook and get the embed code to add the video to our websites.

With the Embedded Video Player you can easily add Facebook Videos to your website. You can use any public video post by a page or a person as video source.

Getting your Code from a Video Post

1. Navigate to your Video Post

You can get the embed code directly from the video post itself. If the video post is public, click on the icon that appears in the top right corner of the post on Facebook.

Choose Embed Video from the drop down menu:

When viewing a single video post select the Embed Video button on the bottom right:

Getting a video post’s URL

There may be scenarios in which your embed code is created by a CMS and you just need the raw post URL. There are two ways to get a post’s URL:

1. Copy the URL of the permalink from your browser’s address bar.
2. Right-click the post’s publishing time and copy the link address.

Both methods are highlighted in red in the screenshot below.

Some advantages of a Facebook video are:

1. More of your fans are likely to see the video as there is a broader market of people who check Facebook daily compared to people who check into YouTube.
2. It is much easier to upload videos to Facebook, so “in the moment” videos are possible.
3. Your video is more likely to go “viral” because Facebook makes liking and sharing easier.
4. Facebook has a timeliness feel to it. If it’s in your timeline then it’s happening now, as opposed to YouTube which is more trend and search based.

Some advantages for still posting to YouTube:

1. Your video become more relevant as time goes on because the views keep increasing.
2. A serious publisher has the ability to earn as money from their videos
3. ( and most importantly) The video will appear in Google searches. It will be interesting to see if a Facebook video embedded on a webpage will appear in a search, either as a webpage or as a video. Currently most Facebook posts are excluded from search results.

I will be interested to see if videos on a fanpage can be embedded as easily as the ones on a personal page. If so, YouTube may have a strong competitor.