Videos are everything in social media marketing right now; there’s no denying that. Videos are getting more engagement, and they’re being prioritized over other content in Facebook’s Newsfeeds.

Many sites have their own unique native video platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

What this means is that you can upload a video file (like one taken with your smartphone or created through video editing/recording software) directly onto these sites, just as you would upload an image.

Just as there are obvious benefits to creating and sharing videos on social media, there are also very clear advantages to sharing these videos through a social site’s native video platform.

This post is going to discuss four reasons why you should be using native videos.

1. It Creates a Video Gallery

If you post images to Facebook, these will be saved in your image gallery. These are easily accessible, and users can access the image gallery at any time to scroll through them. The same is true for videos.

When you use native videos, a video gallery will be created for your Facebook Page. This creates a store of content that users can easily find at any time, keeping your videos more relevant by extending their lifecycle for longer periods of time due to the boosted accessibility.

On Facebook, you can even choose a featured video for your videos tab, giving you more control of what users see, as well as the chance to choose content that will best deliver the message of your brand and what it stands for to new visitors. You can also group videos into playlists.

This is also true on Twitter; their visual library is combined with both images and videos, but it still segments this content off to the side for easy user access.

2. Better Reach

Since social media sites are putting so much effort into their native video platforms, it only makes sense that they would prioritize the content that utilizes those platforms. It’s a well-known fact that Facebook native videos will have better reach (and thus more engagement) than those that are hosted through other platforms and shared via a link. One case study found that there was a 135% increase in organic reach for native videos even compared to photos.

An incredible Quintly study reiterated this point, finding that there were more than 4x more interactions on Facebook native videos than those shared from other platforms, including youtube and Vimeo.

Image from Social Media Today- check out this post for the rest of their amazing data and analysis.

This trend holds true for Twitter, too. Videos native to Twitter have significantly more engagement on the platform than videos, as proved by a case study released last year on Social Media Today.

With reach naturally declining and engagement becoming harder to get because of it, this is a massive benefit you don’t want to ignore.

3. Easy Editing Features

Most native video platforms are rapidly developing and improving quickly, and both Facebook and Twitter offer easy-to-use video editing features. They definitely don’t offer the same level of features that specialized software, like desktop media players, would have, but they’ve got most of the basics covered.

On Facebook, their editing features allow you to: 

• Choose a thumbnail
• Choose to have your videos autoplay (if users have this enabled)
• Add subtitles and/or captions
• Add a CTA to the end of your video

Twitter’s native video platform lets you edit right from the app, and includes editing features like:

• Easy drag and drop editing to rearrange or delete clips
• Capture one or more clips right from the mobile app
• Trim the length of the video

Being able to upload a video directly from your smartphone or desktop, do some minor editing, adding in features like subtitles, and having access to features unique to native video like autoplay can greatly enhance your social videos and their results. 

4. Better Analytics

We all know how important detailed analytic information is to the long term success of your social media campaigns, and utilizing native videos on a platform will give you access to more detailed analytics.

Native Facebook videos have its own section in the Pages Insights, and will tell you how many video views over 3 seconds and over 10 seconds you obtained. It will also give you information about your top videos and their engagement. If you post a Vimeo or Youtube video on Facebook instead, you’d only be able to see engagement and user interaction, not video views.

Twitter Analytics also has an amazing video section that I’m madly in love with. It tells you how many views your videos earned overall, as well as your number of video views and the view completion rate for each video. It will also tell you the total number of minutes your videos have been viewed in total, your viewer retention rate for the length of a video, and on average how many minutes a user watches in a day.

These analytics are so detailed and so accurate, and are highly valuable because of it. The analytics alone are a great reason to use native videos, as if the other advantages weren’t convincing enough.

Final Thoughts

Social media videos in all forms can boost engagement rates (and conversion rates when used in conjunction with ads), but they can provide the most benefit when shared through a platform’s native video system. These native videos can offer advantages and great results whether they’re posted by your Page or they’re used as part of an ad campaign, or both, especially when you capitalize on platform-specific features like Facebook Live Video.

By utilizing native video features in conjunction with our tips to create better native videos, you’ll see your engagement rates climbing before you know it.

How do you use native video? Have you noticed any of the benefits we’ve discussed above? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!