Earlier this year, we reported that social networking behemoth Facebook had become the largest driver of traffic for news, surpassing Google Reader. Now, it looks like the company is gaining ground on Google in another big category – video.
According to a study by Brightcove and video ad network TubeMogul, Google is still dominant in video referral traffic, but both Facebook and Twitter are growing fast.
The study (.pdf), shows that Google still holds a dominant position, with nearly two-thirds of traffic directed to video sites coming from the search engine. Yahoo follows Google with just under 12% of referral traffic, with Facebook, Bing and Twitter rounding up referral sources. Each had 4%, 2% and 1% respectively.
The news, however, is that Facebook and Twitter are both growing quickly in this respect.
According to the report, “at current rates, Facebook will surpass Yahoo! within the year to be second only to Google in referral traffic to online video content”. The rapid growth of Facebook as a referral source points to the rise of social networking in a realm previously dominated by search, according to Brightcove senior vice president Jeff Whatcott.
“It used to be all about search,” Whatcott told MediaPost. “But Facebook and Twitter are becoming significant traffic drivers, since social networks are increasingly how people are discovering video.”
Where do you find most of your video these days? We have to admit, more and more we end up watching videos posted by friends on Facebook rather than searching ourselves. The power of recommendation within a social circle can overshadow that of curiosity and we imagine this is a trend we’ll only see continue.
