Facebook jumps over the fence and invites YouTube content producers to push out their creations on the social network.
The strategy seems to be working, as content from top YouTube video producers Maker Studios of Walt Disney and Collective Digital Studio are already uploaded on Facebook through the social network's news feed and on the individual profile pages of the producers.
"The Annoying Orange," a viral video series on YouTube produced by Collective, has its own Facebook page.
"Our partnerships team regularly has conversations with content creators about how to best utilize all of Facebook's offerings, video included," said a spokeswoman for Facebook.
Until just recently, most of the video content that can be found on Facebook are links to YouTube videos that are posted by the social network's users. However, now Facebook allows users to directly upload videos to the site, which allows Facebook to sell advertisements to be included in the uploaded videos.
If Facebook is successful in pushing for increased video uploads to the social network, the company may be able to cut into the dominance of YouTube in the online video advertisement industry.
With Facebook recently reporting that it is creating 1 billion views for videos daily, videos are looking to become an important part of the social network, especially in terms of advertising revenues.
Facebook will begin showing view counts for videos posted by public figures and pages, similar to YouTube. The view counts will be helpful for advertisers in deciding to buy spots for ads in videos uploaded on Facebook.
While Facebook's daily view figures are still far from YouTube's 4 billion daily views that was reported in 2012, the social network has grown to be a similarly attractive advertising platform.
A report by Forbes computed that at the current rate of Facebook's views for videos, the company will receive incremental revenues of around $365 million m leading to an incremental EBITDA of $225 million.
While the amount is less than 5 percent of Facebook's EBITDA in 2013, the company will likely increase its earnings from video advertisements as the number of views of videos continues to grow, which would allow Facebook to charge higher advertising rates to companies wishing to place advertisements on the videos uploaded to Facebook,
Facebook's advertising, unlike YouTube, has a strong track record of showing high returns on the investments made by advertisers, which could also help Facebook in its challenge against YouTube in the market.
