Rising Tide uploaded to Facebook – an interesting lesson in social media

The main purpose of this post is to let everyone know that Doc Jazz’s new song ‘Rising Tide’ has now been uploaded directly to the video directory of the Doc Jazz Facebook Page. However, this was done as the result of an interesting (and frustrating) experience that contains a lesson for everyone who uses Facebook as their main social media platform, and has a habit of uploading videos. Read on!

First, in case you were unaware of it, Doc Jazz has produced and released a new song, ‘Rising Tide’, and uploaded it to Youtube yesterday. It’s a song with a message of protest against occupation, and you can read more about it in other posts on this website. The Facebook video and the lyrics of the song are included in this article at the end. But now, let’s cut to the chase, and see what’s so interesting about the difference between posting a Youtube video on Facebook, and uploading it directly to Facebook itself.

Here are some direct quotes from Doc Jazz, from his own profile, where he explains what happened:

“I released the new music video Rising Tide yesterday, and uploaded it to Youtube. It was barely being viewed by anyone. I was simply not understanding how this was possible. It was a huge contrast with every song I uploaded before, except for ‘Wake Up’, which was also recently uploaded to Youtube, and also lagged behind dramatically in number of views in comparison to all the Youtube videos I had published before.

I was getting frustrated, but then I decided to do some research. It turns out that it seems like the new FB algorithm discriminates heavily against Youtube videos, in favor of videos that are directly uploaded to FB. I have now uploaded the new music video to FB (watch and share it please!) and it already has more views than the Youtube one, in about half an hour!”

Apparently, Facebook has adapted its algorithm some time ago, and strongly favors Facebook videos over Youtube videos on its own platform. This is important information for all social media users who use Facebook to promote their music or business videos! You can read more about it in this eye-opening article. The article doesn’t elaborate on the algorithms or anything, but the graphs may be an expression of something like that. Let’s agree that it is definitely not beyond Facebook to work this way. They should perhaps not even be blamed for it, but it is important for those who have things to promote to understand and know the difference.

Quoting Doc Jazz again, as he posted on his Facebook status:

“Advice: if FB is your main social media platform, upload your video directly to FB, and not to Youtube. I learned the hard way today!”

Now, for all of you who have not yet had the chance to see and hear ‘Rising Tide’, here is the music video, embedded straight from Facebook. The lyrics are included in the description of the video. Hope you enjoy, and share!