(First in a new “Better Online Content” series of posts: quick tips on creating more effective content that takes advantage of the social web’s unique publishing environment.)

People on Facebook like to stay on Facebook.

It’s a “walled garden” and most folks want to stay in it rather than be diverted to other websites.

Therefore, when you share video content on Facebook, it makes sense to share it in a way that allows the video to play within Facebook so people don’t have to leave the site to watch it.

Content Tip

Here is my tip for this post:  When you can, share a YouTube URL for a video rather than a blog post URL, because with a YouTube URL, the video will play right there in Facebook.

Here is a screenshot from one of my Facebook Pages:  it is a post from the Delaware Tourism blog with an embedded video, as seen when the blog post URL is shared:

Takeaway:  readers must click through to another site to see the video.

Now, here is basically the same information, but instead of the tourism blog post, I’ve used the actual URL of the video on YouTube:

That way, the video plays within Facebook (they can click the arrow to watch it) and this makes it easier to get people to pay attention to your video content.

To find the YouTube URL, mouse over the Share box on the video on a blog post. It will usually give you a special YouTube URL that works well in Facebook.

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