Twitter Adds Ability To Embed Its Native Videos On Websites

Twitter has launched the ability for publishers to embed Twitter videos on their websites, in a similar manner to the functionality that has been available on YouTube for a long time. With this new feature, Twitter is making it clear that it’s making moves to better compete with YouTube and Facebook in the world of video.

Now, Twitter hosted videos can be embedded into websites as easily as Tweets. In the same options menu that can be used to embed a Tweet, users will now see the option to embed a video. An HTML snippet is then generated, which you can copy and paste into your site. Although users were already able to embed Tweets with videos in them, the new functionality provides users with the ability to embed a video without the rest of the Tweet. It’s worthwhile to note that Facebook does not support a similar feature, as the full post must be embedded when you want to embed a Facebook video.

One aspect of Twitter’s video embedding functionality that differs from YouTube is that Twitter doesn’t provide an easy way to customize the dimensions of the video, although perhaps this ability will be added in the future.

The new feature works with videos that are captured and uploaded via Twitter’s iOS and Android apps, as well as its Twitter Amplify partners, which include Viacom, BBC Global News, Fox TV, CBS, McDonald’s, Verizon and the NFL. Twitter fully launched its native video experience in January, which allows Twitter users to capture, edit, and share videos up to 30 seconds in length from its mobile apps.

Truly, Twitter video is still in its infancy, and it will be interesting to see whether or not it will experience wide adoption by marketers. With Facebook video exploding in popularity over the past year, Twitter is likely hoping for a similar trend, even if it’s on a smaller scale.

Twitter has been talking a lot about how massive the off-Twitter usage of its platform has become, and with this latest offering, the company may be able to expand its exposure beyond its own website and apps even further. For marketers and dealerships who are involved in Twitter campaigns, being able to easily embed native Twitter videos on their website will increase the value of these video initiatives by broadening the potential scope of their reach, and may thereby result in more marketers choosing to create native Twitter videos in the future.