How do I get Youtube videos to autoplay on Facebook?

September 18, 2015 9:04 AM

I'm trying to post Youtube videos on Facebook for my nonprofit and rather counterintuitively, they don't autoplay. Any advice on how to activate it?

I thought that this was automatic now--in fact, Googling has revealed a lot of people asking how to STOP autoplay, not how to enable it. Any advice?

posted by johnasdf to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

I was under the impression that it was a setting that each user sets (i.e. videos do not autoplay on my phone) rather that a setting that is chosen by the poster (i.e. your videos always/never autoplay).
posted by aimedwander at 9:26 AM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

It is a setting that users control in their FB preferences. If you follow the instructions that you find on those pages on how to stop it, you should find a way to start it. That is not for everyone, just you. Autoplaying videos that I couldn't stop would make me unfollow your page.
posted by soelo at 9:27 AM on September 18, 2015 [7 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments removed. The question isn't "do you like autoplay"; please focus on answering the question asked and leave it at that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:37 AM on September 18, 2015

I was under the impression that Facebook-embedded videos autoplay, but YouTube links do not. This is why Facebook-embedded videos get so many more views than YouTube embeds.
posted by xingcat at 9:38 AM on September 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

I think xingcat has it — Facebook really prefers you to upload videos to their platform. I've heard Facebook-uploaded videos also get better placement in your friends/followers news feeds for this reason, too. If at all possible, I'd say give up the rising YouTube view count and double-upload your videos to YouTube and Facebook.
posted by Zephyrial at 3:27 PM on September 18, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you everyone! This has been very helpful.
posted by johnasdf at 1:07 PM on September 21, 2015