• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 13, 2010

Google is still tops when it comes to sending traffic to online video sites, but Facebook and Twitter are rapidly gaining ground as human-powered referral engines.

About two-thirds (64%) of the traffic from third-party sites to video sources came from Google, followed by Yahoo, 11.9%, Facebook, 4.3%, Bing, 2.6%, and Twitter 1.2%, according to the second-quarter report on Web video trends by Brightcove and video ad network and analytics firm TubeMogul. The data is derived from a sample of nearly 2,000 news and entertainment sites representing 3.4 billion video streams.

Referral traffic from Facebook and Twitter, however, is growing at an average monthly rate of 48% and 38.7%, respectively, compared to 35% for Yahoo, 15.5% for Google and 3% for Bing. At current rates, the study estimates Facebook will surpass Yahoo within the year, second only to Google in referral traffic to online video content for media companies.

"It used to be all about search," said Jeff Whatcott, a senior vice president at Brightcove. "But Facebook and Twitter are becoming significant traffic drivers, since social networks are increasingly how people are discovering video."

Not only are the two social properties sending viewers, they are also generating the highest levels of engagement for video on television network and music entertainment sites. Viewers of broadcaster sites referred from Facebook and Twitter, for example, watched one minute, forty-seven seconds compared to 1:34 and 1:27, respectively, for Google and Yahoo.

Google sent the most "engaged" viewers to video on newspaper sites and Bing drove the most magazine and radio industry sites. Pure-play Web media was the only category where Yahoo referred more engaged viewers than Twitter, Google and Bing, (and tied with Facebook).

The higher engagement levels associated with social media also extend to brand videos. Viewers coming from Facebook to brand video sites watched an average of 1:25, followed by Twitter at 1:18, Bing at 1:12, Google at 1:06, display ads at 52 seconds, and Yahoo, also 52 seconds. But the vast majority (92.1%) of brand video views still came via direct traffic or from navigating within a brand's own site.

The study also found that only 2.6% of brand views took place on videos embedded on third-party sites. Even so, people tended to watch off-site videos 40% longer than on a company's own site. Given that difference, Whatcott said companies should look more closely at syndicating or virally embedding brand video more widely on social sites and blogs.

By contrast, people watch news and entertainment video longer on the originating sites than through content syndicated to other sites. For example, viewers watched around 3:00 minutes per view on TV network websites compared to just 1:5 minutes on third party sites that carry their content.

Online video viewership increased across all media categories, with unique viewers increasing 2.8% on average, and people watching 11% more videos month-over-month compared to the prior quarter.

Newspaper sites in particular enjoyed strong video growth in the second quarter, with views jumping 65% over the first quarter. The report attributed the spike largely to the video-centric coverage of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Newspapers have done a great job of getting snackable content infused throughout their sites and that video is being watched," said Whatcott.

The Brightcove/TubeMogul report also highlighted findings from a survey of more than 300 senior-level brand managers from leading business-to-business and consumer brands, including dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Almost 85% said they are currently using online video on branded sites to marketing products and services. (But half devote less than 10% of marketing budgets to video.)

Nearly 60% plan to invest more in online video in the next 12 months and 70% plan to add mobile video to their marketing mix in the same period.

More than 65% of brand managers said the primary focus of Web video initiatives is building awareness, followed by lead generation (21%) and e-commerce (12%).

When it comes to employing user-generated content versus professional content in video promotions, marketers were about evenly split.