Facebook Inc. FB, +1.34% users watch videos four billion times a day across the social network. Now, Facebook is getting serious about making money from that vast audience.

Facebook said it would begin sharing ad revenue with video creators, a move designed to attract more polished content and more ads. If successful, the effort will make Facebook a more serious threat to Google Inc.’s GOOG, +0.26% YouTube in online video.

Until now, Facebook has slotted video ads into users’ news feeds. The new feature, called Suggested Videos, will include ads between professionally produced content from major media companies, much like TV advertisements.

The revenue-sharing model Facebook unveiled Wednesday is similar to YouTube’s, in that Facebook will keep 45% of the revenue. Unlike YouTube, however, video producers on Facebook will have to split their share more ways, potentially leaving them with a smaller cut.

The initiative is aimed at smartphones, source of 75% of video views on Facebook, the company says. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said YouTube shows a similar number of videos, but only about 50% of its video views come from phones.