One of the new changes from this year in Facebook is represented by the amount of video present on the news feed, amount that has tripled since last year, to the joy of many users and advertisers who discovered this option.
There is only one person who can foresee who big will the video be on the social network, and that is Fidju Simo, the Director of Product in charge of video. Simo and her team are planning to tweak the website’s design in order to facilitate the way marketers can buy video ads and allow them to monitor their campaigns. Her efforts are central to Facebook tapping the U.S. online-video advertising market, which is estimated according to EMarketer Inc. to reach $7.8 billion this year, up 30 percent from $6 billion in 2014.
“We’re just really at the beginning of understanding what video on Facebook is about,” Simo said. “We want to make sure that we’re really communicating on how people are engaging with video so marketers can really understand.”
Facebook has released a progress report about video on the social network, including how users and brands have boosted the amount of video in the news feed by 3.6 times in the past year. In addition, the number of video posts per person has jumped 75 percent, with more than half of daily U.S. visitors watching at least one video a day, the company said. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a November public question-and-answer session that in five years, most of Facebook will be video.
Facebook now has to create new metrics for marketers to evaluate their video-ad campaigns, including how many people clicked on a link at the end of a video.
Facebook doesn’t break out revenue from video ads, for which it has been charging $1 million or more a day for 15-second spots, people familiar with the situation have said.
Facebook “is coming on strong and has the potential to put pressure on YouTube,” according to an EMarketer report that said social media will change the rules for video advertising.
Facebook has been taking more steps to improve video ads. In September, the company unveiled an ad server tool called Atlas to let marketers get data on how often individuals saw ads and on what device — something that’s essential for video now that 65 percent of Facebook’s video is viewed via mobile devices. In July, Facebook also agreed to acquire startup LiveRail, which will help it serve video advertisements outside of the social network.
“LiveRail will make it so that publishers can be more efficient, and Atlas can help them understand how it helped their business,” said Brian Boland, a vice president focused on ads at Facebook.
As Facebook Director states, this is really the year wherea lot of investment and advertisers are now embracing the fact that we are big in video and new investments will be made in this direction. If you are interested in having a collaboration with a professional video marketing company, please do not hesitate to contact us!