Facebook Videos have grown very popular over the last year, and it seems that Facebook’s obsession might finally be paying off. Since last year, the total number of videos watched on Facebook has tripled, bringing it to a whopping 4 billion per day! With a metric like that, it isn’t difficult to predict that it will be a key player in Facebook’s business in the future. But be that as it may, small businesses on Facebook can make use of this opportunity to their advantage as well.
According to Facebook, the company saw an advertising revenue of about $3.3 billion in the last quarter, 73% of which came from mobile. The latter holds true for Facebook videos as well, since most of that activity happens on mobile. And while Facebook videos were not a focus in Facebook’s earnings report (not their advertising strategy for that matter), this is an area that is exploding and could hold significant importance in the near future.
Facebook has supported video uploads since 2007, but only in the last few years has video become a big priority for the company internally. In 2013, the site and its mobile apps as users scrolled through their news feeds—an update that undoubtedly had a significant impact on the overall video playback. To further boost viewership, the company changed its news feed algorithm last summer to give video posts more prominent placement.
For Facebook, sharpening its focus on video has worked. Viewership keeps climbing, so much so that some think Facebook could start piecing together a competitive alternative to YouTube. Granted, Facebook’s video content is predominantly user-generated and generally not of stellar quality, but with some investment in content and the creation of a video-specific app or interface of some kind, it’s possible that we could start seeing dramatic headlines about Facebook’s upcoming “YouTube killer” before we know it.
Scrolling through your Facebook news feed, you’ve likely noticed the auto play feature, which will silently start videos in your news feed. But one thing you won’t see is a pre-roll advertisement. That’s because as explosive as these videos have been, the company hasn’t been aggressive about monetizing them, apart from charging companies to promote their own videos.
However it winds up milking these videos for cash, the revenue Facebook brings in from video is another metric that is only bound to go up from here.
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