Facebook Updates Its Algorithm and Prepares to Come to Your Television…
Facebook announced a few updates to its newsfeed algorithm yesterday:
- Videos will play with the sound on by default in the News Feed. This change comes after Facebook A/B tested videos with the sound on by default in recent months and reportedly received “positive feedback.”
- Vertical videos will automatically expand to fill the full screen (another copy of Snapchat). This is change is likely meant to encourage people to shoot & upload videos from their phones, with an emphasis on vertical video.
- Videos can keep playing in a little thumbnail at the bottom of your screen while you browse the News Feed. Facebook has already tested this feature with a subset of its users, but now it’s rolling out to everyone.
- Facebook’s TV app will be available “soon” on the Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung Smart TVs, with more devices to follow.
Facebook is obviously putting an emphasis on video, both encouraging users to create and share, and to watch as well. The company recently announced it is allowing content creators show mid-roll ads in their videos, and they are also working on funding their own scripted video shows.
Zuckerberg recently described video as a “mega-trend” similar to how mobile phones contributed to Facebook’s early growth. Facebook’s thinking is that, if it can get people to watch more videos, it can further tap into the $70 billion brand advertising budgets that are normally reserved for TV shows. The recent newsfeed updates, along with Facebook’s plan to launch a standalone app for televisions, illustrates their focus here.
As a company, you should be focusing on creating video content. Video content that can be shared on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest. The same video content can also be repurposed for YouTube, Vimeo, and your blog.
Need help with a video strategy? Contact us today!
