8 billion video watched on Facebook highlighting a missed opportunity

“How many people watch videos on YouTube ?”  I asked at a Marketing Conference which was made up many Brand/ Marketing/ Activation/ PR/ Agencies type of people. Everyone raised their hands. I asked “How many people watch videos on Facebook?” and again everyone raised their hands.

I then asked “How many of your companies recommend YouTube videos to your clients?” Hands remained raised. “How many of you recommend Facebook videos to your clients?” And now most hands were disappeared…

Why not ? Why YouTube only ?

If we all watch Facebook videos, then why not recommend Brands start using Facebook videos to promote their message ? The beauty of Facebook is that if we don’t like what we see, we keep scrolling down. So its not like YouTube where you have to watch the first 5 seconds. Therefore if the Brands make a cool video we watch, if its rubbish marketing, then we scroll on.

The number prove it all

Facebook has announced in their third quarter report that they have over 1 Billion people on Facebook each day. This is certainly impressive, but what caught my eye is the 8 Billion videos are watched each day. Video is growing at a massive rate where back in April this year, Re/Code reported that 4 Billion videos were being watched daily. So in only several month, video watching has doubled.

It is worth noting that a video view is counted on Facebook when it is played from more than three seconds and with the introduction of automatically playing videos, is one factor that can explain the doubling growth in video watching.

The Video Opportunity of Facebook

When brands think video, they think YouTube, however Facebook can achieve much higher engagement results. On Facebook, we have our community of friends and family who are more likely to watch a video we uploaded or shared, versus YouTube which we upload video and hope that people watch. Facebook also allows you to tag people/ fans in the video so they are instantly alerted which usually means that will click to see what they are tagged in.

Facebook is said to be testing a Video-only version as clearly video is what customers want more of. Click on the image below to check out Facebook Video feed test:

Video is the future of information consumption. Platforms like SnapChat, Periscope, Meerkat, Twitter, Instagram are focusing their attention on video which means the audience is consuming video content which is where the opportunities resides.

Sometimes the nay-sayer get it wrong and Facebook is certainly one they called wrong. In 2013 people were predicting that Facebook will disappear as the platform was becoming stale and old. If we look at the the third quarter numbers announced by Facebook, we can clearly see that the platform is innovating and therefore not only maintaining relevance but also growing.

The numbers paint the picture.