Facebook Video Gets a Makeover

Exciting news came down the pipeline from Facebook this week in regards to video advertising. We will be seeing a number of changes to this feature including – fading sound while scrolling, Vertical videos, watch and scroll, and a video/TV App. All of these improvements will allow for increased engagement with video ads and allow for a more user friendly experience.

For the Digital Marketing Team at Burlington Bytes, Vertical videos are soon to be a big part of our advertising recommendations. Vertical videos, although widely categorized by creatives as being of lower quality, are surprisingly popular amongst consumers. Similar to Snapchat and Instagram, this view is appearing to become the “norm” for avid social users. Another obvious reason that this view is favored by consumers is the fact that we hold our phones vertically a vast majority of the time. Not to mention research found in a  Future in Focus study showed that nearly 80% of social media use now occurs on mobile devices – 61% on smartphones alone. Having been in beta since last August, Facebook is confident this new format will see favor from consumers.

As we move more towards video dominated platforms, Facebooks switch to vertical video is a clear step in that direction.  In recent months, Facebook has been pushing its live video feature, as well as incorporating video-sharing into both the Facebook mobile apps and Instagram. We expect to continue to see new features rolling out over the next several months.