Back in early December, Facebook starting letting a small percentage of users within the U.S. stream live video from their phones directly to Facebook. This then expanded to all verified pages, and eventually all U.S. iPhone and Android users, and all business managers via the Facebook Pages Manager app. A new content format was not successfully created – and this meant that Facebook now had to figure out how to rank it.
As with any new type of content in News Feed, we are learning what signals help us show you the most relevant Facebook Live videos for you personally. For example, a few years ago when more people began sharing and watching video on Facebook we listened to feedback to learn what signals helped us show people more of the videos they want to see and fewer of the videos they don’t. At first we updated News Feed ranking to take into account how many people watched a video and how long people watched for to help us personalize News Feed based on people’s preference for watching video. Over time we also learned that certain actions people take on a video, such as choosing to turn on sound or making the video full screen, are good signs they wanted to see that video, even if they didn’t choose to like it.
When you got into social media for you’re business – you knew it was an ever changing game. And this is just another one of those new changes you should embrace and adapt to. You’re probably sitting there going “great, another new content type that my page’s posts will have to compete with” – and you would be correct; however – this is also a brand new post type that has much less competition currently, and you can use it to significantly increase you’re online presence. For example, run a free Q&A for you’re service related business via a Facebook Live Video. If you’re a mechanic – offer a weekly live video session where you answer automotive related questions. A chef? Run a weekly cooking tutorial video – letting you’re viewers watch you cook something.
There’s a-lot of ways that a business owner can make use of Facebook Live Videos to help establish their online presence as an expert in their field. Plus – since this is still a new content type for Facebook – and it’s just rolling out to all users and business owners now – you have significantly less competition than you do with you’re average text/image Facebook post.
Get out there, get creative, and make use of Facebook Live Video for your business.