The Rise of Video in Your Newsfeed and Why It Isn’t Going Away

Our friend, Kevin Mullet, counted 17 videos out of 24 posts in his newsfeed. Granted, during the Ice Bucket Challenge, it seems everyone saw nothing but this.

Not a surprise that when Facebook has a new feature, they provide extra incentive for usage. Remember when Facebook first released apps back in May 2007, when memes become hot a year ago, poking, and so forth?  The introduction of a new feature is accompanied by spammers or shrewd marketers that will take advantage of it. Milk it for all it’s worth until Facebook turns down the knob.

But as we saw with the Golden State Warriors, an NBA team that is driving tens of millions of users via video, this isn’t a new feature that will disappear.

Why? Facebook video is eating traditional TV

How many millennials have a TV and how many minutes are they watching video on mobile devices than on the couch?  The studies show that people don’t mind trading the lower resolution of mobile in exchange for the convenience.

Nielsen is dying because they’re unable to measure streaming video or mobile devices with their set-top devices.

Kirk Cheyfitz, CEO of Storywide Media, predicted in 2012 that Facebook video would crush primetime TV.  And he was right. The TV naysayers were saying that digital dimes were not worth as much as TV dollars.  It’s not apples-to-apples, since the TV experience is more enriching.  But the fact that people are skipping commercials and tuning in to less live TV creates problems.

The pre-roll ads in digital can’t be skipped, except intentionally allowed by the network. And even when people are sitting on the couch watching their flat-screen TV’s, you can bet during commercial breaks that their eyes are on their mobile devices, not the TV commercial playing.

If you’re a brand that has relied upon TV ads or infomercials, you’re in luck.

Just move your assets over to YouTube and Facebook. You can reach audiences through other channels now.
And if you’re a real early adopter, try the Apple iAds self-serve platform that launched a few weeks ago in November 2014.
You can run video ads there for dirt cheap, since there is so much supply there, but so few advertisers.