After Facebook rolled out live video to all users on iOS, some on Android, verified Pages, and public figures using Mentions, we are starting to see it being used a lot more on the platform. Make no mistake… Facebook live video-streaming is a great tool, and if used correctly it can reap great results. As it starts spread though, the question on everyone’s minds is… “How does News Feed treat it?”
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Facebook has been tweaking News Feed for years now, and continues to do so every day. With so much content drifting around on the platform, and so many users (who have so many interests), the tweaking is constant. So what happens when a new content type appears. Cue Live Video. In a Newsroom post, Product Manager Vibhi Kant and Software Engineer Jie Xu, explain that Live Videos are actually seen as a new content type and are ranked differently
[quote]…we are considering Live Videos as a new content type – different from normal videos – and learning how to rank them for people in News Feed… Facebook Live videos are more likely to appear higher in News Feed when those videos are actually live, compared to after they are no longer live.[/quote]
Facebook has found that people spend much more time watching Facebook Live video compared to video that isn’t live anymore. 3 times more time in fact. Obviously, this has to do with the fact that “Facebook Live videos are more interesting in the moment than after”.
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As there are few Pages out there that actually have the functionality, this ranking change is not expected to have any influence on their reach etc. But at least now we know, that if you’re about to go live, it’s always a good idea to notify people before. Because once you’re live, I am pretty sure that the video will be ranked based on interactions!