The news is out, this time officially. In a statement on its blog, Facebook admits that, since September it has been experimenting with delivering rich media on users’ newsfeed.
More particularly, Facebook has added automatic playing functionality to its newsfeed and reported more thatn 10% increase in people watching, liking, sharing and commenting on videos.
[quote]Without having to click or tap play, videos come to life in News Feed and start playing without sound.[/quote]
However, the news is not just about that. This week Facebook has parted with advertisers and working closely with Summit Entertainment and Mindshare to promote a series of videos for the upcoming film, Divergent. The overall functionality will let videos start automatically on user’s timeline, but without sound, and if tapped then the sound will be switched on. Upon completion of viewing, the user will be able to view additional videos from the same advertisers. On mobile devices, all videos that begin playing as they appear on the screen will have been downloaded in advance when the device was connected to WiFi — meaning this content will not consume data plans.
Prior to changing your Facebook strategy, though, you should take into consideration that the present additions will not be available for every page and that it only applies to a carefully selected subset of publishers and advertisers.
Have you experienced the new functionality? If so, do you like it?
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