The rise of Facebook Live in business
Just to highlight the importance of video, Facebook generates an average of 8 billion video views every day[1]. Add to this the fact that social media users spend three times longer watching live video than ‘normal’ videos[2], and it will come as no surprise that Facebook Live streaming has grown as much as it has so far – even in a business context.
Following closely in the footsteps of apps such as Periscope (a live-streaming app acquired by Twitter and now embedded into the platform) and Meerkat (an app that – despite its position as frontrunner in early 2015 – was later abandoned following Periscope’s success), Facebook Live was introduced in February with much the same modus operandi.
An in-built live-streaming app, Facebook Live allows users to broadcast live videos, lasting up to 90 minutes, to their followers and friends at the touch of a button from their smartphone. After the broadcast is finished, the video is published on the user’s profile and can be watched by followers at any later time. After the launch of Live, Facebook altered its algorithm so as to consider Live videos as distinct from regular videos and ensure they appear higher up in people’s News Feeds when the broadcast is live, reasoning that “Facebook Live videos are more interesting in the moment than after the fact”[3]. As seen in the below graph illustrating Google searches for the social media giant’s recently-introduced tool, its growth in popularity has been exponential.
Although live streaming was once reserved for the mundane-yet-entertaining (see #DrummondPuddleWatch broadcast on Periscope in January of this year and Buzzfeed’s ‘Watermelon Explosion’ in April, in which two employees worked for 45 minutes tirelessly adding rubber bands to a watermelon and waiting for it to explode, and which has since become the second most-watched Facebook Live video), Facebook Live has, of late, seen more serious content and is being used for news-broadcasting purposes.
Earlier this week, News UK detailed plans to publish up to 25 Live videos every week, up from the few it has previously been hosting. The News UK umbrella encompasses The Sun, The Times and even the Times Literary Supplement, indicating the move towards print publications utilising live video (although in different ways: The Sun tends to broadcast more shareable video content, such as cats predicting football matches’ outcomes; whereas The Times’ use of video is to remind users how informative the paper is). In addition to this, BBC News has placed a lot of focus on Facebook Live in its coverage of Euro 2016 and the EU referendum, choosing to view its use as a standalone medium as opposed to as supportive of TV and radio coverage. Most recently, at the beginning of June, Buzzfeed hosted an EU debate on the platform; this is only the fourth televised EU Q&A that David Cameron has agreed to participate in and saw him, alongside Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, and Penny Mordaunt, answer a series of questions posed by readers. To date, Cameron’s hour-long appearance has racked up almost 2.5 million views.
There are a number of reasons why Facebook Live works so well in a business context. Live-streamed videos often do not have the polished edge of a produced and formatted recording, giving viewers a more intimate, behind-the-scenes look at what is being filmed. This ensures a company is seen as relatable and more human, and therefore more appealing to current and potential customers and clients. Also, broadcasting videos on Facebook Live inherently requires them to be longer – the ‘in the moment’ nature of the video spreads by word of mouth and attracts viewers, and this, in turn, means viewers stay longer. Consequently, the longer a viewer watches a video, the more likely they are to visit the company’s website or to seek further information.
Although for many companies live-streaming may seem daunting, it is well worth taking the plunge as its continued importance cannot be ignored. As with every other social medium, as long as the content being broadcast is thought through and planned in advance, any setbacks can be easily overcome – using Facebook Live is a learning curve and will likely only help a business’ social media strategy.
Written by Rebecca Ingram, Senior Digital Account Executive (@_beccaingram)
[1] http://boldcontentvideo.com/2015/11/06/daily-facebook-video-views-soar-to-8-billion-but-are-they-real/
[2] http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/top-5-facebook-video-statistics-2016-infographic
[3] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/03/news-feed-fyi-taking-into-account-live-video-when-ranking-feed/