Facebook is the largest and the most populous social media on the internet. With way over 1 billion users, Facebook is getting closer to become the web itself where it changes how we see the web.
What began as a text-only web page. We've seen many advancements of technology that aided us in creating more and more complex contents and iterations. With faster internet connections in more places around the world, we're seeing more people connected, and that more people means potential targets by internet companies, including Facebook.
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has put video first into Facebook's attempt to get more engagements. At first, the strategy was seen as a way to compete with the streaming titan YouTube, but later it was realized that the potentials are much more than that.
Facebook has come to a time where it can shift the media industry.
The more organic videos Facebook users are watching, the more high-priced video ads Facebook can include in their feed. Facebook has been focusing to deliver more auto-play videos, paying Live content producers as well as offering more creative tools to make more people share their videos.
The goal is to propel its massive revenue growth. The video first strategy has given Facebook a better engagement, and of course, more money into its pockets.
When Facebook revealed its strong quarterly earning, the company's average revenue per user grew to about 49.1 percent in the U.S. and Canada, that is compared to 35 percent worldwide growth.
In his earning call, Zuckerberg said that:
Back when Facebook only thrives on desktop where web games were popular and eventually spamming the News Feed, seeing video in the News Feed was quite rare. Uploading videos to Facebook was clumsy, difficult, and aren't really useful. Videos took a long time to load, and many were taken from YouTube.
But the rise of video contents on Facebook happened for reasons.
When Facebook popularized its feed-based social network where people can browse to discover content, it quickly became the home to brand ads. As users first shifted to mobile, it attracted app install ads from developers.
And as mobile data networks strengthen to support high-bandwidth content, gadgets' hardware were becoming capable for high-quality videos. Facebook expected that, and has already built a powerful distribution network that video advertisers want to join.
With good cameras and bigger screens, the number of engaging users also increased. And with video creation tools, both amateur and professional video creators can bring their creations to the web fast and easy.
When memes started occupying many internet's images. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and more, videos are becoming more prevalent. Advertisers that weren't yet understand the approach and the format, came to the hang of them. They started to create video ads that are designed to grab attention: cut straight into action - adopting eye-catching effects and visuals to make every seconds count.
So here we see that advertisers are becoming more focused on delivering short videos but able to tease high engagement rather than a fully-hyped ads that are becoming rarely seen. It's the shift that makes them become more social.
With a continued user growth, engagement also increased. Video ads has contributed much of Facebook's $7.01 billion in revenues this quarter, up 59 percent year-over-year, and its $2.35 billion in profit. Essentially, Facebook’s pivot to video worked.
And with Facebook's ability to make video ads organic, it can bring other organic contents to mask the ads. This will keep people engaged without annoying them.
Here, Facebook is certainly catching up with YouTube with a more social approach. The two have now become dominant in their own ways.
Further reading: Explaining Facebook's "Core Values" That Power Its News Feed