Facebook continues to improve video experience of its users by engaging them for longer durations on the platform. To further enhance its video platform, it announced new video metrics for publishers along with a new Guide and Heatmap for 360 video. The recent additions are to ensure that users don’t miss out on any key moments that the publishers want them to witness.
Facebook launched its 360 video program in September 2015 to give its users a complete view of the surroundings in which the video is shot. Till date, more than 250,000 videos have been uploaded through 360 video. However, most videos miss out on the main angles that the publishers want viewers to see. The two new features will fix this issue as well.
Facebook 360 Guide
The new guide feature will give users a full tour of the 360 video. Publishers can highlight specific points in the video which they want the users to see. So when such points appear in a video, the Guide will automatically take users to these points so that users don’t miss out on the action.
Guide feature will automatically be enabled in your 360 video and will take users to the point of interests by default. Users who want to experience 360 video on their own can turn it off. To turn the Guide experience back on, users can tap on the heading indicator.
Moreover, Users will have to check the “Enable Guide” option each time they use the Guide to upload a 360 video on Facebook. Content creators would then identify the important points that should not be missed. Points of interest can be added with the “+” button when the video is paused. They will be added to the Guide automatically.
Currently, different publishers, such as The New York Times, GoPro, and ABC News are already using the Guide feature in their 360 videos.
360 Video Heatmap
Heatmap will work like analytics for your 360 video. It would allow publishers to analyze portion of the video where users spent most of their time. Most viewed angles will be shown through a visual map. However, Heatmap will only be available for videos that have more than 50,000 unique views.
The most viewed parts will be visually displayed as the “hottest part of the video.” Publishers can use the Heatmap to discover interesting parts that users like and then incorporate them in the Guide. The Heatmap will be available under Publishing. Moreover, 360 videos posted after May 1 will have the option to use the Heatmap feature.
New Video Metrics
Facebook provides Page owners with its weekly analytics report. This report shows how many new people liked the page, number of users engaged, total page visits, and other insights. Now, the social network is all set to provide similar features to publishers so they can improve their content according to user preference.
Facebook Product Manager, Anaid Gomez-Ortigoza, said: “Today we’re announcing new video metrics in Page Insights and Video Library that help publishers better understand who’s watching their videos, how audiences are engaging with Live video, and how sharing contributes to video distribution. These updates give publishers actionable data to help them create videos that forge stronger relationships with their viewers and engage new audiences.”
Live Video User Engagement
Facebook considers its Live Video feature to be the next big thing. It has already invested heavily by paying publishers and celebrities to make exclusive content for the platform. In return, the company will now give engagement metrics of Live Video to the publishers. The metrics will even show things like when most users comment, like, or react to a video.
Publishers can click on any point on the engagement graph and watch the related video clip. This feature can be accessed from Video Engagement in the “Audience and Engagement” card, and is exclusive for Live videos only.
Audience Demographics
Publishing the right content for the right audience is another challenge that publishers face today; the audience demographic feature may help them to overcome this. Usually, people spend longer time on content of their interest. Now, publishers will be able to view demographics of the viewers, which include their geographical locations, age and gender.
Publishers can then compare the demographics of the page with the demographics of the videos. This data will be available on the Audience and Engagement Card in Video Insights. The demographics will be available for all types of videos including Live and 360 Video. The new feature would help publishers understand the type of videos liked by users. It would also allow them to publish more specific and customized content according to the preference of their audience.
Video Viewing and Sharing
Every time we see a video on Facebook shared by our friends, it usually belongs to a Page. Sharing has become a powerful tool for the company as it accounts for 48% of the total time users spend on watching videos. Now, publishers will be able to get all the insights about sharing, including which content people like to share the most.
They will now see a breakdown of the minutes and views from the shared posts and cross-posts, as well as from the original post. These metrics update will be available to all pages in the next two weeks.