The Impact of Facebook's Video Ranking Updates

In a recent announcement, Facebook declared its intention to modify its own news feed algorithm so as to reward producers of video content which generates the most repeat views, and which enjoys the longest average viewing times. Also included in this announcement was Facebook's intention to penalize those videos which lacked originality or which were re-purposed, by imposing limited access to monetization and also to viewer visibility.Any video content which is involved in a sharing scheme would likewise be penalized and would be awarded limited distribution. In essence, Facebook intends to reward Pages which establish loyalty among viewers, get strong viewership, and which post content that is completely original. This may have a significant impact for your business and the kind of video content you post to Facebook, and by taking advantage of the main components of Facebook's recent announcement, you'll be able to keep your video content popular on the platform.

Establishing loyalty

One of the elements being favored by Facebook is video content that keeps viewers wanting more, and returning to the same producer for video content. This means that in the future, Facebook will assign higher priority to videos which are sought out by users, or are found by visiting the creator's Facebook Page. This applies to Facebook Watch, News Feed, and the tab supplied by Facebook for More Videos.In order to ensure that your business audience stays engaged over long period of time, and continues to come back seeking more video content from you, there are a few things you can do. One of the most important of these is to build trust with your audience and maintain visibility by establishing a regular presence with your Facebook video content. Regular posting will allow your audience to expect high quality from you, and hopefully to inspire them to seek out your Business Page for additional content.

The next thing you can do is anticipate the search terms that users might employ to find your company or products, and then to include those terms anytime you're adding description or title to your video content. Lastly, it's extremely important to keep your viewing audience engaged with high quality content that has value to their lives, either as an educational piece or an inspirational video which makes them assign higher value to your video content. By consistently sharing high content high-quality video with your users, you'll keep them coming back for more, and you'll be rewarded by Facebook for it.

Viewing duration

Facebook's new announcement declares their attention to reward video content which keeps users watching your video for at least 60 seconds. The platform has stated that it will assign significantly more priority to those videos which maintain user engagement, especially on videos which last three minutes or longer. When you are trying to produce longer content for your videos, there are few things you should keep in mind, so as to maintain user engagement and interest.First of all, you need to be aware that many Facebook users will watch viewers with the sound turned off. This means that you have to create your video productions such that they can be fully engaged by the video content, without necessarily having any accompanying sound to describe the video action. A workable substitute for having the sound off would be to include worthwhile text that can maintain clarity of your video story, and serve to keep your viewing audience more engaged.

When you're trying to establish greater engagement with your viewers, you need to get their attention right off the bat. This means you should always begin with your strongest video clips and your best images, so that users can be drawn in from their News Feed. If there's nothing to particularly recommend your video content over other News Feed content, users might well scroll right past your content and miss it entirely.In order to create truly dynamic three-minute videos, you should employ the use of a storyboard to flesh out the message that you want to deliver in your longer video content. By using a storyboard approach, you should have a better chance to ensure that your video content is useful to your viewing audience, and that it entertains or inspires all the viewers watching. Using a storyboard helps to plan out the content you intend to deliver to your users, and gives you a better chance of creating something truly engaging.

Originality

To be sure of creating original content, Facebook recommends that you produce fresh content which results from your own efforts, or from help you receive from a production partner. This means you need to do all the writing, camerawork, editing, publishing, and other tasks, either all alone or in tandem with a trusted friend. This kind of original content is more likely to cause users to tag their friends or share the videos you've produced, and to provoke conversation which is meaningful.This is exactly what Facebook intends to rank more highly, so you need to ensure that your content is totally original. You can take a step toward originality by avoiding the re-posting of content which you got from elsewhere. If you don't have any fresh ideas of your own, there are plenty of sources you can use to come up with original ideas for your video content. There are some situations where Facebook will not penalize re-posted content, which it says must be content that is meaningfully re-purposed, rather than being simply thrown together from other sources. Some methods for accomplishing this meaningful re-purposing action is to include fresh commentary, graphics, voice-overs, or other creative types of editing.Another way of maintaining originality is to invite users to react to your posts in some way, and by giving them a strong reason to do so. If you produce video content which educates, entertains, or inspires your users, they are much likelier to provide feedback or commentary on what they've just seen. By keeping in touch with these elements being favored by Facebook, you can maintain high priority and rankings for your business videos, and not have them fall by the wayside because you've ignored Facebook's directives.