We’ve heard rumors of a new ad format on Facebook for a while now, and the social network has finally rolled it out. Welcome to auto-play video ads in your News Feed!
But, these auto-play video ads for desktop and mobile are not typical auto-play video ads. Usually, an auto-play ad will just start playing – sound and all – and then you have to spend ten minutes searching your various screens before you finally find where it’s coming from. Facebook’s auto-play ads will play only when you scroll past them and the sound will be off unless you decide to enlarge the video. So you won’t be at the top of your News Feed trying to hunt for that annoying video ad playing somewhere at the bottom; you’ll just see videos auto-playing without sound as you scroll past.
If you decide to continue scrolling past the video ad, nothing will happen. The video will keep rolling without sound, and you can be on your merry way. If you decide to click on the video to watch it, the sound will appear. Once you’re done watching – either when you reach the end of the video itself or decide to click out of the full-screen view – a carousel of videos from the advertiser will appear in place of the original video was.
This ad format is still in beta with a few different advertisers, so most of us won’t be able to try out this new feature for our brands; in fact, you as a consumer may not even see these ads in your Feeds quite yet. Though it’s still not available to all advertisers, Facebook says that the initial test of the ad format works. “Through the course of this test, we’ve seen more than a ten percent increase in people watching, liking, sharing and commenting on videos,” the company said in its announcement post. There’s nothing to indicate that those shares or comments were positive; but there’s a high volume nonetheless.
Regardless of the initial data, this is a new ad format that Facebook desperately wants to work. The social network wants a piece of Google’s YouTube advertising pie – the possibility of matching their $5.6 billion revenue in the past year is just too enticing for the social network to pass up. If Facebook can monetize video ads in the News Feed, they can look forward to huge revenue numbers coming their way.
In summary: Facebook’s new video ad format is rolling out to News Feeds, but most of us won’t be able to test this format for our own brands. I’m not even convinced that it’s going to be a viable ad format. If I had to guess, I’d say this new format might be beneficial for brand awareness and fan engagement, but it most likely will disappoint for lead-generation goals. The call-to-action for the video is to watch more videos, not check out your salon’s website or landing page. If your primary goal with Facebook is to generate leads for your salon, you should look to other organic methods and advertising formats.
So sit back, relax, and wait for other advertisers to test out this format. See how you like this new format in your own feed. Does it feel interruptive? Do you actually watch videos that appear? What do you do after you’re done watching? Then, see how other people are reacting to these videos. Are they getting lots of negative comments and shares? Depending on what you find, you may decide that this new format is the next big thing… or something you want your salon to stay away from.
