Facebook Live Videos Take Off In 2016
Facebook Live videos are transforming the platform as media publishers and companies quickly adopt this new tool. We looked at the 500 largest company and the 500 largest media publisher Pages on Facebook for the first half of 2016 to see how the biggest pages are defining the trends in live video streaming.
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Quick Facts
- Company Facebook Pages streamed almost 200 live videos in June – 6x as many as they streamed in January
- Media publishers post nearly 18x more videos on average each month than the top company Pages
- Only 30% of the most-frequent live streaming Pages are in English
The biggest media publishers socialcast more than 5,000 videos from May 15th – June 15th.
Live Video Around the World
Facebook Live rolled out globally on April 6, and it certainly looks like the beginning of a trend that is not slowing down any time soon – especially since 90% of the top media publishers of Facebook Live videos are non-U.S. Pages, and 70% do not publish in English.
Media publishers have an advantage when it comes to content creation. They can talk about a wide variety of subjects without diluting the brand, and are usually the first to experiment with both technological and stylistic content trends. Afterall, content is their product, so often they are establishing best practices before companies get involved in each social media trend.
As companies around the world catch up on producing live video, the number of live videos from top companies should increase as well, although likely not to the same number as media publishers.
See How to Use Facebook Live Like a Pro
Live vs. Recorded Video
Media have also led the way in posting more live videos relative to the number of recorded native videos they post to Facebook.
But media publishers have continued to publish recorded, native video content.
Companies have not yet found this same balance between publishing live and recorded videos, as they significantly cut into the number of native videos they posted when Live video first emerged. As time has gone on, native video postings have increased again even as Live videos have slowly been integrated into companies’ publishing strategies.
Facebook is Constantly Innovating
Facebook is updating live video all the time. They recently announced a new set of innovations that should please influencers, including waiting rooms (to help build audiences for live events before they start so that broadcasters never have to speak to any empty room) and 2-person videos, allowing for better live collaboration.
These are just a few of the many changes that will come to Facebook publishing as live videos continue to grow and publishers continue to figure out the best way to use them and make them more engaging. It’s only speeding up from here.