How Marketers Will Find Value on Facebook Watch

Why we’re all in on performance branding – and how it can transform your growth.

Facebook Watch: How Marketers Will Find Value on Facebook’s Original Content Platform

Bryan Karas

September 7, 2018

Facebook Watch – which is the social network’s attempt at original programming – is now available worldwide. Facebook launched Watch in the U.S. market a little over a year ago and the platform has grown to over 50 million monthly viewers.

Facebook users come to the platform to watch more and more video. FB’s director of video Daniel Danker said, “When they come with that in mind, we want to make a place for them where they can find that video, connect with the creators and publishers they love, and know they won’t miss out if there’s a new episode from one of those creators.”

This is very intriguing for brands since Watch offers an environment where advertisers can be alongside professionally produced content – not to mention Facebook’s audience size…

The ads are coming…

But what’s more important than Watch going global is that Facebook introduced Ad Breaks to more publishers – Ad Breaks are pre-roll or mid-roll ads that play on a video. Ad Breaks do not run on all videos and only select creators who publish videos within certain parameters can include Ad Breaks….

According to Facebook, Watch’s in-stream ads are best suited for longer storytelling to introduce a new product or provide information – unlike Stories, which is best for sneak peeks or unfiltered videos to educate or entertain viewers.

Facebook is trying to evolve from spontaneous video views to deliberate ones – getting people to consciously come back to Watch for scheduled recurring content.

For this to work, FB must protect Watch from low quality, “anyone can upload” type content. Currently, when you land on the Watch page it looks like Facebook hasn’t decided if it really wants to provide high quality, episodic programming or just a collection of all the News Feed videos…

DR vs BRANDING

For DR marketers this probably won’t be the greatest placement but for brand marketers it’s looking like a homerun. Someone on Facebook Watch isn’t going to click off and purchase something immediately so instead, your goal should be to educate people about your product and increase brand awareness.

Companies nowadays are way too short term focused – overly concerned about weekly or monthly conversion metrics…needing the sale now. But this isn’t a sprint…it’s a marathon.

Building a brand is a long term strategy. Becoming top of mind when consumers think about your product category takes a long time to develop. Phones, coffee and beds? iPhones, Starbucks and Casper…that didn’t happen overnight.

Building a Brand: Lessons from Marketing Guru Seth Godin

There are a lot of misconceptions about brand building. My favorite is that companies think people actually care about them – wrong, people care about themselves. Read more about this thought and five other lessons on building a brand from Seth Godin.