In an effort to increase video engagement on its platform, Facebook is introducing a “more videos” carousel feature. When you finish viewing a friend’s video, at the end you’ll be shown a carousel of other videos posted by your friend, making it easier for you to stay within the same screen and watch multiple videos.
The feature is similar to YouTube’s “Related Videos” carousel, and the goal is to keep video viewers engaged, driving up views and giving Facebook a chance to be as much of a video sharing platform as YouTube, Vine and Instagram.
The feature was spotted by TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine, who posted these examples from his phone:
The increased video engagement is a big opportunity for Facebook. By driving up its video engagement stats, it is paving the way for more video ads, powered by its latest acquisition, the programmatic video ads platform LiveRail. While Facebook is currently experimenting with video ads showing up in user’s news feeds, pretty soon it could start showing video ads pre-roll and post-roll within user videos themselves, especially if those users have a large following.
For brands, the video carousel is also an opportunity to create and highlight engaging video content. Videos they would have normally posted to YouTube can now be shared in Facebook pages, designed to be watched sequentially. For consumer brands, it’s an incentive to create entertaining branded video content that keeps users hooked, watching video after video. For B2B companies, it’s a way to upload an entire series of how to use their product, using the carousel as an educational tool.
For now, the carousel feature is only available for select users of Facebook for iOS, but if it tests well, Facebook says it will roll it out globally across all its platforms.
