How the FT, Economist use Facebook for video

Garrett Goodman of The Media Briefing writes about how the Financial Times and the Economist use Facebook to promote its video content.

Goodman writes, “Before posting videos to Facebook, The Economist had the fairly standard practice amongst news outlets of publishing video on its own website and monetising through pre-roll advertising. Last summer however, Tom Standage, deputy editor and head of digital strategy, decided that wasn’t ‘a viable long-term video strategy.’

“After effectively doubling the publication’s video views by posting video content to YouTube, Standage started experimenting with uploading videos via the native Facebook player, which had ‘a much greater impact’ on the number of views. He says:

“We are using this observation that if you post videos with a native player you can get millions of views as the basis of a new video strategy which we are still developing. For us it’s about reach and informing people that The Economist doesn’t just write about finance and economics all the time.”

“The Economist’s most successful video on Facebook was a 4 minute-long animated graphic with voice-over about demographics, what Standage calls a ‘live chart.’ The publication has had over 800,000 views on Facebook alone of that video.”

Read more here.