Facebook Highlights Its 1

To prove to advertisers and the world that it's not just YouTube that delivers massive video engagement online, Facebook today announced it now delivers 1 billion video views per day and will begin showing everyone view counts on videos posted by Pages and public figures. This could convince advertisers shifting TV ad spend to digital to look to Facebook, which recently bought video adtech company LiveRail for between $400 million and $500 million.

To put the 1 billion daily views in context, YouTube last said it racked up 4 billion views per day as of 2012, but it's grown massively since then. 65% of Facebook's video views are coming from mobile, and views grew 50% from May to July, in part thanks to the viral ALS ice bucket challenge finding a home on Facebook. As I wrote 9 months ago, video is a huge growth opportunity for Facebook, and today it finally puts its efforts there in the spotlight.

Facebook today also confirmed that it's recommending additional videos to watch after you've seen one, a new feature I spotted in July. Today's announcement also noted that Facebook is letting video publishers include a 'call-to-action' link that viewers can click at the end of a video. Finally, it noted that video publishers and Pages now have access to deeper analytics about view counts, unique viewers, and how long people kept watching before moving on.

The new video views and analytics could make the impact of Facebook for video marketing more transparent, which could get more advertisers allocating video ad budgets to the service. Meanwhile, the calls to action can help advertisers drive sales or other returns on investment beyond just getting attention.

For users, the counts could help make Facebook more of a home for viral videos. When people see high view counts, it can reassure them a video is worth their time. The recommendations could inspire people to watch chains of videos one after another instead of returning a the feed or a friend's profile.

Video holds massive potential for Facebook to both deliver on its mission and build its business. Video is such a compelling way to communicate, and the tools for recording it (like Instagram's new Hyperlapse app) keep improving, that the medium could connect people more vividly than the status updates and photos Facebook grew up on. And by combining its vast trove of user targeting data with the long session times and attention-holding property of video, moving pictures could let Facebook catch the wave of ad dollars flooding from TV to the Internet.