Facebook Videos to Start Including Commercial Breaks

By: Josh Lawson | @JoshKLawson

Videos have always been an effective way to connect with audiences. YouTube previously had a near monopoly on the online video industry. Slowly more and more companies began to follow suit and allowed videos to be posted on multiple platforms, but YouTube still offered creators the option to include advertisements before videos in order to add monetary value to the number of views. Early next year, Facebook will begin a “mid-roll” format for ads in all videos, and share 55 percent of the revenue with the publishers (keeping 45 percent); the same split offered by YouTube.

Unlike YouTube’s 5-second pre-video ad, Facebook video creators have the option to put ads as soon as 20 seconds into their video. This decision was made as a way for Facebook to turn its business into a profitable one, while also allowing creators to make money. In 2016, 100-million hours of video content was watched daily. This isn’t the only way for creators to make money though. They can publish branded content, as long as the brand is tagged within the post.

"We know partner monetization on Facebook isn’t one size fits all. We need to offer a range of solutions for the broad range of publishers and partners on our platform," a spokesperson wrote.  

The mid-roll approach to advertising is similar to the plan Facebook already has in place for their live stream service. All video content on the platform will begin to resemble television shows, with commercial breaks and the like. Facebook has already integrated ads on users’ feeds based on the pages they like, google searches, and statuses they post, so these ads would be moved into a video format rather than the cookie cutter format used on other platforms.

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