Facebook changes some measurements for Pages’ organic videos

If you’re a brand or publisher who’s finally adjusted to Facebook’s updated organic video metrics following last year’s measurement mishaps, well, at least that’s done. Now it’s time to familiarize yourself with the latest changes that Facebook is making to the measurements it provides for Pages’ organic videos.

On Monday, Facebook added some new measurements, changed an existing one and eliminated another for brands and publishers that track their organic videos’ performance using the social network’s Page Insights tool. Here’s a breakdown of the changes, from the measurement that is going away to one that is being changed to a few that are being introduced.

If you care how many of your total video views lasted at least 10 seconds…
… you’ll have a hard time finding that stat anymore. Facebook will no longer display a chart plotting the total number of views by day and time period that lasted at least 10 seconds. So brands and publishers will need to content themselves with the chart plotting three-second views or use Facebook’s Graph API to access the aggregate 10-second views number. Brands and publishers will still be able to use Page Insights to see 10-second view counts for individual videos.

If you care how many views your videos received in a specific time period…
… you’ll need to recalibrate to Facebook’s new way of counting those views. Previously, when Pages broke down their video views for a specific time period, Facebook only counted views for videos that were uploaded within that time period. Not anymore. Now the total views metric will report all of the views for a given time period (or a specific day within that time period), regardless of whether the video was uploaded in that window or a year before.

If you care how your recent videos performed compared with past time periods…
… now you can compare. Pages can now pick out a time period in the past and compare aggregate measurements, like total three-second views, for that time period with the most recent time period spanning as many days. For example, if a brand or publisher selects a seven-day period from a year ago, it will see that period’s measurements juxtaposed with the same measurements over the most recent seven days.

If you care how many total minutes people spent watching all of your videos…
… you’re in luck. Facebook will start showing the aggregate number of minutes people spent watching all of a Page’s videos.

If you care to see which are your top videos based on minutes viewed…
… Facebook is adding that option. Facebook has provided a ranking of a Page’s top videos for a given time period based on the number of three-second views each video received. Now it’s adding an option for Pages to see their top videos based on the total number of minutes people spent watching each video received.

About The Author

Tim Peterson

Tim Peterson, Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat’s ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar’s attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon’s ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube’s programming strategy, Facebook’s ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking’s rise; and documented digital video’s biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed’s branded video production process and Snapchat Discover’s ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands’ early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo’s and Google’s search designs and examine the NFL’s YouTube and Facebook video strategies.