Facebook Watch attracted 400 mn monthly users within three months of global launch

Facebook-owned video on demand (VoD) platform Facebook Watch has attracted more than 400 million monthly and 75 million people daily who spend at least one minute on the platform within three months of global launch.

In a blog post, Facebook head of video Fidji Simo said that these 75 million daily visitors spend more than 20 minutes in Watch. “We’re seeing that people are regularly coming back to catch up on the videos they care about and watching for longer periods of time. In this post, we’re sharing more details on our video strategy and a range of new updates for Watch,” he said.

Facebook Watch was launched globally by opening up the platform to videos from all Pages. The platform also debuted dozens of Facebook Originals.

Simo said that the social networking giant is working towards unifying the video experience across Facebook. As part of this effort, the platform will be testing a few things in the coming months, like creating a darker background whenever you immerse yourself into a video on mobile, unifying these different viewing experiences under one.

“Right now, people can find videos on Facebook in a number of different places — Watch, News Feed, Search, Pages and more — and all of these can feel different. We want to make the experience of watching video feel immersive no matter where you discovered it,” he stated.

The platform is now available around the world on the desktop and on Facebook Lite. Further, the Ad Breaks service is now available to eligible Pages in 40 countries around the world.

“In 2019, we will continue to expand the ways publishers and creators can make money on Facebook. We’ll bring Ad Breaks to video creators in more countries around the world, and will test new Ad Breaks placements, like in live streams from gaming creators. We want to bring Brand Collabs Manager to more countries to help match brands and creators for sponsorship deals, and will be expanding our fan subscriptions test,” Simo stated.

Facebook Watch will also explore new opportunities for advertisers. It had introduced In-Stream Reserve for premium online video and TV buyers to deliver their ads alongside the highest-quality Watch content.

“Next year we will continue focusing on enhancing these tools to enable publishers and creators to generate meaningful revenue from their engaged, loyal audiences on Facebook,” he added.

The platform will also increase its investments in original content. As part of this strategy, four shows Huda Boss, Five Points, Sacred Lies, and Sorry For Your Loss have been renewed for the second season.

Simo said that Facebook Watch’s content strategy goes beyond Originals and also included licencing, and partnerships. “Above all, our strategy is about identifying the type of content that people want to talk about, and helping people have meaningful connections around that content on Facebook,” he noted.