2017 : The Year of Facebook Live Pt 1

Facebook’s biggest bet is beginning to pay off. According to the corporation’s head of video, Fidji Simo, said for every five videos shared on Facebook one is of a Live variety. The stats, shared by Simo in a public status update on her personal page, discloses that Facebook’s costly and laborious move toward live broadcasting is actually starting to work. Simo also says that the amount of time users spend watching these Live videos has quadrupled.

Let’s take a look at one of the trends that are going to dominate content marketing this year. You heard it here first: 2017 is all about live video. It’s already been “prophesied” that this year, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic.

In a nutshell, Facebook Live allows users to “go live”, easily and accessible.  You don’t need anyone’s permission, nor do you need special tools to start Live broadcasting. All you need is your phone and internet connection.  With no technical knowledge of any kind, you can share your surroundings in high-definition to the most relevant people in your live.

“Keeping Up With The Chidemes”

Ever since Olinda Chapel’s success with “Keeping Up With The Chidemes” in February 2017, live video has become the prime for most content creators in Zimbabwe. Olinda Chapel was then called to Ruvheneko’s Show and their video reached 61 000 views in just two days, and at one time it had 5 000 live views. It makes sense in the age of video streaming and on-demand everything, the one type of content that still holds significance is the live moment. Whether these videos are coming from a news organization, a celebrity, company event or one of your friends.

Facebook has been tweaking its algorithms to favour video content since last year. Since the launch of Facebook Live, the social network made it clear that Live videos will receive more organic reach than video content hosted elsewhere. They haven’t failed us much choice.

If you want your video content to receive any views at all on this platform, start using Facebook Live.

While Facebook Live is popular with Zimbos, it has also created problems for Facebook. According research done by the Techunzipped, there have been three suicide or more live streams of suicide committed on the service and at least— a 38-year-old AFM pastor killed himself on Facebook Live. Since last year, there have been at least 50 cases of users who live-streamed suicides on Facebook Live.