Food publishers are early winners of Facebook video
While the videos did well on Instagram, it wasn’t until they were posted on Facebook that they “blew up,” according to BuzzFeed Food creative director Emily Fleischaker. Newswhip said that BuzzFeed Food’s videos were shared 66 million times in June and watched over 390 million times overall, second only to BuzzFeed’s main Facebook account, according to data from Tubular Labs.
That success is partly a function of the brevity of the videos and the novelty of their content but also the inherent shareability of food itself.
“Food is an easy thing for people to bond over on social media no matter if they know each other really well or only know each other a little, if they’re constantly in touch or have been out of touch for a while. It’s a lighthearted topic, it’s not too serious or overtly political (most of the time),” said Fleischaker. “Not everyone wears makeup or likes to workout or is getting married or is a parent — or even likes to cook. But everyone’s gotta eat.”
BuzzFeed Food’s most popular Facebook video has been its 15-second s’mores dip recipe, which has been viewed nearly 96 million times since June. Fleischaker said that the video worked for viewers because it’s both unusual and easy to make — all the while fitting into the larger obsession around “snackwave” food on the Web. The videos are a joint effort between BuzzFeed Food and the BuzzFeed Motion Pictures video team.
Facebook said in April that users watch more then four billion views a day, an increase from three billion daily views in January. Video ads on the site accounted for 22 per cent of total ad spend in June, according to ad tech firm Nanigans. But Facebook’s decision to autoplay video by default, coupled with its squishy definition of a view, means that its video success comes with a few qualifications.
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