Facebook to introduce adverts in the middle of its videos – Here’s why it’s a big deal for Zimbabweans

Social media giant, Facebook is set to introduce adverts in the middle of its videos as part if strategies to activate new revenue through video and to provide content creators with an avenue for making money from their video content.

Recode reported on the development in a recent article, citing industry sources that highlighted how the new ad format would allow publishers to insert the adverts into their videos at any point after  20 seconds of viewing.

This advertising alternative will complement Facebook’s video monetisation efforts in 2016 that saw the media platform allowing native advertising. It also started experimenting with mid-roll adverts in Live video in 2016.

All these developments are hardly surprising since Facebook’s video platform ambitions pointed in this direction. Like YouTube, the Google Alphabet owned video platform which Facebook is trying to compete with, it is betting on the strength of financial rewards for content creators which encourages a flood of great content as the creators chase views.

Zimbabwean content creators can also look at this as a positive development. Outside the racket created by State/Mobile Operator skirmishes regarding data pricing, Facebook, through its own merit plus the convenience of Over the Top (OTT) services like Facebook bundles, has emerged as a popular internet platform, coming second only to WhatsApp.

Over the past year, there have been several demonstrations of the impact Facebook video has had on how Zimbabweans consume content, with various facets of local culture, from politics to pop culture celebrity affected.

A handful of enterprising content creators like Bustop TV capitalised on this and have been using it as a distribution platform for videos and creating a Zimbabwean internet video economy. With any luck, a new advertising option within Facebook videos could create another revenue stream that complements their branded content approach.