Brands can market themselves on social media with more confidence thanks to expanded video metrics on Facebook.

The power of video marketing is difficult to overstate. Consumers want it, it increases engagement and it can be dispersed to customers on any device, through almost any digital channel. It is becoming particularly important on Facebook, where there’s been explosive video growth in the past year. According to a study by Econsultancy, Facebook video plays have increased by 785 percent between 2013 and 2014, and engagement with video posts is up 25 percent.

Brands need to have the right tools to understand what constitutes video marketing success. Thankfully, the social network itself has complied. In an official FB blog post, the company introduces us to the video metrics that Pages will soon be able to access.

Superior marketing through video data

Previously, the owners of branded Pages were able to see how many people had clicked play on a video. Over the next few weeks, they’ll have access to a host of new reporting options, including:

  • Video view time: Marketers can see exactly how many people made it a certain length of time before abandoning a video. It’s a great way to break down the effectiveness of individual sections. For instance, perhaps participation peters out when imagery becomes uninteresting. Or maybe people just aren’t making it to the call to action at the end of a production.

  • Average duration: Over time, a brand can use this figure to determine how long their videos should be. As Brafton reported, there is such a thing as a marketing video that’s too long.

  • Paid vs. organic views: Facebook organic News Feed visibility is already decreasing, and the network seems to be emphasizing paid ads over traditional marketing methods. Brands looking to understand how customers reach their posts can see what proportion of people arrived at FB videos from ad clicks and which navigated to a branded page or saw something organically in their News Feeds.

Data is just about the most valuable asset a marketer can have, as it allows brands to be dynamic in their online approach. Customers follow indirect paths from leads to purchases, and simply tracking conversions means important information gets lost in the noise. So tools like Facebook’s video metrics are essential to making real-time tweaks to social marketing campaigns, essentially as media becomes richer and more in-depth on every channel.

Alex Butzbach is a Marketing Writer at Brafton. He studied Communications at Boston College, and after a brief stint teaching English in Japan, he entered the world of content marketing. When he isn't writing and researching, he can be found on a bike somewhere in Metro Boston.