Thought Leadership

Facebook Invests $50+ Million in Video Content Creation for Facebook Live

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has recently signed contracts with multiple media companies and celebrities to create video content for its new live-streaming service Facebook Live.

The company has reportedly invested more than $50 million to pay prospective content creators that now include such outlets as CNN, the New York Times, the Huffington Post and celebrities Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra, Kevin Hart and many others.

“We wanted to invite a broad set of partners so we could get feedback from a variety of different organizations about what works and what doesn’t,” said Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Operations and Media Partnerships.

Facebook’s latest move underscores the ever-growing importance of online video content for user-engagement. In the past decade, the Internet has become increasingly more video-oriented and modern companies are beginning to take note.

Video content offers a great opportunity to grab the audience’s attention, engage consumers and attract more traffic to the company website. Today, videos can be easily shared on various social media networks with just a few clicks. Adding video creation to your ongoing PR and marketing efforts can help strengthen your written content and foster a stronger emotional connection between your audience and your brand.

And although most of us are not running global social network websites, businesses of different sizes and industries can use this lesson from Mark Zuckerberg’s playbook and harness the power of branded video content for their benefit.