Facebook adds video-count feature to increase engagement

Facebook videos are useful to many - from on-the-ground reporting by media outlets to exclusive releases and behind-the-scenes videos from celebrities and public figures. Facebook claims its videos platform has grown tremendously over the last year or so and so we have been seeing changes in this aspect on the social network.   Last year, Facebook introduced an update where videos would auto-play as people scrolled through their News Feed. It then went on to improve video ranking in News Feed, to show people more videos that are relevant and interesting to them. The social-media giant has two new updates up its sleeve for discovering new videos on Facebook.   According to a press statement, there has been an average of 1 billion plus video views on Facebook every day since June - when it introduced video ranking on News Feed. Overall growth in video views has exceeded 50 percent from May through July of this year, and a majority of Facebook’s videos are viewed on mobile devices.   Cashing on this feature, Facebook has announced two new updates. The first one will show users users how many views each video has got, similar to YouTube and Vine. This can help users discover trending videos as well as publishers trying to analyse their audience’s preferences. The update will start rolling out this week.   Facebook is also testing displays for related videos after users finish watching a clip. This again, is a longstanding YouTube feature, though, Facebook is testing it only for mobile as of now. This means when someone finishes watching a video, Facebook may show additional related videos that users might find interesting.   Earlier this year, Vine introduced new feature called Loop counts , which tells you how many times the video has been played back on Vine as well as embeds across the web.