14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is surely the biggest social network out there, and it extensively tries to improve its offering to users, especially since a large part of them connect using their smartphones. The company intends to add vertical videos to mobile news feed, after, not long ago, it started testing video with autoplay sound.
Facebook began displaying a larger portion of each vertical video in News Feeds on Android and iOS devices. The measure was taken after studies showed that people enjoy more immersive experiences on Facebook.
Until now, vertical videos have been cropped into squares when shown in people’s news feed, and users had to click on them in order to view the vertical version. With the new feature, formatted videos, including ads and live broadcasts will automatically appear as vertically formatted videos on iOS and Android phones.
Android and iOS apps will be updated to accommodate the new feature
Snapchat and Instagram already have the feature incorporated in their applications, and it’s not uncommon for social networks to get inspiration from others when it comes to adding new goodies to applications or even web versions.
The new feature will also benefit advertisers and publishers greatly, since it was shown that people spend more time watching vertical videos with sound on, which means that advertisers would have a greater chance to get their message through.
An update will be sent to Android and iOS Facebook apps in order to facilitate the introduction of this feature, according to Mashable. The update will make vertical videos show up in people’s news feeds but with a changed aspect ratio.
Vertical videos used to appear in a 1:1 aspect ratio, and once the update arrives, the aspect ratio changes to 2:3. In order to see a full-screen vertical video on Facebook, users need to click on the video in their feed, expand it and then use the arrows in the upper right corner to make it full screen.