Some thoughts on Live Video

Last weekend Candace Payne's 'Chewbacca Mask' video acheived over 100mm views on Facebook.

It's the first Facebook Live video to do this - but very few will have seen it 'live'

'Live' refers to the way it was uploaded - no editing, no enhancement.  Live is now the simplest way to upload video to Facebook (& YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat etc) - just open the app and shoot away.

The speed is extraordinary.  It his 100m in about 48 hours, I think.  By comparison Adele's Hello hit 23m views in 24 hours, and Psy's Gentleman (the follow up to Gangnam Style) took 4 days to reach 100m views in 2013, at that time the fastest ever video to 100m.

I suspect that Facebook put quite a lot of muscle behind this once they realised that it was so viral, and did a lot to help it get to 100m, including PR and more.

I also think it shows that Facebook is now the best place for a certain sort of video, better than YouTube, because it can reach so many people so quickly.

I think it also opens up lots of creative opportunities for using live video that is actually 'live' - think about what sort of times everyone will be looking at Facebook at the same time.  How about (in England) right after England's first Euro 2016 game?  Lots of people will go to Facebook to discuss the result (or look for distraction) and it would be a great place to respond immediately to what has just happened.