1 Major Takeaway From Facebook & YouTube’s Recent Product Changes
I’ll be honest, these last two product enhancements from FB and YT have been some of my favorite ever! Unfortunately, big product changes can have their downfalls.
Since both platforms are providing value to many different groups (members, advertisers, content creators, etc.), this means a positive product change to one group can be a negative change to another.
Let’s see how the world’s largest media outlets performed…
YouTube’s “10 Second Fast-Forward/Rewind”
This product change has to be in my personal Top 3 from any internet company! As a consumer, I absolutely love it. The YouTube experience is 10x more enjoyable.
Originally, I thought this would have a negative affect on content creators. I thought their content would feel less important and users would have more reason to skip around. I thought brand equity would be more difficult to achieve.
Then I realized that making videos more consumable in this manner was a real benefit for Youtube channels. Users can now jump around from video to video (from the same channel) without feeling like they’re wasting their time. Genius!
Consumer Pros:
- Saves time when necessary (intros, uninteresting topics, etc.)
- 100x easier to navigate through videos
- Even works well with streamed vids (still some minor issues)
Producer (content creator) Pros:
- Viewership increases due to the consumer’s lack of time wasting (users spending 1 hour on YT will most likely view more vids than before)
- The more videos watched from the same channel (in succession), the higher chance of converting the viewer into a subscriber
Overall Score: 9.25/10
Facebook’s “Automatically Generated Native Captions”
MUTE the video above to see captions.
It’s clear this product change is a major plus for marketers. The bonus is that the value for marketers comes as a result of a beneficial consumer experience.
Also think about this. We’ve seen captions in Facebook videos for a while now. Facebook has literally been gifted a proof of concept which forced them into caption generation.
Consumer Pros:
- Saves time deciding whether to watch a video or not
- Facebook’s caption format will create more consistency within the feed (vs. non-generated captioned videos)
- Captions disappear when the sound is on, eliminating the issue of reading instead of watching
Producer (marketer) Pros:
- Auto generation saves a ton of time
- Super easy to edit to ensure perfect timing
- Encourages all producers to use captions vs. using outside software
- The video quality gap between the best content creators and the average FB page owner shrinks quite significantly
Overall Score: 8.9/10
The Takeaway - Steal Their Logic
Any entrepreneur, marketer, or hustler looking to improve their “multidimensional” product would be a fool NOT to learn from monstrous companies like FB and YouTube. They spend all day strategizing, testing, executing and analyzing to put out the best product possible for all participating entities. Use their actions to your benefit.
Understand their thought process behind their product updates as I have in this post. Prioritize the diversity of your product changes. Take that rationale and inject it into your own business!
