Facebook TV? Predicting the Future of Facebook Advertising

Facebook announced they would start auto-playing sound with video on mobile devices—a big announcement for users; however, buried at the bottom of the release is the announcement of Facebook’s new TV app for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung Smart TV.

On its own, this may not seem like a big deal, but when coupled with the big push of Facebook Live, the debut of mid-roll video ads, the announcement of live streaming soccer matches, and December’s announcement of Facebook looking to join Amazon and Netflix in creating its own content… Well….

Are you starting to see a pattern yet?

What Facebook appears to be doing is laying the foundation for a much larger play at taking over your living room, in addition to your computer and mobile devices, by developing a new platform for the distribution of live news & events, TV shows, and movies—generating an entirely new means of social interaction with consumable media.

The only item left on the list would be for Facebook to announce an ad-based service like Crackle in offering free movies and TV, and they’ve successfully created a new type of television network.

Can you imagine an advertising platform on your TV which could place well targeted banner overlays on TV shows and mid-roll ads on a device directly connected to an account with a credit card? The ability to make one click purchases at the time of ad view?

Facebook would revolutionize the way we interact with our television and build a new hybrid TV/digital advertising method, providing themselves with a way to tap into the $70+ billion TV ad market. Creating an additional revenue stream to launch themselves on a path of substantial year-over-year growth.

This is now starting to sound like the death of traditional TV advertising and the birth of something akin to the scale of what Apple was able to create with the iPhone and App Store.

What does this mean for digital marketers and Facebook advertisers?

The potential for a brand new industry segment and an exciting new world for ad creation, analytics, and conversion tracking.