Facebook wants you to Say Thanks, with videos
Remember those Facebook Year-in-review video updates from everybody and their cousin’s friend hogging your news feed? It seems Facebook is going to pull a similar stunt yet again.
With Thanksgiving around the corner, the social networking giant has come up with another video idea -- say Thank You. This is a feature inside Facebook where you can share a personalized ‘Thanks’ video with a friend, your spouse, a relative, a coworker, an old friend – or anyone else in your life whom you want to thank.
The company has said, there is no limit to how many Thank You videos you can send. What’s more, unlike the look-back video, Facebook is pushing the launch on desktop as well as on mobile at the same time.
Here’s how it works:
To create a Say Thanks video, visit facebook.com/thanks. Once you choose a friend, Facebook will generate a preview of the video. You can select a different theme and edit photos and posts that represent your friendship.
When you’re satisfied with the video, click “Share” and it will offer option of writing a personalized message before posting. The video will post on your Timeline and your friend will be tagged, so it will show up on their Timeline as well.
Your friends will get tagged to the video and it will be posted your timeline. It's very similar to creating a regular video, but this will be directed at your friends with a "thanks" theme decorated.
According to Facebook, Say Thanks will be rolling out today globally on both desktop and mobile. LinkedIn also does similar viral activity by sending people an email telling them their profile is “Top 1%, 5%, 10% most views profile for the year 2014". This is such a digital ego massaging activity.
What’s Facebook really doing?
This is yet another push by Facebook to promote videos on its news feed. The company is already YouTube’s biggest contender for video views, and last month it even surpassed the Google video platform in the US, according to Comscore.
The company is slowly but surely paving a way for the future of video centric social network and video-ads.
So, let’s go and make some thank-you videos and spam each other till the fad dies out. And I’m going on a Facebook sabbatical. How about you?