What counts as a view on Facebook story

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo and video collections that can be viewed up to two times and disappear after 24 hours.

The story format, originated and made famous by Snapchat, has been on Facebook’s radar for some time, with the Menlo Park-based company first testing a Snapchat Stories clone within Messenger in September 2016.

Now, Facebook users can share stories within the main Facebook app.

The feature is focused around Facebook’s in-app camera which allows users to overlay fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. To access the camera, simply swipe right on Facebook’s mobile app.

What counts as a view on Facebook story

This follows hotly on the heels of Instagram’s incredibly successful stories launch. Instagram Stories launched in August 2016 and now more than 150m people use Stories daily across the globe.

The Facebook Stories update is accompanied by a couple more new features. Facebook’s camera is now upgraded with dozens of Snapchat-like filters and effects, including six “masks” sponsored by Hollywood studios to promote upcoming film releases.

The third update, Direct, is a combination of Messenger and Snapchat which enables users to send short videos and images to friends that will disappear after a short time.

How Facebook Stories work

Similar to Instagram Stories, content shared to stories will appear at the top of the Facebook News Feed. To view a story, users simply tap a friends’ circle at the top of the app.

What counts as a view on Facebook story

While viewing a story, users can also reply with a direct message.

What counts as a view on Facebook story

How to add content to Facebook Stories

Step 1: Access the camera

To create a story on Facebook, you first need to access the camera. You can do this by tapping the camera icon on the Facebook mobile app.

What counts as a view on Facebook story

Step 2: Create your content

Facebook users can share both photos and videos to stories. Once you have the camera open, you’ll be able to record your video or snap a quick photo. You’ll also notice a range of lenses and filters available to embellish your content.

To take a photo, tap on the button in the center of the screen and to record a video hold down this button.

You can also upload images from your phone’s camera roll by tapping on the album icon. We launched Stories Creator to help you quickly create thumb-stopping Stories for free. If you are interested in creating custom Stories images, we’ll be so glad if you want to give Stories Creator a go!

Once you’re happy with the post you’ve created, the next step is to share it to your story. To do this, tap on the arrow icon in the center of the screen and then select ‘Your Story’ and tap on the send button in the bottom right of your screen. You can also send your post to selected friends via a direct message.

What counts as a view on Facebook story

Once you’ve shared a post to your story, it will display for 24 hours and then be gone forever, just as Snapchat and Instagram Stories work. Videos and photos posted in a Facebook Story won’t show up in the News Feed or on a user’s timeline by default, but users can choose to share to the News Feed as well if they’d like to.

What counts as a view on Facebook story

Facebook Stories for Pages

In October 2017, Facebook announced that Stories would be opened up to all Facebook Pages.

The below video from TechCrunch’s Josh Constine shows how the feature will work for Page owners:

To post a Facebook Story from your Page:

  1. Open up Facebook’s mobile app on iOS or Android (Stories can only be posted on mobile)
  2. Go to the timeline of any Page for which you’re an Admin
  3. Tap “Create Story”

Just like users’ Stories, Stories from Facebook Pages will appear for 24 hours and won’t be shared to the Pages’ timeline or the Facebook News Feed.

Countering the content collapse: Facebook Stories offer a way to encourage original content

The fuel that has fired Facebook’s extraordinary growth so far is user-generated content.

However, the sharing of original, user-generated content such as status’ and images declined 21 percent between mid-2015 and mid-2016. At the same time, sharing of news articles and other outside links increased, The Information, a tech news site, reported.

For Facebook, this seems to be a problem. Many of its users are no longer creating their own content, instead opting to share links and information from other websites. Internally at Facebook, Bloomberg reports this issue is known as “context collapse.”

It appears that the habit of sharing of personal content, such as images and videos, has shifted to smaller, more closed communities like Snapchat, instant messengers (like Whatsapp, Messenger) and Facebook-owned, Instagram.

Facebook Stories introduces the concept of 24-hour disappearing photos to a much wider audience than any other product to date. Over 1.7 billion people use Facebook’s mobile app each month, many of whom may not have come across story-style content before if they don’t use Snapchat or Instagram Stories.

From a content perspective, this seems to make sense for Facebook. When people open Facebook they expect to see photos and videos from their friends and connections. But with fewer users creating content and a rise in brands posting to Facebook and ads in the feed, many users feel they miss out on the type of posts that helped Facebook to take over the social media world.

Whether Facebook’s core users will adopt the feature remains to be seen. Though it’s a place for friends, Facebook appears to be a much wider network than places like Instagram and Snapchat where users may be a little more selective with who they add and share content with.

A move towards camera-first communication

Combatting the context collapse seems to be an important challenge for Facebook. One way the company is approaching this challenge is through promoting camera-first communication.

Facebook’s main app is one of their last properties to adopt the stories format, which focuses on user-generated photo and video content. Messenger Day was launched with Messenger in March 2017, following hotly on the heels of February’s Whatsapp’s Status update and Instagram Stories rolled out in August 2016.

In a recent note focused on Messenger in 2017, David Marcus, Facebook’s Head of Messenger explained how the camera is beginning to replace the keyboard:

People expect the world to be so much more visual than it’s ever been before. Many of us now have powerful cameras in our pockets so when we rolled out our new camera at the end of 2016 we were reflecting this trend. We built a fast, feature-rich camera as a way for you to share visually everyday – whether it’s a video clip or quick selfie or a silly moment.

By popularizing visual, short-lived visual interactions on mobile, Snapchat started the ball rolling on the trend of camera-first communication and almost every platform is now following suit and prioritizing visual, in-the-moment content.

Whereas a few years back we may have sent an SMS or IM to our friends to share interesting and fun moments, many now default to our cameras to share this moment. Text now acts as a support to the more visual side of communication. Much like real life interactions, where our visuals and body language tell as much of a story as the words we’re saying.

Over to you

Have you tried Facebook Stories yet?

I’d love to hear what you think about this update. Will you share your day on Facebook? How will you manage stories across Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Whatsapp?

Let me know in the comments?

Want to learn more about the Stories format?

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What counts as a view for a story?

For a video to get a view, a user has to watch the video for at least three seconds. You can get multiple views from the same user as long as each time your video loops, they watch at least three seconds of it. In fact, watching your own Instagram video for longer than three seconds counts as a view, too.

Can you view people's Facebook stories without them knowing?

Viewing a Facebook story while your device is in airplane mode is the simplest trick of viewing a Facebook story without recognition. Once you enable airplane mode, you will be disconnected from the internet, and Facebook will be unable to capture your account as one of the viewers.

What counts as a view on Facebook 2022?

The Facebook average watch time is 10 seconds If a Facebook video is watched for longer than 3 seconds, it counts as a view. If it is watched for longer than 10 seconds, it means that viewers are actively digesting and receiving your content.