• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 8, 2015

Yeah, we've all seen this before. The big pivot brands make when they think there's a better trend to ride. And after all, social media is so...2011! It's all about video now, baby! Or at least that's what Facebook would like us to think...ten years after YouTube grabbed that spotlight.

Speaking to Australia's Mumbrella, Facebook Australia Head of Agency Sales Elli Rogers said: “People ask us are you a social network? Are you a mobile platform? What we’re saying now is because of the rise of video we’re actually a video platform which is perhaps quite an unexpected way to start presentations with clients and agencies."

She continues: “When we talk them through the story and they think about their experience on the network they very quickly realize this is an incredible place to showcase your video at scale but to also have that personalized side and use the hyper-targeting we have within the Facebook world."

Now it's certainly true that Facebook is beginning to eat YouTube's lunch in certain cases when it comes to viewership of brand video. And while the site claims that posting and viewing of videos is way up, any idiot realizes rgr most of the videos people are posting and watching are of the "you won't believe what this cat does when it sees an elephant in its backyard" ilk.

Certainly some brands have seen great success with video on Facebook and will continue to in the future. But to sort of ignore all the other types of user activity that occurs on Facebook is just indicative of the fact that most advertising entities will pitch themselves as king of whatever trend is hot so as to wow agencies. And video is hot now. So Facebook is now a "video platform."