Facebook creators are getting a handful of new tools on the platform, including the ability to test the performance of different Reels against each other.
The most notable new feature is an A/B reel testing tool. A/B testing is a common marketing and publishing tactic in which elements of content (for example, a newsletter or article) are modified to see which generates the most engagement. In a news article, for example, editors often test several different headlines to see which readers respond most to.
In Reels, creators will be able to set up to four different thumbnails and subtitles for a single video in a test. Depending on the feature footage, different versions will be shown to separate groups of a creator’s audience for 30 minutes. At the end of the trial period, the version with the most views will “win” and appear on the creator’s profile unless they change it. The feature is available on mobile devices for now, and Meta says that in the future it may also offer AI tools to generate subtitles and thumbnails.
Meta also announced some features that could make content management a little easier. In a creator’s professional dashboard, you can now see the performance of all of their posts and take actions such as hiding posts from their profile or moving them to the trash.
Creators will also get a little more data on how their content is performing on Facebook: the platform will offer users a 90-day view, up from the previous 28 days. Other new data points include how a Reel performs relative to a creator’s other videos, a viewer retention metric that shows when viewership declines, and view counts that include replays of a Reel.
