Facebook has announced the launch of a test to add business ads to its Messenger home screen. The test will take place in Australia and Thailand, with a small group of users. People that are part of the test in both markets will have the ability to hide any adverts on their homepages, and will be able to contact with advertisers through the chat feature if they wish. Facebook said that it hopes to give businesses the opportunity to “reach their customers and help them to drive sales, build brand awareness and increase customer satisfaction”. The feature is another step forward in bringing businesses closer to customers, after Facebook added that more than one billion messages are already “sent between people and businesses on Messenger each month”. Facebook is also slowly rolling out a new policy on video posts, with “long” videos now getting a boost on users' news feeds. This is thought to encourage the posting of videos that are more likely to engage consumers, leading to a higher quality of content. Facebook said however that the length of video required for it to be classed as “long” would vary “depending on the story [being told]”.
