Back in November, Facebook announced a coming new addition for its Creator Studio dashboard called 'Traffic Source Insights' which would provide a more direct overview of video watch time and retention metrics within four separate audience categories - 'Followers', 'Shares', 'Recommended' and 'Paid'.

These new insights provide more specific perspective into who, exactly, is watching your Facebook video content, thereby giving you more guidance as to where you should be focusing in order to improve your performance, dependent on your goal/s.

This week, Facebook has announced that Traffic Source Insights is now being rolled out within Creator Studio, while it's also provided some new tips on how to use this data, along with some general - and very interesting - Facebook video advice to improve performance.

First off, Facebook starts with an overview of what each of the new stat categories means, and how you might utilize this info to maximize key areas of your performance:

• Build your home base - Optimize for Followers by leveraging our distribution incentives for intentional content
• Get discovered - Optimize for Shares to be discovered by new potential followers
• Get featured - Supercharge your video's quality and integrity signals to potentially be eligible for Recommendations

Fairly logical - now that you have access to more specific performance data, you can focus on each subset in line with your preferred outcome.

But as noted, more interesting is Facebook's advice on improving your video performance overall.

To generate better response with your Facebook video efforts, Facebook says that:

• Posting at least 1-2 videos per day helps with reach (although for larger publishers looking to maximize their total views and watch time, more frequent posting is recommended)
• We also prioritize distribution for videos that are at least three minutes long and that inspire people to continue and complete watching (videos that are at least three minutes long may also be eligible for monetization via In-Stream Video Ads.) 
• We prioritize video distribution for Pages who inspire regular, returning viewership. As always, it's essential to post content that your audience finds engaging and to evaluate your insights in Creator Studio.

Some interesting insights into Facebook's video distribution process.

In addition to this, Facebook also advises that Pages should avoid posting content which already exists on Facebook "which you had no material role in creating", as well as clickbait and videos which overuse static images.

Facebook also advises against engaging in "manufactured sharing behaviors".

"This is when a Page's content is artificially distributed through re-shares or sharing within a group, usually in exchange for compensation. Examples of this are when a Page repeatedly shares content from another Page with which they have no direct connection, and the content is not related to any theme of their Page."

Facebook also notes that, in regards to News Feed distribution, it's algorithm prioritizes recent videos.

"These tend to be shorter (one to three minutes) and can help introduce your brand to new audiences. In Watch and in "Up next" videos, we prioritize retentive videos that inspire people to watch for longer. Additionally, the integrity rules we've mentioned are key - we're only going to recommend top-quality content."

Again, some interesting notes on how Facebook's systems determine 'quality' with respect to video content, and how to maximize distribution by aligning with its systems.

The new Traffic Source Insights will clearly be beneficial in several respects, but the extra notes on performance could provide some key pointers to help improve your Facebook video approach in 2020.

Facebook says that Traffic Source Insights "will roll out to 100% of our user base over the next few months". You can read more about the new feature here.