Facebook makes ad breaks available for video creators in India

Ad breaks can only be included in videos at least three minutes long. Creators can choose their own placements or turn off ad breaks for individual videos.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on October 11, 2018 the Facebook log-in page is viewed in Washington, DC. - Facebook announced November 28, 2018 it was expanding its offerings of local news alerts to 400 US cities, and is now testing the feature in Australia.The "Today In" section first unveiled by Facebook in January offers users "local alerts from relevant government pages" which may include information city council meetings, crime or weather, for example. (AFP)

Facebook on Friday introduced new monetisation tools for video creators in India including ad breaks -- short ads that people can include in their eligible videos to earn money.

Ad breaks are now available for eligible partners in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and English, Facebook said at its "Creator Day" event here.

Ad breaks can only be included in videos at least three minutes long. Creators can choose their own placements or turn off ad breaks for individual videos.

"The biggest trend that Indian digital industry has witnessed in consumer behaviour, is rapid growth in adoption of video. We're seeing consumer videos exploding on our platform and today video has become one of the biggest drivers of engagement growth on Facebook," said Paresh Rajwat, Head of Product for Video at Facebook.

"Besides community content, where people share their experiences, we are a platform where professional content creators come to find an audience and also earn money," Rajwat said.

Facebook also introduced at the event "Brand Collabs Manager", a tool that helps brands find creators to collaborate with for branded content opportunities on the social networking platform.

With Brand Collabs Manager, the creators can quickly create a portfolio so that brands can learn more about them and get in touch easily for brand partnerships.

It will be available in India in 2019, Facebook said.