Facebook views per video decreased by 8% in the third quarter of 2017, followed by an additional 15% decline in the last quarter of the year, the trend report found.

The social network announced earlier in January that it would de-prioritise news and publisher content in favour of content from people’s friends and families.

Wochit’s report is based on an analysis of 33,000 videos, by 300 publishers, across 500 Facebook pages between December 2016 and December 2017.

The report also indicated the popularity of the square video format has increased during the year from 26% of all videos in Q1 of 2017 to 50% in Q4, while longer videos – those over 90 seconds – have the highest rate of engagement, receiving 52.1% more shares and 48.2% more views than the average of all videos analysed.

Wochit co-founder and chief executive Dror Ginzberg said: “While we’re only seeing the headlines about Facebook’s latest changes now, our 2017 report shows the impact is already setting in, and this makes it even more important for brands and publishers to know and act on trends.”