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The Importance Of Facebook Videos And How To Use Them For Your Business

The Importance Of Facebook Videos To Your Business

Videos are more accessible than ever to create or view. These days, to make a video is as difficult as the click of a play button on a smartphone. And according to Cisco Systems, this trend will not slow down anytime soon. In fact, by 2018, the video traffic will represent 80-90% of the global consumer Internet traffic.

So there’s no surprise why Facebook is focused on creating a video marketing ecosystem. Since August last year, when comScore found that, for the first time Facebook had more video views than YouTube on desktop, a new battle began for the top spot in the video space.

Facebook’s rise is backed by a year of investments, improvements and features to its video marketing platform like the video metrics and insights, the auto-play feature or the new video rankings in the News Feeds just to name a few.

If you’re still wondering if you should include video content into your marketing strategy, here are some interesting stats:

  • Facebook has over 4 billion daily video views
  • BuzzFeed’s video views on Facebook reached more than 500 million in April 2015
  • In February 2015, 70 percent of Facebook’s videos were uploaded directly to the site, versus 25 percent in February 2014.
  • The average FB user watched 75% more videos this year compared to last year (in US the number is actually 94%)
  • For brands with more than a million Facebook fans, photo posts reach 14% of their audience on average, text only updates reach just 4%, and video posts reach as much as 35%

[Tweet “Photos reach 14% of their audience, text only updates reach 4%, and videos reach as much as 35%!”]

eMarketer predicts that in the US, “spending on mobile video advertising will reach $2.62 billion in 2015 (more than 70% growth) – over one-third of the estimated $7.77 billion to be spent on digital video ads”. By 2019, eMarketer forecast that mobile’s share of total digital video ad dollars will reach 47.7%. “US adults will spend an average of 39 minutes watching video on mobile devices accounting for more than half of the total 76 minutes of average time spent per day with digital video content.”

These are impressive stats that should give you some food for thoughts, but there’s more. A video post on Facebook gets instant traction compared with a post consisting of a static image. It’ll sure be interesting to see how the gif posts would perform on Facebook, now that they added support for this.

Facebook has also become the first choice for video advertisers. (Is this the beginning of the end for YouTube?) According to a recent study from Mixpo, advertisers and agencies are taking the Facebook plunge when it comes to video advertising.

When asked about what platforms they ran video campaigns on last year and what platforms they plan to run video campaigns on in the next year, here’s how they responded:

how advertisers and agencies are using and planning to use video

So how can you best use Facebook as a video marketing tool?

Upload Your Video Directly to Facebook

The Facebook’s News Feed is a powerful place to land a key message through a video. The secret is to directly upload the video to Facebook, instead of sharing a YouTube video for example.

The reason is that these videos will automatically come to life while people scroll down their News Feeds, unlike the videos shared from other platforms.

Another reason for native videos on Facebook is that they will fill the entire available width of the News Feeds.

No Really, Upload Your Videos Directly to Facebook!

If you’re not convinced yet that videos uploaded directly to Facebook get more views than those shared from other players, here are some thoughts:

    • There’s a 30% higher video play rate (meaning 30% more users clicks to play a native video)
    • You’ll have video insights and metrics like, the number of views at various moments throughout the video, the average time watched or the number of people that watched at least 3 seconds. This will help you test different scenarios, messages and see what works for your audience, thus improving your strategy over time.

video insights

  • Auto-play feature anyone? Your video will automatically play while people scroll down their feeds grabbing their attention and lure them to stop and see the entire video.
  • You can add call-to-action buttons during the video or at the end of the video.

For example, this CollegeHumor video about Crossfit madness has 6 million views while the same video on youtube has only 2 million views.

You can upload the video right from your smartphone, using the Facebook app or by e-mail the video to your Facebook’s post-by-email address with the caption in the subject line.

While uploading the video, you can add tags to help it gain traction on other Facebook pages, you can add a CTA (call-to-action) button (with a hyperlink with headline and description) that takes people straight to your website after they watched your video.

Short Videos Are Better

The truth is that you don’t need highly polished and professional videos to take advantage of the impressive organic reach that this type of posts gets on Facebook. You can get the same traction with simple, quick videos made with your smartphone and edited with uncomplicated “capture, edit and share” software like Cinematic and Vee.

Not only on Facebook, but across all the social media channels, short videos get the most engagement and views compared to longer, in-depth videos.

Short and simple!

Short, so you don’t have to steal too much of your audience’s time, and simple to make it easy for you to incorporate them into your online marketing strategy. If you need an entire (expensive) crew to come up with an entertaining animation for your message, sooner or later you’ll choose to use your marketing budget on more affordable artifices.

The ideal length of a Facebook video is 21 seconds if better completion rates are what you’re after. If you want to get more in-depth, you should consider breaking it down and making a video series.

facebook video retention by video length

Make Sure Your Video Is Share Worthy

The key to a share-worthy video is to deliver the right message, to the right people at the right time. You need to craft a good story, that is in line with your brand personality and create an emotional reward to the people watching it.

The videos auto-play as soon as a user scrolls past it. This means you need to grab user’s attention in the first few seconds of the video. You can add a clear action for the user to take in the first seconds with Call-To-Action buttons.

Silence Can Be Gold

The Facebook videos auto-play in the News Feed, but they do so without any sound. At least not until people click the video to see more and turn the sound on. That’s why it’s best to not rely on sounds when trying to get your message across. So, a talking head may not be the way to go. Use instead text and graphics to get attention or create a dynamic flow of imagery that compels users to turn on the sound and hear what’s all about.

Follow The User Across The Sales Funnel

Create your video campaigns with your sales funnel in mind. There are three types of videos that you can create depending on your audience:

  • “Seed” videos – that will help you create initial brand awareness. You need to ensure your target audience sees these videos. If you want to create Facebook Video Ads to boost reach, for this phase in the funnel, you need to optimize your ads for views or predictable reach and controlled frequency. In this initial phase your goal is to reach as many people as possible and introduce them to your story.
  • “Blast” videos – this will drive engagement among your existing audience. These videos are ideal for product launches or rebranding campaigns. In this phase, you want to target people that already watched the initial video, and you want to show them a second video or a third one.
  • “Sustain” videos – for building your brand. In this type of videos you need to include strong Call-To-Action buttons and invite people to interact with your brand. You have the possibility to add a CTA button during a video (like “Learn More”) or at the end of the video (for example: “Replay”, “Learn More”, “Done”)

Test Test Test

Have fun with it and experiment. Try out different formats and see what your audience respond best to. Depending on your audience, you can create:

  • Inspirational messages – these are ideal when you want to drive shares and engagement.
  • Educational videos – when you want to show your audience a quick tip or a useful fact.
  • Videos that showcase your podcast, a webinar or a new product.
  • Entertaining video – we all want to have some fun, right?

Just explore different ideas and measure their success.

Facebook Video Ads

Facebook has offered video ads and posts for quite some time, but they only rolled up native video advertising last year.

These are some characteristics of the Video Ads:

  • all ads in the News Feed start as auto-play with audio off
  • a video play is considered a view if played for 3 sec (on youtube, you need to watch a video for at least 30 seconds to be counted as a view)
  • the user must click/tap to turn audio on
  • advertisers can create remarketing audiences from video watchers
  • available to buy in their auction marketplace
  • available for an upfront buy, but the video must be pre-approved

Video ads settings:

Thumbnail size: 1200x675px;
Video: 1080px;
Ratio: 16:9 ratio;
File Size: 1 GB max;
Length: 20 min max;
Text: 90 chars.

How to Create a Video Ad, Step by Step

1. Click on “Create ad”

Create Video Ad (1)

2. Choose “Get Video Views”

Get Video Views and Page

Choose “Get Video Views” from the options list and the Facebook Page where you want to place the Video Ad, on the right side of the screen.

3. Upload Video

Upload Video or Choose existing

You can choose to upload a new video or select an existing one.

4. Video Processing

Uploading Video

Wait until the video is processed and successfully uploaded to Facebook.

5. Choose thumbnail

Choose thumbnail

You have the option to choose a thumbnail from the screens in the video or to upload a new image that you want to show as the thumbnail for your Ad.

6. Add Compelling Text

Add text and CTA

Next, add the text that will be displayed next to your video. You can also choose a Call to Action button that will appear after the video starts. You can choose from: Shop Now, Book Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Download and Watch More.

7. Choose The Audience

Choose Audience
You can define your audience for the video ad by choosing specific demographic data, interests and behaviors.

8. Define Your Budget

Choose budget

Creative Videos From The Big Brands

Here are some examples of creativity at work: with under 20 seconds of funny videos, these brands managed to get their audience attention and create skyrocketing engagement rates:

Cadbury Creme Egg

Cadburry Creme Egg

With this 13 seconds video Cadbury Creme Egg got over 1 million views, thousands of likes and shares. If you head over their Facebook page, you will see that they share short, funny videos on a regular basis to build their brand and engage with their audience.

Oreo

Oreo

Oreo is another example of a brand that successfully incorporated short animated videos into their online marketing campaigns. The video above in the perfect example of brief animated content. It is just a teaser for a tart recipe, not the entire thing (that might need more than a few seconds). But if you want to see the entire recipe, you have the link in the caption.

KLM

KLM

This is a beautiful example of an educational and inspiring “behind the scenes” video teaser, created by KLM to showcase their aircrafts’ interiors. They used a strong call to action that builds curiosity and get people to see the entire video. Even though the video is long enough (about 2 minutes), they have over 400,000 views, which is quite impressive.

Target

Target Funny video

Target is another brand that makes use of funny and playful videos and messages to lure their fans into engaging with their content. Their whimsical videos make people laugh, which is a key ingredient to massive shares, likes, and comments.

Wrapping It Up

When posting your videos on Facebook make sure that they are as short as you can make them without losing context. Deliver the right story, to the right people, at the right time. And don’t forget the advantages of uploading your video directly to Facebook.

If you have a specific question that you want to be answered regarding Facebook Video Marketing, please leave a comment and we will do our best to answer all of your concerns!

Zoe Summers

Zoe Summers is an experienced Social Media Consultant. One of the Co-Founders of Mass Planner, a social automation software. Before joining the startup world, she worked with big corporations, helping them change the world one step at a time. She loves writing, exploring new sunnier places and sometimes, when she wears the artistic hat, she fancies painting and sketching.

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. Sunday

    The importance of Facebook videos and how to explore them cannot be ignored. The tactics works like magic and there are lots of marketing benefits to gain from it.

    Business owners should understand first if the strategy readily fits with how best to convey value with their customers. Thanks for sharing the details anyway. The creative steps shared are awesome!

    1. Zoe

      Thanks for dropping by Sunday 🙂

  2. Zoe

    Morning Chery, indeed a video on Facebook cat go viral a lot faster than on youtube, simply because you already have a lot of followers that might see it really fast

  3. metz

    Business? It’s a serious matter. If you intend to be victorious in growing and building your brand, you’ll start from baby steps and then big steps.

    Facebook videos are awesome. Yes, let’s consider the numbers of their daily views and the numbers of people all over the world which is a great thing for business.

    Hmmn, I must say that you’ve won over about uploading the video directly on Facebook. Now, I know that 30% more users click to play a native video. Interesting! Short, yet high quality videos will prevail, I must say. Long videos will make viewers bore.

    All in all, wonderful article. Thanks for sharing the tips and takeaways with us. Facebook is a huge social media platform that shouldn’t be dumped if you’re thinking about growing your business.

    1. Zoe

      It should definitely not be dumped, honestly there are so many things you can do on Facebook, it’s like having 3-4 social platforms in one, some people just concentrate on posting to groups, other people concentrate on getting friend, other people concentrate on their page, some use videos, and many more things. When you put all these together you’re bound to be successful.

  4. Sherman Smith

    Hey Zoe,

    Wow, a 75% increase since last year beating Youtube! That is an amazing feat with Facebook and it looks like there’s going to be a big battle between them and Google.

    I’ve notice the change on how videos were displayed on Facebook last year. I think these autoplay videos are great teaser when it comes to people clicking on them. I can see how with many short videos why they get so many views.

    I may have to add this to my marketing plan for the future. I’m not a video person but am open to try it out.

    Thanks for sharing Zoe and the step by step instruction on how to create an autoplay video! I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

    1. Zoe

      It is indeed an impressive number and it’s something that you wouldn’t necessarily think about as many are set on using youtube for everything. Though things change all the time and in a short while Facebook might get an even better place for videos and connecting to people than youtube.

      Have a nice weekend as well 😉

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