Facebook has now become one of the must-use channels for most video marketers out there. The complete, continually-improved features make this platform compelling for many marketers to market their product or service on the platform.
As video becomes a hot content on the platform, Facebook video marketing is all the rage. More and more marketers have jumped into the platform to post their campaign videos so they can add their brand’s value, boost their online visibility, and improve their ROI.
Now the question is: how to use Facebook for video marketing campaigns effectively?
To answer that question, we give you 11 handy ways to help optimize your Facebook video marketing efforts:
Facebook as Video Marketing Campaigns Channel
Before we get to the nitty-gritty, it’s crucial to know why Facebook is such a potent channel in video marketing campaigns. In this section, we’re going to get more in-depth about it.
Today, Facebook is much more than just a social networking site– it’s a goldmine for savvy marketers. With more than 2.4 billion monthly active users, this platform has become the most-used social network.
With such a vast audience base, marketers are increasingly flocking to this highly engaging platform and create a secure and winning marketing strategy. Today, more than 93.7% of businesses use and are currently active on Facebook.
Besides, in the video marketing landscape, Facebook has become a potent platform for most marketers to host their campaign videos. YouTube is probably the most well-known video hosting site. Still, Facebook is the most preferred platform when it comes to showing off the brand’s personality and connecting emotionally with audiences. Look at the comparison below:
The majority of marketers (81.2%) choose Facebook as their #1 video marketing channel– outnumbering the popular YouTube (62.9%) and Instagram (57.8%). Now, it’s evident that Facebook has and will remain an essential tool for brands’ video marketing campaigns moving forward.
Those marketers don’t leverage Facebook for their video marketing strategy just because it’s a shiny new trend, but also because of the number of people watching videos on this platform increases.
Facebook reports that they get more than 8 billion video views every single day. So, there are vast opportunities for businesses to reach new prospective customers and increase their conversion.
How to Use Facebook for Video Marketing Campaigns
Now that you know Facebook is such a powerful channel to put your campaign videos on, it takes a certain amount of know-how to utilize the platform to its full potential. To help you with that, here are 11 actionable ways for successful video marketing on Facebook:
#1. Go Native
You might be thinking that it must be a lot easier to embed videos from other platforms to Facebook. But, you might reconsider it as Facebook native videos have a 10x higher engagement rate compared to Youtube links.
Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes native videos over shared video links. So, it much better to upload your video directly to Facebook rather than sharing it from other platforms, such as YouTube. By doing so, your video content is more likely to appear on people’s newsfeed.
Facebook native videos have the autoplay feature with the sound off as users scroll past. You can use this feature to capture the users’ eyes quickly and tempt them to watch it all the way through.
#2. Keep the Video Short and Sweet
Unlike YouTube users that heavily rely on searching to find the videos they want to watch, Facebook users tend to view video content that they found on their newsfeed as they’re scrolling past. It means that short videos have the potential of being seen or even shared virally.
The shorter your video length, the more viewers will remember the message. Remember, Facebook users are fickle— they are always one second away from scrolling past your video content over to the next thing.
So, if your video is too long and offers too much and heavy information from the get-go, it can distract the attention of the viewers and encourage them just to keep scrolling.
#3. Create Eye-Popping Thumbnails and Titles
Thumbnails and titles are probably the crucial elements of your video content, as it is the first thing your viewers see when they find your video in their newsfeeds. In this matter, both of your thumbnails and titles are the most significant deciding factor in whether or not a user will click to watch a video.
Users have lots of video content on their news feed, so you should create a compelling thumbnail and title to make your video stand out to catch their attention and stop them from scrolling.
#4. Use Facebook Video Ads
Facebook video ads are one of the most attractive advertising formats on the platform. Other than uploading your native video, you can utilize Facebook video ads to get more views and appear on users’ news feed more often. It’s a great tool to ensure users remember your brand and visit your site.
Facebook video ads have unique features like custom audiences and ad retargeting, so your video will appear on the audiences that care about your brand.
It provides you a quick and effective way to optimize your ad campaign so you can achieve incredible conversion rates and establish a substantial engagement with your target audience.
#5. Use Facebook Live to Build Strong Engagement
Facebook Live is such a great way to interact with your audiences in real-time, making them feel more engaged with your brand.
Today, at least 2 billion users have watched a Facebook Live video. This important face-to-face feature has six times more interactions than any other type of video. That’s a good signal for the Facebook algorithm. For more fascinating numbers, take a look at the statistics below:
You can use Facebook Live to give your viewers a chance to introduce your new products, answer the FAQs, demonstrate how your product or service works, take people behind the scenes, and more.
One of the best things utilizing this feature is that you can get instant feedback with live comments and emoji reactions.
#6. Leverage the Targeting Features
One of the biggest reasons video marketers tap into Facebook is because of the targeting features. These unique targeting options allow you to reach the right segment of the population more effectively– those who care about and are interested in your video.
What’s more exciting is that you can retarget the users who have watched your video content or ad in the past.
You can customize targets based on age, interest, value, gender, demographic, and more. Here are the three essential Facebook targeting options that can make your video ads personally relevant to your ideal customers.
- Interest targeting
It helps you to find users who are most likely interested in watching your campaign videos. It is based on the Pages they’ve liked, their recent Facebook activities, the Facebook Pages they like, and visit the most.
- Demographic targeting
It helps you to track your ideal viewers based on demographic aspects. Such as where they live, what’s their occupation, what language they speak, their income range, gender, gender, and age.
- Behavioral targeting
It helps you to reach your ideal customers by tracking users based on their device usage, the events they’re currently following, anniversaries, purchasing history, history, and more.
#7. Add Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
Facebook allows you to add call-to-actions at the end of your video ads. Remember, no matter how brilliant your video ads, if you don’t tell your viewers what they should do next, it won’t do the trick.
In this matter, you need to include a CTA in your video ads to guide the viewers on what to do next after they watch your video. In this case, you can encourage them to do your desired action.
What do you want them to do? Purchase your product? Visit your website? Watch other videos? Facebook provides all of it. Take a look at the picture below:
By adding CTAs to your Facebook video ads, it is much easier for you to attract more viewers and drive conversions.
#8. Create Video Playlists
Video playlists let you sort videos into groups based on similar topics. It makes it easier for your viewers to look through your video collection and find the video they want to watch from your brand.
In such cases, creating video playlists encourage more eyeballs on your most crucial video content and motivate the viewers to watch your video collections much longer.
As a result, you’ll be able to give the viewers a better understanding of your brand and products much better and encourage them to trust you.
#9. Make Audio Optional
What you might don’t know is that Facebook users find video auto-play videos sound disruptive. That’s why more than 85% of Facebook videos are watched with the sound off. Video ads are auto-played without a sound by default too.
So, it’s crucial to make your video content comprehensible without sound to reach the most extensive possible viewers. If your video content is demonstrating tips or showcasing a new product, the viewers should have no problem understanding the message you want to deliver.
You can also include captions to make sure that the viewers understand what your video is all about, even without any sound.
#10. Use Facebook Insights to Understand Video Performance
Facebook offers an analytics tool to help you understand how well your video ads are performing with Facebook Insights. With this marketing feature, you can get the data or report that you can use to assess audience engagement.
Facebook Insights informs you about:
- Video average watch time
- Engagement rates
- Number of views
So, it makes it easier what kind of videos your viewers enjoy the most and the least. That way, you can create better video content for the next video campaign.
#11. Incorporating Facebook Pixel to Track Conversion
After all, the end goal of your Facebook video marketing is to boost your conversion rates. Let’s say your audiences watch the entire video campaign, but they don’t take any action, then what’s the point?
Facebook makes it easier for you to track the conversion rates with its Facebook Pixel tool. You can track essential conversion metrics, such as:
- Newsletter signups
- The cost per conversion
- Number of purchases
- Conversion rate
To leverage this tool, you can simply install it on your website. By doing so, you get a solid grasp of the performance of your entire Facebook campaigns.
Summing Up
Facebook video marketing is hitting the high note today. When it comes to finding the right platform to host your video, Facebook is a strong contender at your disposal. With massive numbers of users, this platform offers high visibility and a greater likelihood of engagement.
There are many video marketing features that marketers can leverage to optimize their campaigns. That’s one of the biggest reasons that make Facebook such a potential channel for video marketers out there.
Any marketers who are still on the fence about whether to have a presence on Facebook are missing out on the opportunities to build their customer base, engage their customers, promote new products, and deliver diverse types of sales promotion that can encourage purchase.
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order). You can find him on Facebook and Twitter.