Guest post by Victoria Greene
With hundreds of hours of video content being uploaded to Facebook every minute, if you have not yet begun to implement your video marketing strategy, now is the time to start. Internet users globally watch a billion hours of video content on YouTube every day, and a further 100 million hours on Facebook.
Video content is engaging, interesting, and easy to consume, making it the perfect way to market your product, promote your brand, or simply reach out to your audience. Combine that with the social power of Facebook, and you have a winning formula that is not to be overlooked.
However, as with all marketing strategies, using Facebook video to its full potential requires the right knowhow, plenty of research, and almost certainly some trial and error along the way. But don’t let this put you off; the following tips will provide an insight into the myriad ways you can leverage video content on your Facebook pages, and how to make this content work for you to benefit your growing business.
Create A Featured Video
The About section of your Facebook page is not limited to text. In fact, you can feature a video of your choice there, calling attention to a product, service, or message that you want to push to your audience.
Your featured video will also autoplay if visitors go to the Videos tab of your page, so it is important to grab their attention in the first few seconds. A video that wows the audience from the word go is far more likely to be able to deliver its message. In contrast, if users are not engaged immediately, especially in the case of an auto-playing video, they are likely to consider it an annoyance and turn it off
With this in mind, it is important to choose your featured video carefully. Remember, your choice does not need to be permanent; in fact, it is wise to change your featured video regularly, so your audience is constantly being re-engaged as you make the most of this prime marketing space.
Don’t Forget Your Call to Action
In addition to including a CTA in the video itself, depending on the message that content aims to deliver, you can also add a call to action on your Facebook posts. Options include ‘Learn More’, ‘Shop Now’, and ‘Watch More’.
You can also tag products in your post, creating links to dedicated pages for each product, making it simple and intuitive for viewers to purchase the products and services advertised in your video content.
Be sure to fully explore the customization options for each post in order to achieve the greatest possible impact for each video you release. For example, scheduling videos to air at a particular time of day, or on a specific date, can help you to reach your target demographic at a time when they are most likely to engage with your content.
Screencap via Facebook
Use Native Facebook Videos
The power, popularity, and versatility of YouTube can make it tempting to simply upload all of your video content on that platform, and then post it to Facebook from there. However, while you can still post your content on YouTube, any videos that you plan to share on Facebook should be uploaded directly, and shared, as native Facebook video.
To understand the reasoning behind this, you need only look at the numbers; according to a recent study by Quintly, native video in the latter part of 2016 was shared at a rate of up to 10 times that of video shared to Facebook from other sources.
It is unclear whether this is as a result of Facebook prioritizing native video, or simply that users engage better with this format than video from external sources. Whatever the case, if the goal of your video marketing is to increase visibility and boost engagement, it is easy to see why native video is the right choice.
Engage Your Audience With Facebook Live
Not all of your video content needs to be carefully crafted and scheduled. Sometimes the best way to get your audience involved with your brand is to let them have a glimpse behind the scenes, or open yourself up for a live Q&A.
Similarly, if you have an event scheduled, such as a launch party for a new product, you can not only build excitement for the event and the product, but livestream the event on the day. This enables you to build a global community that feels invested in your business, and connected with others who feel that same enthusiasm.
Of course, live video does have its drawbacks; things can go wrong, connections can be unsteady, and viewers can catch you off-guard with difficult questions. Nevertheless, your followers will appreciate the opportunity to engage directly with you and your business, and be included in your brand’s journey.
Create A Playlist
Facebook’s video tab comes with a range of functionalities that enable you to get more mileage out of your video content. One such feature is the ability to create playlists. The value of this is that you can more effectively direct viewers through your content and help them to find what they are looking for.
In addition, if you have constructed a narrative throughout several videos, or you have released a series of similar or related pieces of video content, playlists make it easy for users to find all of those pieces at once.
For example, an e-commerce store might create a playlist of product reviews. Another business may have a series of how-to guides or even a collection of previews for upcoming products.
Organizing your videos into playlists also improves the ease of navigation through your content, which is always a good move. Your audience will appreciate the simplicity of browsing your playlists, and the level of organization will also add to the professional image of your business.
Boost Posts to Advertise Your Video
You already know that video is a great way to increase the success of your Facebook Ads. However, have you considered using ads to promote your video content? This might sound like circular logic, but in truth it comes down to the specific content you hope to promote, and your long-term aspirations for that content’s audience.
Facebook makes it extremely straightforward to boost a post, paying a fee to ensure it reaches more people who may want to engage with your video. You can even specify the intended audience, which is incredibly important for targeted marketing efforts.
Ultimately, every piece of content you create is to some extent an advert for your brand, so keep this in mind when deciding on the direction of your video content. If you choose to boost a post to give it some extra reach, consider the particular audience you plan to target, and whether there is much potential for improvement over your current success.
Optimize with Analytical Insights
It can be difficult to guess which pieces of content will see the most success, even when you think you know your audience inside-out. Fortunately, Facebook Analytics and Facebook Insights can give you some invaluable information on the nature of your audience and how they interact with your content.
This data can inform your future content decisions by providing you with an in-depth understanding of the demographics within your audience, their reactions to existing content, and their consumer behavior.
The more you learn, the more accurately you can target content at these demographics, and the more readily you can highlight weaknesses in your marketing strategy. For example, you may choose to create videos tailored to highly specific buyer personas. The data collected by Facebook can facilitate your choices, and help you to identify the precise needs of any given subsection of your target audience.
via pixabay
The power and potential of Facebook video is undeniable, but it will take time to truly master your video marketing strategy. Even then, continuous optimization is essential if you want to keep your audience interested. Nevertheless, with the tips above, you already have a firm foundation upon which to build your video content strategy.
As with all of your marketing, the key is to keep it interesting, entertaining, and actionable. The more utility and enjoyment your audience gains from your content, the more likely they are to share it and respond to your CTA.
In the long run, you will steadily build a collection of memorable video content, while developing a brand identity that will be instantly recognizable to your audience. As your reputation and authority grows, so too will your business, allowing you to be more daring with your content, more involved with your growing audience, and more aspirational as you look to your brand’s future.
Victoria Greene
Victoria Greene is a freelance writer and branding expert who blogs at VictoriaEcommerce. She loves to help brands maximize their online budgets by creating great content that engages and creates communities.
