Video on Facebook | 5 Tips
A large part of our job in video production nowadays is producing short (under 3 mins) video on Facebook and other social media outlets. Over the years we’ve recognized a few tips on how to get the most engagement on your Facebook posts. And away we go.
- First of all, it’s got to be a good video. That doesn’t mean it’s got to be professionally produced, but it needs to be universally interesting. Facebook is not a great place to share your goods and services with people. It’s a great place to share a story about what you do. This can be on a cellphone, it doesn’t matter as much as what’s in it. You should always ask yourself whether your content is interesting to someone who doesn’t know you before you try getting traction on Facebook.
- Upload directly to Facebook. I find that this is one of the biggest mistakes made with video on Facebook. There are a few reasons to upload the video directly to Facebook but the main one is that Facebook wants native posts to be successful. Anything that will keep a user from clicking away is a good thing. The other big advantage is the amount of insight you get from posting directly to Facebook. If I were to use a vimeo link or youtube link, I’m not really sure where the traffic is coming from or the specific behaviours that are happening once they view the video. If I upload directly, I get a massive amount of very specific info about the video and how well t’s doing. A lot of my video producer friends complain that Facebook’s video player doesn’t look very good and to them I say this. No one will notice but us.
- Thumbnail. The thumbnail is so important. I can’t stress this enough. The thumbnail for your video needs to be engaging and interesting enough beyond the title to get someone to click on your video. One of the easiest mistakes to make is leaving the thumbnail that Facebook chooses for you. Sometimes that’s a person in the middle of a sentence, sometimes it’s a black or white frame, it’s very random. The important thing with the thumbnail is it needs to pleasing and relevant to something that’s in your video. You should decide that and not Facebook’s random generator.
- Captions. The statistics say that 85% of video on Facebook is watched without sound. Facebook has a handy captioning tool built into the software. You click generate and it comes pretty close to what you said and then you just correct from there. This is easier on shorter videos but still necessary on longer ones.
- Ask people directly to share your video. Especially when someone is directly connected to your video, you should ask them directly to share your video. Sharing is the lifeblood of any video on Facebook and it should be the key to the distribution of your video. It doesn’t matter whether you email, text, phone, or message the request but it’s important to ask people directly to share it. Plus, you should include in your post a call to action that says “SHARE THIS VIDEO” The difference between videos with just a few shares and as many as 90 shares can be in the 10s of thousands.
A few last words about misconceptions with video on Facebook. The biggest one is that Facebook is the new TV. If you treat Facebook like 1980’s TV where you are interrupting everyone’s social engagement for a quick word from our sponsor your approach is just all wrong. Facebook is a social platform. You have to be social. Think of all of the videos you’ve ever shared. It’s either because it was directly relevant to you, or something in it was amazing. We have to have that approach from the start. Keep in mind also, because of its nature (and because it’s not TV commercials) it isn’t so critical that people watch every second of your video. It isn’t critical that you close business directly from Facebook. But, to hit a target market and make them aware of you, Facebook is about as easy as it gets if you take into account these 5 tips. And most of all video on Facebook can be 100% free once you have great content to share. If you’d like to talk to us some more about our experiences with sharing videos, please feel free to email, call, or leave a message on this blog post. Happy posting!
And also if you haven’t, connect with us on Facebook. We’ve always got a good story to tell.
www.facebook.com/cinemacouture