It’s no secret that one of Mark Zuckerberg’s goals is to overtake YouTube as the industry’s video giant. For the past year, Facebook has encouraged users to upload videos and watch more videos on its platform.
From launching “Watch” in 2017, where Facebook offers a library of longer form videos, to showcasing organic video posts more prominently in its News Feed, Facebook clearly sees the importance of video in social media and continues to implement that in their strategy.
Consider these staggering Facebook video stats from 2017:
- Facebook garnered over 8 billion average daily video views (Sprout Social)
- Views on branded video content have increased 258% in 2017 (Wordstream)
- Videos drive 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs
- Videos on a landing page have the ability to increase conversions by 80%
All this means is that you need to have videos as part of your Facebook strategy in 2018. Not only is it a smart way to market your brand or product, but Facebook will clearly reward you for producing quality video content with organic hits.
We believe strongly at Peak Activity in the use of video on Facebook and have done the research to back it up. Here are 5 key factors to successful videos on Facebook.
1. Upload Videos Natively
Facebook won’t give you credit in its algorithm unless you upload your video directly to Facebook, as opposed to sharing it from YouTube or Vimeo.
Facebook native videos actually receive 4 times as much interaction than all other types of videos posted on Facebook. More importantly, native videos on Facebook have 10 times higher reach compared to YouTube links.
With organic reach dying, native videos can be a saving grace for you if you don’t have a Facebook advertising budget. According to Social Bakers, there is a 148% increase in reach for a video post compared to a photo post.
So, make sure you are uploading videos natively in Facebook and you will reap at least some organic benefits.
2. Produce an “Ooh and Awe” Moment in the First 4 Seconds
In today’s digital age, people’s attention spans are fleeting. If you want to capture their attention, you better do it quickly. The same goes for videos.
If you are creating a slideshow video, make the first picture an eye-opening graphic, such as an explosion of light or text overlay that has an extremely interesting statistic. If it’s a normal video, you can try a compelling sound bite, make a startling assertion or start with the word “Imagine.”
If your audience isn’t captured in the first 4 seconds, you likely aren’t keeping them around to watch the rest of the video.
The great thing about Facebook is you can remarket people who watched your video, and not just a typical 3-second watcher, which Facebook counts as a view. In Facebook’s remarketing feature, you can target people who watched at least 50% of your video, at least 75% of your video or watched the entire video.
It will calculate a number based on those specifications, and you can see how many people were truly engaged with your video. While you may have received 2,500 views, how many actually watched for more than 3 seconds?
3. Boost With Facebook Ads
This may seem obvious, but the cost of a “Video View” campaign is very inexpensive if you craft a good ad. You can get a view for as cheap as $0.02 or $0.03 so your budget doesn’t really have to be big if you want to get several thousand views.
The key is to have a strongly produced video that is 1-minute or less with a compelling headline, copy and Call to Action. If your copy connects with your target audience on an emotional level and makes them feel that you can solve a problem, while showcasing quality content, it will receive views.
Check out this video view campaign we did for a client.
Look at those results. Nearly 3,800 views at just $0.02 per view with a relevancy score of 8 (out 10). It also has nearly 4.3K impressions, so even if it’s not watched by everyone who’s News Feed it appears in, the video is still gaining exposure for your brand. For just $65.44 being spent, that yielded some considerable results.
4. Add Captions to Your Video
Adding captions to your video is one of the most important factors in having a successful video. That is because 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound!
If a Facebook user can’t comprehend your video without sound, they are likely moving on to the next piece of content.
To work around that, you can upload a SRT file of your captions or you can let Facebook automatically create captions for you, which you can review and edit for clarity. It’s easy to do, and Facebook reminds you of it when you are uploading the video.
5. Create Square Videos
Square videos outperform landscape videos by a landslide on Facebook. This is primarily because an overwhelming majority of Facebook users use the platform on their mobile phone as opposed to desktop. So, square videos will play a lot cleaner on the phone compared to landscape.
Square videos also take up significantly more real estate in the News Feed on mobile than on desktop, making them much more eye opening and attractive to stop and click.
You can create all the quality content in the world, but if its not optimized for mobile, where the majority of Facebook is used, it likely won’t produce the results you are seeking.