Facebook Video – 7 Tips On How To Use New Video Features

If video killed the radio star, is it only a matter of time before it kills any other form of marketing? Here’s the thing:

• 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last year
• 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television
• mobile video consumption rises by 100% each year. 

Even though YouTube is still the number one video platform and the second most popular website after Google, Facebook is not making them feel at ease. In February 2017, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “I see video as a megatrend,” and ever since, he really made an effort to give video content its deserved place on Facebook. With novelties such as Facebook Watch, which has over 75 million daily visitors who spend an average of more than 20 minutes on Facebook’s video platform, and CapCut, a video app designed to compete with TikTok, Facebook is turning into a worthy opponent to YouTube. 

With over 8 billion video views per day, it would be a shame not to use video content on Facebook in your marketing strategy. Video on Facebook provides an immersive experience for your customers and helps you personalize the brand. If a picture can tell a thousand words, then imagine how many stories you can tell about your products, services, and company by using videos to evoke a strong emotional response and increase sales. 

Here’s how you can use Facebook’s new video features for your own benefit: 

#1 Upload videos directly to Facebook

This is definitely a no-brainer: post any video content directly to Facebook. This isn’t even a new feature, but rather an important tip for everyone who wants to see good results from Facebook video content. Simply put, video uploaded natively to Facebook is more likely to capture attention and Facebook native videos perform up to 4 times better than all other video formats.

Also, Facebook video posts receive 135% greater organic reach than photo posts. Since the organic reach isn’t easy to come by these days, leverage it to your advantage by natively uploading videos to Facebook. And don’t forget about the autoplay feature for natively uploaded videos. Most Facebook users don’t have it turned off in their settings which means they’ll watch at least a few seconds when a video starts to play as they scroll down. 

#2 First impression is most important

Whether Facebook users will see your video due to autoplay or because they’ve actually chosen to watch it and pressed the Play button themselves, it’s crucial to hook them in the first 4 seconds of the video. Make sure to experiment to identify what works best for your brand, but keep in mind that entertainment tends to win the day on Facebook since most people use social media as a form of escapism from real life. Similarly, emotionally-charged content has always proven to be effective in marketing campaigns so keep that in mind next time you are preparing a script for your Facebook video. Make sure to show something interesting in the opening seconds of your video to keep the viewers watching and stop them from scrolling down the Facebook feed.

There isn’t a secret formula that works for everyone’s Facebook video strategy, but keeping it short and sweet is always a good way to go. Short video forms are easier to make but also easier to consume. Ergo, it’s a win-win situation for your company and your customers. Still, note that 85 percent of videos are viewed with the volume off, according to Digiday, therefore, it would be a good idea to find a way to incorporate subtitles to your next Facebook video. Most people these days use social media on their phones and especially on the go. You wouldn’t want your customers to skip watching your video simply because they are on public transport without their headphones and can’t hear the message you’re saying in the Facebook video, would you?

#3 Facebook Live videos

Facebook Live feature provides a great way to engage your audience, and it’s free and easy to use. It’s less polished than a traditional television newscast, but that’s exactly what makes it so good – it’s authentic and doesn’t require post-production. Facebook Live video gives a raw and humanized look at your brand and helps you build a better connection with your audience. Still, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare and practice your Facebook Live in advance. After all, you are still representing your brand and company. Prepare a list of talking points to have on hand and make sure you have a strong signal before you begin broadcasting.

Depending on what your core business is and how you want your audience to perceive you, you can do all sorts of various Facebook Live videos: 

• Do a presentation of your new product or a service
• Interview KOL from your industry and have them talk about how your brand fits into the current market
• Q&A – bring some expert and have them answer questions from your Facebook users who will engage with you in the comment section of the video
• Breaking news – do you have some big announcement to make? Use Facebook Live to do so. Sure, you can always spread the word later via newsletter, your website, and other channels, but why not give Facebook Live a premiere?
• Performances and events – from conferences to concerts, Facebook Live is a good place to stream live occurrences. 
• Behind the scene – let’s face it, we all love a good sneak peek behind the scenes of something otherwise not available for everybody’s eyes. If you’ve recently redecorated your HQ, go behind the scenes of the whole project and show your audience how you did it and explain why. Or, if you’ve recently developed a new prototype, use Facebook live video to show behind the scenes of that.  

#4 Facebook 360 videos

Honestly, I still haven’t seen a lot of brands use this feature and I think it’s because they aren’t sure how. Facebook rolled this feature a while ago with a vision to use virtual reality as a communication and social interaction tool. With 360 videos, viewers are able to pan, rotate, and watch the video unfold from any perspective that they would like. It’s a great way to give your audience a more experiential feel of your company. For example, you can do an exhibit of your new collection using Facebook 360 video and it will allow your audience to get a better understanding of everything you are offering almost at the palm of their hand. 

Let’s say you own a rental car company. Leverage all your benefits and show to people cars they have at their disposal through Facebook 360 video experience. Seriously, possibilities are endless and you can be as creative as you like. 

#5 Make a playlist

As Facebook itself puts it: “Playlists let you organize videos into groups based on common themes or topics.” Just like on YouTube, you can group your Facebook videos into playlists to make it easier for viewer to find videos they want to see. Let’s say a user remembered a certain video you published a while ago and wants to watch it again. it can be quite frustrating to search through dozens of Facebook videos on your business page just to find that one. Help them in their search by organizing videos per category such as “New products”, “Behind the scenes”, “Interviews”, etc.

#6 Add call to action at the end of a Facebook video

Facebook video is great for creating awareness and building better engagement, but the real reason behind any form of social media content is to build your business. That means you probably want something you can actually measure: conversions, sign-ups, actual sales – basically, solid results. Facebook’s new call-to-action buttons can deliver just that. This novelty allows you to choose one of seven different calls-to-action to your Facebook videos: 

1. Book Now 
2. Contact Us 
3. Use App 
4. Play Game 
5. Shop Now 
6. Sign Up 
7. Watch Video.

Depending on the objective of your video and what you want to achieve with it, choose the right call-to-action button and track results. You can even do A/B campaign and measure which of the two Facebook videos brings better results. Or if you use the same video, but with different call-to-action buttons, you can monitor which of the two will make more people perform the desired action and optimize accordingly. 

#7 Set goals and track your performance

Same with any social media type of content, to achieve results from Facebook videos, make data-driven decisions. Use Facebook Insights to get the metrics you need to assess audience engagement. Facebook itself invested in research to see the value of video for brands and what they discovered is that people consume digital content differently. That’s why it’s clear that video view counts alone don’t tell brands enough about the value-driven from digital video ads. Marketers should optimize ads for their campaign goals, but going forward, they also need to look deeper than view counts to measure total campaign value.