5 Tips On How To Succeed With Facebook Video

Video is by far the most engaging format on Facebook. It has the potential to rack up millions of views and start epic conversations among friends and strangers around the world.

But video on Facebook can tricky. Not only do you need the know-how to make a reasonably professional video, you also need to know how to tailor it to Facebook so it has the best chance of reaching vast numbers of people and helping you meet your content goals.

We’ll assume you have the technical side of making videos covered and will instead look at the making videos for Facebook part. And with that in mind, here are five tips on how create successful Facebook videos (and five bonus tips to get even more out of your efforts).

1. Keep Facebook’s Algorithm in Mind

With this year’s changes to Facebook’s News Feed ranking system, the social media platform is now emphasizing “meaningful social interactions” in the content it shares among users.

But what exactly does Facebook mean by “meaningful”?

Basically, it’s referring to active interactions like commenting and sharing, which it now favors over passive and nonsocial interactions like simply watching videos and pressing like. In addition, Facebook now weighs comments and shares on personal pages more heavily than the same engagement on pages from brands, publishers, businesses, and influencers.

The most meaningful interactions are person-to-person ones with people sharing content on their own pages and commenting on their friends’ pages. According to Facebook, “typing out a long and thoughtful reply to a friend's post” will increase a post’s ranking more than “scrolling through the Facebook feed, passively reading, or watching without interacting with others.”

2. Create Content That’s Meant to be Shared and Talked About

Think of the last time you watched a video and shared it or commented on it. Now watch that video again and think about what it did to move you. Then try and make a video like that. Your video should be engaging enough for people to share it on their personal pages and attract comments from their friends.

You might start by spending some time thinking of topics that will get people talking and sharing. This in turn will make it more likely that Facebook shares it with a broader audience.

3. Build Personal Connections

Everyone knows that social media is all about making connections. And one way to get people to connect with your videos is to think less like a company and more like a person. This will humanize your brand and make people engage with your videos more like they’d engage with one of their friends.

Fortunately, you don’t need your videos to be super polished and professional to accomplish this. (Though talented content marketing companies can help.) You just need to make sure your videos are personal and authentic.

One way to do this is to have your employees star in your videos and be casual representatives of your brand. And then to kickstart the person-to-person interaction that Facebook is looking for, you can ask your employees to share your videos with their networks.

Alternatively, try posting videos to groups. According to Facebook, people are more likely to comment on videos in groups than on brand or personal pages. You can even start groups yourself. Just pick a topic to focus your group around, share your video to it, and encourage group members to start talking about it.

4. Livestream to Your Audience

Facebook Live videos are said to get six times more interaction than regular videos posted to the platform. They also take less time to create than writing a blog post, for example. And they tend to get more traction, too.

The live format lends itself to doing things like sharing quick tips, hosting Q&A sessions, interviewing interesting people, or giving your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your company. Better still, give your audience even more incentive to tune in with time-sensitive events like company events, product launches, or real-time news stories. Just make sure to give each video a snappy title, promote it before you go live, and include a call to action to make the most of the opportunity.

5. Get More Views with Facebook Ads

When your organic reach just isn’t cutting it, you should probably consider running your video as a Facebook ad. Take some time to choose your target audience based on demographic you want to reach.

Facebook ads are also a great way to build your network. After all, it only takes a few users to share a video and have it spread like wildfire — as long as you have great content, that is.

Bonus Tips:

Upload Your Videos onto Facebook

If you’re wondering whether to host the videos you post to Facebook on YouTube or Vimeo or upload them directly to Facebook itself, the answer is clear. According to a study conducted by Quintly, interactions for Facebook native videos were 168 percent higher than ones hosted on YouTube — and received an astounding 530 percent more comments!

Make The First Three Seconds Count

It’s a busy world and most people are juggling a million things in their lives. Plus, even in the best of times humans only have about a seven second attention span. If they’re not getting something out of your video, people can and will scroll down to the next one. So make sure you capture your viewers’ attention right from the start.

Tell Viewers Something About Your Video

People like to know what they’re getting themselves into so they can decide whether or not to spend their time on it. It might seem obvious, but it makes sense to set up your video by telling viewers what to expect. This will keep them around long enough to get the information they were looking for or the entertainment they were promised. And that will increase the number of people Facebook shares your video with.

Remember to Include a Call-To-Action

While you definitely want to satisfy Facebook’s requirements for quality interaction and make sure your videos are seen and talked about, you also want to make sure they help you meet your business goals. Including a specific call to action will help you reach the goals that made you decide to make a video in the first place.

Use Facebook Insights to Analyze Results and Optimize for Your Next Video

As much fun (and hard work) as making videos is, there’s always room for improvement. To help you make your next video even better, use Facebook Insights to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

Need help crafting videos that resonate on Facebook? Just get in touch with one of our friendly Mediaplanet team members. We’d be happy to help with a video content solution that works for you.