What hooks viewers in? What keeps them engaged? How do you reach the right people and get them to interact with your content?
Facebook video is one of the best marketing tools to promote your business. With an average of 8 billion videos viewed daily, you get immediate access to a large audience. So we want to share some of the most common tips to help make sure your videos get views, and those viewers engage with your content.
Let’s get into it!
1. Catch people’s attention within the first 3 seconds
People have short attention spans, especially when we’re mindlessly scrolling through social media, on our phones. Facebook’s autoplay puts you at an advantage because it helps catch people’s attention. However, the first 3 seconds of your video will determine whether or not you get to keep their attention. Bonus points if you can grab their attention without sound!
A great thumbnail customized for your video topic, complementary post copy, and an immediate start will all help hook your viewer in.
2. Add captions to your videos
85% of Facebook users watch video without sound. You want to make sure you can still get your message across to them! Adding captions is also good practice because it makes your content more accessible to those that are hearing impaired.
The good news is Facebook can autogenerate your captions for you, you might just want to go through after and make sure everything is correct. You can also manually upload your own SRT file if you have one.
3. Upload your videos natively
Videos uploaded to Facebook directly perform way better than links to other platforms. They’ll also auto-play directly in feed. The interaction rate for Facebook native videos were on average 109.67% higher than for YouTube videos shared on the platform.
4. Add a call-to-action
Having a call-to-action (CTA) is a great way to increase engagement and conversions. While Facebook doesn’t have a CTA button anymore, there are still plenty of ways you can add one to your videos.
- In the video: You can mention your CTA in your actual video. This works best about halfway through but it can also be at the end.
- In the post copy: If your video is already done (or you just want to keep it evergreen), you still have a chance to add a CTA. You can invite viewers to engage, find out more info by clicking your link, share comments, etc. all in the post copy.
5. Target relevant audiences
This feature isn’t just limited to ads anymore. While running a Facebook ad with your video is a great way to increase your reach, we’re not talking about that this time!
For a while now, Facebook allows you to target a selected audience on organic posts as well. Highly-targeted posts perform better because they reach the most relevant people.
You can target a selected audience based on the following criteria: age, gender, location, language, and interests. What you’ll do is choose what interests you want your preferred audience to have (you can pick up to 16!) and then you’ll restrict your audience based on age, gender, location, and language.
Since your targeted audience will be more likely to engage, the algorithm will understand it’s a relevant post. And relevant posts naturally get more organic reach!