The marketers today are using every possible medium to reach out to maximum number of potential customers. Whilst the social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook have become an integral part of the marketing strategies, not many marketers are using these platforms to its fullest capacity. With the new video-only feed feature on the Facebook mobile app, it has opened up a whole new avenue for marketing. If you are a marketer you need to make the best use of this video only tab to gain an advantage over your competitors. In this write-up, the marketers can find all the valuable information they need to know about the new update.
The addition of the new video feed on the mobile app comes in the purview of Facebook aggressive stance to focus more towards the video. The company has added a new tab that shows Facebook Live videos and recorded videos. The platform has stated that by the summer of 2017 it is going to run out of place to showcase advertisement and hence wants to give the users a good experience with the right balance of organic and paid content. So, there are several ways to use the video news feed to get maximum exposure in your tab.
- Focus more on mobile rather than Desktop
Facebook advises all the modern day advertises to create their video content using the unique mobile formats like the vertical or a square video to make it more appealing to the users. It is very easy to create videos just for mobile, it also quite inexpensive. However, to increase the traction through mobile news feeds on Facebook, you need to focus on a single story and secondly change the aspect ratio to square, which would increase the visibility on the feed. Furthermore, marketers can use animations to make the video more interesting engaging.
- Try to gain the attention quickly
To be able to draw the users’ attention quickly, marketers need to understand the dynamics of colors, themes and images in their content; it must be consistent with their brand image and message. Incorporating attractive colors, lively action and recognizable voice at the start of the video would quickly spark the interest of the audience and generate curiosity to watch further. Very popular technique used recently by the marketers is using animated GIFs in the ads, these animations have significantly outperformed the static pictures in terms of getting more clicks.
- Design for Muted video plays
Research suggests that nearly 85% of the videos are viewed without sound. It is therefore pivotal that you create your video in a way that it conveys the desired message through visuals itself. Don’t forget to give your video a good caption. An internal test conducted by Facebook revealed that videos with captions had 12% more viewing time than the normal videos.
4. Don’t ignore the smaller screen size
One of the most important things to remember about creating videos for mobile is the dimension and the screen size. Mobile devices come in different sizes and they all have different screen ration. Make sure that you use the overall composition and zoom to ensure that the message is conveyed loud and clear through the video.
5. Videos with longer duration works well
Earlier this year, in January, Facebook announced that it will give more important to longer videos that are watched till the end. However, during the announcement, Facebook did not mention the exact duration and it turns out that the long duration implies videos that are about 90 seconds are more.
While broadcasting videos on Facebook think about giving the audience an experience of watching TV. With the growing popularity of the big online video content players like Netflix and Amazon, video streaming across mobile devices is growing at a rapid pace. The trend also has triggered Facebook to compete with these players and in this purview it is investing a lot of money in paying for the original episodic content that are between 3 and 30 minutes long.
6. Keep it short and simple
Although it might sound contrasting, just above we mentioned broadcast longer videos and now we are saying the opposite, however, you need to strike the right balance depending on the type of content you are giving out. Longer videos works the best for live streaming, whereas for advertisements and customer engagement the shorter videos works wonders. Recent Facebook studies suggest that creating shorter videos of 15 seconds or less has the maximum potential for customers watching the content till the end.
7. Provide TV-style content
Whilst the duration of the important, it is certainly not ‘The most’ important thing to drive traffic and increase user engagement. What is more important is the type of content you deliver in those videos. It is important that you keep the content to the point as well as interesting so that it would retain the attention of the audience for a long period of time. Simply rambling or repeating the same stuff just to add more minutes would surely turn off the audience. Before creating any video do a little bit of research on what the competitors are doing, learn from their mistakes and improve upon it to give the audience a better and more gratifying experience.
8. Introduce variety in the content
No matter the kind of business you are into, providing the same kind of content would make you sound mundane after a while. To be able to keep the audience coming back for more it is absolutely important to offer a variety of content. Marketers can easily draw up storyboard and create content buckets to be delivered across the week or the month depending on often your publish videos. Few of the most popular video ideas that are a sure fire hit among the audience are Educational videos, inspirational, informative, entertaining, humorous, research-based and live broadcast.
9. Try to get personal and connect with the audience
Informational, informative content are great to provide users a gratifying experience but what is more important is to connect with them at a personal level to be able to win their loyalty. Try to bring out the human side of the business and share the inside news. Create and share videos of behind the scenes or go out on the streets to connect and talk with the real audience. This will give more engagement and win the customer trust, which ultimately will result in more sales.
10. Make the audience a part of the broadcasts
Just like how the textual customer testimonials and reviews work wonders for winning the customers trust, the video blogs or vlogs can have a significant impact on increasing the user engagement. Facebook recently announced that it will soon roll out a new feature for Live video including broadcasting from desktop, two-person side-by-side.
11. Have the right person appearing in the video
To be able to deliver the message through the video to the audience in the most emphatic way it is important to execute the video in the right way. The person appearing on the video has a great role to play in this, have someone who has a natural knack for facing the camera and look extremely confident on the screen. This person can become the recurring character in delivering all the stories for your company.
12. Build up curiosity
Whilst you are eagerly awaiting to announce to the audience about a new product launch or the growth of your business or even your arrival in the market don’t just go all out; it may sometimes fall flat. The best way to reach out to the audience is to generate curiosity before the actual video broadcast. Teasers works the best, even if it is live broadcast announce to the audience beforehand to create a build-up.
13. Make the most of influencer videos
There are plenty of influencers out there who already have a huge following on the internet; you might want to approach any of these influences within your industry or related industry and hire them to appear in your video broadcast. It will not only add to your brand credibility but also give a massive boost in terms of customer engagement.
14. Follow up is quintessential
Every time you broadcast a video content it is important to follow-up with the audience to ask them about their input on the content. The best follow-up technique is to engage the audience in a question-answer session. Although you may have answered all the questions during the broadcast, it is important to encourage the audience to post their comments and queries on the video post the broadcast. Make sure that you address each and every comment as well as answer the questions (if any).
