Facebook Video Ads – How To Do It Right

Published on
July 12, 2016
Contributors
Dana Bojcic
support@vicimediainc.com

Dana Bojcic (how do you pronounce that? Boy-chich) is a Senior Partner with Vici and Google Analytics Certified. Dana is an experienced trainer and coach of salespeople and managers. Her background includes working for advertising agencies and as a certified Talent Analyst.

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Video ad consumption is absolutely on the rise!  A recent study aimed at learning more about consumers’ sentiments regarding video advertising found some interesting tidbits.

  • 26% of people surveyed responded that they are watching at least one video per day.
  •  55% of the frequent video viewers prefer watching them on their smartphone.
  • As for the most popular social platform to watch videos, Facebook is a clear winner, as 54% of them picked it as their first social destination for video consumption,

Advertisers who are concerned about their videos actually being viewed should know that according to Facebook, 65% of the people that watch the first three seconds of a video end up watching at least 10 seconds of it.

Even more interesting? 85% of Facebook videos are viewed without sound.  If we are watching without sound, how are we receiving the actual message?  Captions. “Captions are a way to tell someone who’s in a sound-off environment what the video is about quickly. What we’ve seen in some of our internal tests is adding captions actually increased view time by an average of 12%,” said Matt Idema, of Facebook.

And now, Facebook offers automatic captioning of video ads, making it easier than ever.

Don’t have the budget to create a Facebook video ad?

Keep in mind, this is an extremely different format from running TV commercials. Meaning, no lengthy expensive production process required. In fact, videos can also be a “slideshow” if an advertiser doesn’t have the time or budget to create a video ad. Using Slideshow ads makes is easy for advertisers to create video ads from still images.  We simply upload three to seven still images – they can be from an existing video, a photo shoot or even stock imagery – and choose the length of your slideshow, from 5 – 15 seconds.

This new Facebook option is huge for advertisers and marketers catering to small and medium sized business owners. Research show that 44% of professional marketers and SMB owners plan to spend money to promote video content on Facebook in the next 12 months.

FB video pic

To do video ads right remember these key points:

  • Relevance is key. Video consumers expect highly targeted advertising that fits their interests and their browsing habits. This increases the chances of them continuing to watch a video to completion.
  • Silent ads can increase the engagement.  You can still send your message effectively without any disruptive sound.
  • Focus on mobile. Video consumers on mobile devices have increased significantly, which means that you should make sure that your content is optimized for mobile, making the viewing experience pleasant.
  • Keep it short. Even if you create a longer video, make sure that the first seconds are appealing to help users stay engaged.

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