Experts confirm that video content on Facebook has grown tremendously throughout the past few years. In 2016, Facebook hit 100 million hours of video watched every day. No wonder, then, that many marketers and small business owners decide to use Facebook as their main video marketing platform.
By Emily Johnson
However, while Facebook is a great social media platform to share and post videos for marketing purposes, not all videos become popular and bring high ROI. There are five main mistakes that business owners make when creating and publishing videos on Facebook that destroy their video marketing strategy.
Are you guilty of making any of them?
Posting videos that are not square sized
You can notice that there are many different recommendations for video sizes on Facebook:
- Shared video posts: 1080 x 1920 pixels; aspect ratio 16:9 and 9:16.
- 360° videos: max 4096 x 2048 pixels; aspect ratio 2:1.
- FB carousel video ads: 1080 x 1080; aspect ratio 1:1.
As you can see, Facebook recommends square videos only for ads. However, making all your videos square can give you better overall results than making them in different sizes depending on a video type.
Consider, 92% of people access Facebook on their cell phones. Now, since square videos take up more real estate on mobile devices, they draw people’s attention more easily than other videos, such as regular landscape videos. So, if you want to increase your video views on Facebook, boost engagement and get more conversions, make sure your videos are optimized for mobile users, i.e. square sized.
Not adding subtitles to your Facebook videos.
Did you know that 85% of videos on Facebook are watched with the sound off? Astonishing, isn’t it? But, if you take a moment to think about it, it makes perfect sense.
After all, most of us check Facebook several times a day and sometimes we can’t listen to a video. For example, at work, on public transport, standing in line in a clinic or waiting for dinner in a restaurant. In those situations, watching a video with the sound on could be an annoyance to others. So, we either add it to “watch later playlist” (and forget about it) or decide to watch it on mute.
Now, if your videos don’t have subtitles, people won’t care to watch them. As a result, you’ll get fewer video views, fewer conversions and your Facebook engagement stats won’t improve. To prevent it from happening, remember to add subtitles to each and every video you post on Facebook.
Forgetting to add a call-to-action
The first lesson all beginner marketers and small business owners learn when they start their content marketing or Facebook marketing campaign is to always provide value to your audience. Right…
However, as Jason Clemens once said:
“Yes, you must provide value, but you can provide all the value in the world and still be dead broke unless you are actually making an offer.”
It’s important to provide value to your audience, but it’s also important to let your audience know what they should do after watching your video. Otherwise, you won’t get any ROI.
Remember, if you don’t tell your viewers to take an action that is beneficial to your business at the end of your video, they won’t figure it out by themselves. So, if you want to see the results of your video marketing strategy, add a call-to-action to all the videos you make and post on Facebook.
You’re not on camera or you’re not looking at the camera
Another mistake that people make when creating videos is deciding not to be on camera or be on camera but not to look directly at it.
I understand that you can be shy or uncomfortable when being on camera and looking straight at it, but if you don’t learn to do that, your viewers won’t get to know you and connect with you. That leads to lower engagement, brand loyalty and trust.
So, to make sure your viewers don’t feel disconnected while watching your videos, always appear on them and look at the camera. Now, if you find it hard be on videos and look directly at your camera, imagine that the camera is your best friend. Simple, but it works. Try it.
Not investing in video production
If you want to reap the benefits of your video marketing strategy, you need to create quality videos. Videos that are blurry, have poor sound quality, pale colors, bad lighting and unappealing background, won’t bring you high ROI.
However, creating such videos will cost you a fortune, right? Wrong! The truth is, you can create high-quality videos on a budget. All you need is a bit of creativity:
- Instead of buying a top-shelf camera from your local store, use the camera on your mobile device.
- Don’t search for “the best place” to shoot a video. Instead, make all your videos at home (just make sure your space is clean and clutter free).
- If you can’t invest much in lighting, use the sun! After all, natural light is the best form of light you can get.
Be smart!
Time to make better videos for Facebook!
To get the best results from your video marketing strategy, follow these five tips:
- Make your videos square-sized,
- Add subtitles,
- Be on the camera and look directly at it,
- Add a call-to-action,
- Make quality videos.
That’s it!
Emily Johnson is a content strategist at OmniPapers. She writes insightful articles about digital marketing, social media, remote work and productivity. Her blogs about content marketing and blogging help writers improve their skills. Feel free to follow Emily on Twitter.
Video icon stock photo by vivat/Shutterstock
