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5 Ways to Succeed with Facebook Video in 2016

Jay

Facebook has become bigger than ever for digital video in 2016.
Take for example the fact that in February, viral video masters OK Go chose to release their newest music video “Upside Down and Inside Out” exclusively on Facebook before distributing it to other video sharing sites.

okgo-upsidedown-02-2016

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/why-ok-go-went-facebook-only-debut-its-buzzy-zero-gravity-music-video-169599


The video has garnered over 50 million views thus far, with hundreds of thousands of likes and shares. Even more importantly for marketers, the video essentially served as a massive piece of content marketing for Russian company S7 Airlines, which collaborated with the band on the video.
It’s clear that Facebook video has some amazing potential for marketers, but how can you tap into this form of content marketing for your own brand? Here are five surefire ways to help you succeed with Facebook video in 2016.

1. Partnerships

As OK Go’s music video demonstrated, social media influencers can generate a massive amount of buzz and exposure for a brand. The music video was the most-shared ad of February 2016, and one British survey found that the music video resulted in 31 percent of viewers wanting to learn more about S7 — solid results for a not-particularly-well-known foreign airline.
While you may not be able to partner with OK Go for your own Facebook video, there are plenty of other opportunities for partnerships with prominent social media influencers who can increase your overall reach and engagement. As the International Business Times notes, the social platform’s impressive algorithms and reach are causing many YouTubers to migrate to Facebook, creating new partnership opportunities for brands.
While many of these partnerships require a significant financial investment, digital influencers allow you to reach new audiences who might otherwise never interact with your brand. Keep in mind, however, the importance of partnering with social media influencers who are actually relevant to your brand or the message you are trying to distribute. Look for influencers with a large and engaged Facebook following to ensure you get the most from any partnerships you enter into.

2. Make Your Videos Safe for Work

No, this doesn’t just mean to keep your video free from controversial content and excessive amounts of cursing (though that’s probably a good idea). Rather, making your video “worksafe” refers to using text or captions in such a way that viewers won’t need to have their speakers on to get the most from your video’s story.
This option isn’t just convenient for some viewers — it actually has the potential to increase the overall engagement of your video. As ReelSEO explains, choosing to implement on-screen text “makes the video safe for work and environments where playing audio would be disruptive,” which allows your content to access a wider audience.
BuzzFeed
While it’s true that Facebook offers its own captioning service, companies such as Business Insider and BuzzFeed are now creating videos that rely entirely on on-screen text (coupled with images) to tell their story, rather than audio.

3. Do More Than Just Sell

Like other forms of content marketing, the most successful Facebook videos don’t merely try to directly sell a product or service to consumers. After all, users don’t go to online video for the same experience they’d have while watching television. While your Facebook video marketing efforts shouldn’t go without a strong call-to-action, they should follow the primary rule of content marketing: entertain and/or inform to create value for the consumer.
For Facebook, “educational” videos tend to be among the most engaging of all video formats. These videos are short and sweet, offering bite-sized chunks of information in 30 seconds or less while often using on-screen text and time-lapse video. BuzzFeed once again leads the way in creating this type of content, though Food Network and similar pages have found great success with recipe tutorials.
Whether it’s a list of entertaining facts relevant to your industry or a tutorial on how to better use your company’s product, these short, educational videos are highly engaging and deliver value to your audience. And when this happens, chances are high that they’ll keep coming back to your Facebook page for more.

4. Go Live

One of Facebook’s newest video offerings is live streaming video, a medium that is rife with potential. This is especially true thanks to News Feed updates that favor videos that are currently streaming live over content that has already aired.
Make sure that any content you choose to live stream will actually be of interest to your followers. Live question-and-answer sessions have proven quite successful among scientifically-minded posters, and similar events could also prove to be highly engaging for your audience. A live stream of a typical day at the office, however, probably won’t be as successful (unless you have a really amazing and unique office environment).
Here’s an example of a Facebook Live video. This one, by celebrity chef Alton Brown, also claims to be the first live cooking demo on the platform:

Remember that not every content piece is well-suited for a live stream. Since live videos tend to be less polished, more formal types of content are likely better suited for a traditional video post.

5. Pay Attention to the Right Analytics

It can be tempting to only look at the number of views achieved by your video to determine whether or not it was successful, but Facebook offers a wide range of video metrics to help marketers further understand how a particular video helps you achieve your marketing goals…or why it doesn’t. As MarketingLand reports, Facebook has recently rolled out detailed metrics that tally unique viewers, audience retention, and even 10-second view counts, among other important statistics.
These analytics can provide valuable insights that allow you to further improve your Facebook video efforts. For example, if you find that very few viewers are sticking around to watch your entire video, you may need to create shorter videos so that they’ll watch the entire clip and be exposed to your call to action. Or perhaps you need to try different types of video content to keep viewers engaged until the end.
Regardless, these are the types of insights that could easily be missed if you only focus on a total view count rather than the detailed engagement metrics offered by Facebook.

Conclusion

Facebook video will only become more important to the digital marketing world. It was in 2015 that SocialBakers reported that Facebook videos were shared 157% more often than YouTube videos, and currently, over eight billion videos are watched on the social network daily. All of this naturally makes taking advantage of Facebook video more important (and potentially more profitable) than ever before for marketers — especially as these numbers continue to grow.
Don’t get left behind! By implementing these tactics, your brand can improve its Facebook video production and achieve even greater results in 2016.