How To Create Great Video Content For Advertising On Facebook And Instagram
Video is the greatest form of content to create for advertising across platforms. We’ve got multiple options when it comes to creative on Facebook and Instagram now, so why does video take the lead? Let’s go into a little detail as to why, and how to create engaging video content that generates valuable brand awareness, traffic, leads and conversions.
Attention Of The Viewer
Face it, we’re all busy. Despite our busy-ness, we turn to our devices every minute of the day for information, entertainment, community and education. As we scroll through our feeds (filled with up to thousands of pieces of content at any one time), we are given each piece of content mere milliseconds to grab us. If a picture says a thousand words, what does that say about video!
A good video catches our attention straight away. Once that checkbox is ticked, it should tell us something interesting, leading us to engage with the headline, copy, link description and ultimately, the call to action. Without grabbing the attention of the fast-thumb-scroller, you’ve got no chance of communicating your story.
Multiple other formats of creative can work really well, but anything with movement in it that catches attention and draws a user in is the way to go.
Size/Dimensions
Mobile is king these days, and that means your creative strategy needs to be optimised for mobile as a priority. It’s all about real estate when it comes to this stuff. How much of the users’ screen does your creative occupy? Just a little bit? Think about all the distraction around your ad… Does it fill their screen? Cool! You’ve got the maximum chance of engaging them due to not having any other distractions.
When creating your video content, get all your bases covered and create videos in these dimensions:
1920 x 1080 (landscape HD 16:9 – the old faithful)
1080 x 1080 (square 1:1)
1080 x 1350 (vertical 4:5)
1080 x 1920 (vertical HD 9:16 – for stories)
Length Of Video
There’s plenty of advice out there around this particular topic. I’m going to be very transparent and say what I truly believe. Video content has no ideal length. It ultimately comes down to what you have to communicate, and the time you need to communicate it properly. So long as your creating content that continually maintains interest is visually appealing and considers those who aren’t going to watch with sound on, feel free to create content at whatever length you wish!
A benfit of short content is easy viewer consumption (no feeling of “awww man, I don’t have 8 minutes to watch this!”). The benefit to longer content is deeper dives by the viewer (“ohh man this is awesome, I want to watch all of the things ASAP).
There’s another benefit to longer content too – richer remarketing opportunities when creating your audiences.
Words – Subtitles and Headlines
Like I’ve mentioned, it’s more common for people to watch videos with no sound on, therefore sometimes it makes a lot of sense to have subtitles or headlines come up, as text on your videos.
It’s not hard to find value in guiding a viewers attention through words and images rather than just images alone. This removes ambiguity and can help people stay on board with what you’re intending to communicate.
Purpose
If you’ve not absorbed it already from the above points, above all else, know the purpose of your video content before creating it. Are you simply trying to catch attention? Give value? Wanting to entertain? What are you wanting people to get out of viewing the video?
If you can sum up the purpose in a sentence or two, the whole process of shooting, editing and publishing your videos will be easier, and your audience will have a greater chance of engaging with your intended purpose.
Putting Your Eggs In Multiple Baskets
Advertising is a totally different mentality to page content or traditional media when one piece of creative is strategised and curated ‘to perfection’. We find the best results when we put out 20 pieces of creative for one goal and test them against each other. 10 will often suck, 7 will be pretty good, and 3 will be red hot. After dumping the 17, double-down on the 3!
It’s so incredibly difficult to be sure of what content is going to resonate for an audience. With a great wealth of understanding on the platforms one can make assumptions – which is necessary – but the only true way to ensure any kind of success for a campaign is to test as much as possible and expect to fail at some ads, and win at others. That’s how you will find the gold.