Social Media has become an integral part of our daily lives, and a day does not go by without us going online to check what’s happening to all our family and friends. Facebook is the largest and most popular social media platform of all; everyone is on Facebook and that includes businesses both big and small.

Facebook is a great platform for you to spread some brand awareness and advertise your products and services. As a business owner, you get just how important Social Media is to the success of your brand, which is why you might be thinking of starting your own Facebook video ad campaign.  The question is how. We will be teaching you all you need to know to create your own successful Facebook video ad campaign that will significantly help in the growth of your brand.

What exactly are Facebook Video Ads and Why Should You Use Them?

Social media content must be both engaging and entertaining in order to become successful, and video is the marketing tool with the greatest potential for success. It is estimated that by 2020, mobile video content would account for 75% of mobile traffic.

In Facebook alone, video has reached 135% more organic reach as opposed to photos, with over 100 million hours of video being viewed every single day, with 8 billion daily video views.

Now, with that much video on the internet, you have to make sure that your video stands-out from the rest.

Facebook Video Ads give you a lot of placement options on where you want your ads to appear, such as the Newsfeed, the Right-hand sidebar, Instant Articles, In-Stream Videos, and even the option to have your ads appear within Instagram.

People tend to feel that creating video ads are a hassle due to the time and effort required in making them.  However, you can actually use this to your advantage since it means that there will be fewer people making ads so there will be less competition when trying to bid for your target audience on Facebook.

How to Create an Appealing Video

Before you can start a video ad campaign, you first need to make a video. People go on Facebook for a lot of different reasons, so you would have to make an ad that would make them stop and view your video. For any kind of content marketing campaign to be successful, it has to be captivating and/or entertaining, and it must provide some value to your intended audience.

No matter how good your video, people won’t pay any attention to it if they have no interest in the subject. That’s why it’s important to make sure that you properly target your ads to the right audience to get the most value out of your ads.

Creating a video doesn’t have to be expensive or use high-quality equipment since today’s smartphones can even record high-quality video and audio. A video that can seem “too professional” may not perform well since Facebook users don’t usually go on Facebook for a sales pitch.   Instead of going for the hard-sell, create a simple and authentic video ad that your intended users will find captivating and will see its value.

Different Approaches to Facebook Video Ads

There are four approaches you can take when creating your Facebook video ad.

1. Showcasing a valuable piece of content for your audience.

Focus on trying to educate your target audience in helping solve a specific problem that they are dealing with. If done correctly, this type of video ad can help build trust between your brand and your target audience. Once you gain their trust, they will be more inclined to avail of your products or services in the future.

Video ad campaigns like these are similar to webinars, but unlike a webinar, you will go straight to the piece of content marketing and skip the introduction.

2. A Customer’s Testimonial, Feedback, or Case Study.

This type of video ad is very effective in showcasing the benefits that your product/services can provide. Since it shows an independent person endorsing your brand, it can help establish trust from potential clients.

With this type of video ad campaign, you can provide a very brief introduction explaining what the video will be covering and the results that the customer in the video achieved. After the introduction, let the customer share their experience. You can add a call-to-action at the end or provide a link to direct them to your site.

3. Product Demonstration Video Ad.
These video ads are used to explain how to use your product and showcase its benefits. Provide an in-depth explanation about your product’s features, and instructions. Then also showcase its value and why the viewer should purchase it.

4. Behind-the-Scenes Video Ad.
These types of video ads are used to demonstrate how your product was made. They can showcase superior craftsmanship and high-quality materials that are used in production.

The viewers can get a closer look at your product and you are able to tell them the story about why you created the product in the first place. This video ad can be very persuasive, so viewers will be more inclined to make a purchase. Showcase the meticulous methods of production and attention-to-detail to produce your product.

A Video Ad must be Captivating
The first frame of the video must be eye-catching; you need to make sure that they stop whatever they are doing to watch your video. The first frame must be captivating, so it would be a good idea to put some text on the first frame, which can entice people to play the video.

Make sure that you split test your videos to find the most effective version of your ad. Experiment using different ad formats, marketing styles, brand voice, and targeting options to find out the most effective one.

Setting up and targeting the ad

When setting up a Facebook Video Ad, what’s important is properly setting the targeting for your video ad campaign. To do this, you first need to think of your ideal customer and use their characteristics and traits to better target your ads. The most important factors when targeting video ads are your target audience’s location, age, and interests; because it will help you get your ads in front of the right people.

Let’s say that your video ad is about “Salons”; you can type in Salon and it will provide you with some options to get your ads in front of your intended audience.

You can also use the Facebook Audience Insights Tool to give you some info about Facebook users. The “Page Likes” section gives you info about what pages a specific type of audience likes, just by typing the interest in the sidebar, which in this case is “Beauty Salon.”  It will provide you with the “Top Categories” for that specific type of interest.

Below is the “Page Likes” section, which will provide you with info about the Facebook pages that are most likely relevant to your audience based on Facebook Page likes.

Now take note of the columns ‘Affinity’ and ‘Relevance.’

The Affinity column will provide you with information on how likely your target audience is to like a Facebook page as compared to the rest of Facebook users.

The Relevance column provides the average, which is calculated by taking into account the affinity, page size, and the number of people that have already liked that specific page among your target audience.

Using ‘Affinity’ as a targeting option usually yields better results since it is more specific as opposed to using ‘Relevance’ since it only provides info about what that type of audience probably likes, based on an average. Check the three pages with the highest affinity, and use it to target your ads for the best possible results.

Now it’s time to talk about setting up the budgeting for your ads. You can pick a daily budget or a lifetime budget. In this section you can also choose the Optimization of Ad Delivery; you can choose from ThruPlay, 10-second Video Views, and 2-second Continuous Video Views.

The 10-second Video Views is the recommended option since it serves your ads to the people with the highest probability to view your video at the lowest cost and will only charge you if they view your video for at least 10 seconds. ThruPlay delivers your ads to the people that are most likely to play your entire video if it’s 15 seconds or shorter; for longer videos, it will optimize to serve your ad to people that are most likely to play at least 15 seconds of the video. 2-Second Continuous Video Views option delivers your ads to get the most video views of 2 continuous seconds or more.

Once you’re finished with setting up the targeting, it’s now time to upload your video. When uploading your video, make sure that it fits the criteria on the picture below on the right-hand side.

Choosing a custom thumbnail for your video can be a good idea – you can upload a ‘Custom Image’ as the thumbnail of your video, which should encourage the user to click and watch the video.

Next is writing the text for your ad which will require a considerable amount of skill and experience. If you’re planning on advertising on Instagram, just click the ‘Add an Account’ button and then select your Instagram account.

Once you’re done filling out all the required fields, you will see a preview of how your ad will look like for each format. Here is an example for Desktop Newsfeed.

Here is an example in Mobile Newsfeed format. Take note that there are 989 million daily active Facebook mobile users, so make sure to also serve your ads in mobile.

Conclusion

Video ads are the marketing tool with the greatest potential; it is a very engaging way for you to advertise your brand with a lot of great benefits. Creating a Facebook video ad campaign may require a lot of time and effort and social media and marketing skills, but the benefits are well worth the investment. Not only do you need to create a very captivating and entertaining video, but you also need to figure out the best way to deliver it to your intended audience.

GoBig Creative is a digital marketing agency specializing in video ad content creation operating in Utah and Sacramento. Utilizing video may seem difficult, but don’t worry, we’re here to help. GoBig or Go Home!