Ever wonder what those 900 million users are doing when they are on Facebook? Well besides naming their homebrew batches (wait, that was me), they are looking at uploaded pictures and videos.
About 65 percent of the activity on the social media platform is watching video, according to Facebook. For businesses looking to engage their communities, umm, you should be uploading video to your Facebook pages right now (Tip 1).
I am sharing some tips to help you become ridiculously successful. Please remember me when you are retired young and sitting on a beach somewhere awesome while sipping on a mojito.
Embed or Upload?
There is some debate on whether you should upload your videos directly to Facebook, or embed them by pasting the URL links. The answer is to do both (Tip 2).
Uploading videos to YouTube and sharing the link on social media platforms helps build your SEO while driving viewer engagement (Tip 3). You can also use that URL on multiple channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs and elsewhere on Facebook (other pages and your personal page) (Tip 4).
While Facebook’s internal search sucks right now, it may not always and creating a video library on your page may prove beneficial down the road while also giving your fans another opportunity to engage with you on your business page (Tip 5).
You may also consider supplemental edits to create Facebook-specific videos (Tip 6). I recently did this with Resilience PDX, an upcoming disaster preparedness event, by editing its main promo video to include the event coordinator using a strong call to action to “Like” their Facebook page and attempting to point to the button.
I alluded to it above, but you should try to share the video link on as many Facebook pages as possible (Tip 4 repeat). For the Resilience PDX video, we are going to share the link on neighborhood association pages, area school PTA pages, area church pages and so forth. You may have to like that particular page to do, but you can later unlike the page if it is an issue.
Let’s jump now into the details:
No. 1 – Upload the video to YouTube (or share a video already hosted on YouTube). Once complete, click on the share button under the video and copy the URL. You can now go to the targeted Facebook page (your own, or another) and paste the link onto the Timeline. (Tip 7)
No. 2. – Upload the video to YouTube. Click on the Share button under the player and then click on the Facebook icon. If you are already logged into Facebook, a new window with the embedded post will pop up and allow you to add a comment. (Tip 8)
No. 3 – Upload the video directly to Facebook. You can do this either as a post in the Timeline or via the apps under the Cover Photo. When uploading directly via the app, make sure you complete the description of the video and include full hyperlinks to your website or specified landing page. (Tip 9)
No. 4 – Upload via a third-party app. You can add video through third-party apps to your Facebook page, but why share information about your customers and friends with some third party? Facebook is already monitoring that relationship. Why let someone else? (Tip 10)
Bonus tips:
Use a clear call to action in the comments when embedding the video on Facebook. For example, “What do you think of our new promo video?” Or, “If you like the video, go to our website or YouTube channel to watch more.” (Tip 11)
You can use a URL shortener such as Bit.ly and customize that short link for each specific social media platform and tap into some basic analytics that will allow you track where folks are watching that video. Facebook and YouTube also give you some of these insights. (Tip 12)
Social media platforms such as Facebook are great platforms for sharing your marketing videos and getting the word out about your business and professional service. Let me know if you have any additional questions. I would be happy to help share your story.