Facebook is by far the world’s dominant social media network. Such is the extent of its reach, that it has over one and a half billion monthly users. These users engage with the website on all types of device, including, of course, mobile devices and smart phones. As a consequence of its unrivalled reach statistics, marketers are turning increasingly to Facebook to advertise their products. In this article we look at the benefits of combining video and Facebook and explain why this combination has developed into such an important and effective marketing tool.
Why Facebook?
As we have already mentioned, Facebook reaches more people (and therefore more potential customers) than any other social media network. However, its effectiveness in a marketing context is due to more than just the size of its audience. Through its enhanced audience targeting you can reach an audience that matches your existing (and intended) customer base, according to characteristics such as location, age, gender and profile. Facebook’s Power Editor also enables A/B advert testing and its Insights allow marketers to access data such as page performance, engagement, audience demographic, impressions and reach.
Why Video?
Online video advertising has increased dramatically in recent years. It is now the case that, when surveyed, the majority of marketers place it above TV advertising in terms of its effectiveness, with more and more users choosing this medium for their advertising campaigns. It is projected that online video revenue will continue to increase whilst TV advertising revenue will decline. The cost of video advertising is steadily declining as more marketers recognise its possibilities and the number of placements increase. The advance of mobile technology has also increased the viewing quality of video adverts on mobiles, further increasing the audience. Video adverts now have by far the highest click through rate of all the types of digital advertising. Videos are also more likely to be shared and, consequently, result in leads and sales.
Why Facebook for Video?
Facebook and video complement one another perfectly. Facebook’s video auto play feature attracts over eight billion video views per day and its video adverts are projected to occupy 15% of the digital marketing space by 2017. Video adverts on Facebook enable you to put life into your brand and to create a personal connection with the audience. Sequenced adverts, where the viewer is able to follow a storyline, have proven to be especially effective. Videos on Facebook are also more likely to attract attention than other forms of social media advertising. Finally, because Facebook recognises the attraction of video and its growing stature – in the context of advertising generally and online advertising in particular – it is constantly making improvements to its platform to further optimise its performance and reporting tools.
Whatever the size of a business, video advertising on Facebook combines an exciting marketing opportunity, providing access to an immense, targeted audience, particularly amongst the ever-increasing number of mobile users, with the ability to manage your video adverts and access essential data such as advert reach, performance, impressions and engagement.