Facebook is full of distractions vying for the attention of your potential customers. As users scroll through their news feeds, they skim past every irrelevant or uninteresting post. Video ads have the potential to break through this apathy and make your target audience take notice, but the medium requires the right approach to make your brand to stand out.
By following these five best practices, you’ll be well on your way to creating stunning video messages with the power to transfix viewers.
Be an Attention-Grabber
Why do people love watching commercials during the Super Bowl? The ads are unique and compelling. Companies spend enormous amounts of time and money crafting the perfect message, and all this effort pays off when the final spot airs.
Approaching Facebook ads with the same mindset lays the foundation for promotions users want to watch. Just like with TV commercials, video ads are all about delivery. Start off with a compelling “hook,” and include your brand right from the start. Coordinate visuals, dialogue and music to create a “personality” with which your audience can identify.
Gather a Community
Conversations are the backbone of social media. Take advantage of this community mindset in your video ads by telling a story designed to spark discussion. Speak directly to the needs of your audience. Use circumstances in their lives to create a connection between your products or services and their lives. For maximum effectiveness, deliver ads tailored to specific customer groups.
Once the ads have been deployed, monitor reactions. Stay active in the conversations started by your audience to show there are real people behind your brand who care about solving their problems.
Use Sound as an Accessory
Facebook users opt to have sound enabled turned off when scrolling through their news feed. This means you’ll have to find a creative way to grab their attention and not rely on sound to make your point. Think of sound as the “salt,” a final touch making the ad more effective but without which it can still be understood and appreciated. Use tools to add captions to videos for the audience that opt out of sound and simultaneously caters to those with hearing impairment.
Inspire Action
The ultimate goal of any ad is to spark a reaction from the audience. Craft video ads to show potential customers how following your call-to-action will improve their lives by changing unfavorable circumstances or solving common problems.
Figure out what speaks to most to your consumers and what will convince them to make a purchase, sign up for a program or utilize your services. Video ads give you a chance to connect directly with the behaviors and desires driving your target audience and spur them to action through powerful visual messages.
Split Your Tests
If you haven’t been A/B testing every ad campaign, start now. Remember each person in your target audience is unique, and variations in reactions will occur even within distinct segments. Create at least two versions of your video ad. Track how they perform for a given period of time, and drop the one your audience largely ignores. Use the most engaging video to guide the creation of your next ad. Repeat the process until you have a formula for the “perfect” ad for each sector of your audience.
To avoid being ignored or labeled as just one of the many talking heads on Facebook, focus on being compelling, interesting and relevant to create messages with the potential to spark conversations and spread awareness of your brand into new markets.
Read more tips about creating awesome videos at TechCo
