TV has always been a powerful medium. You can see it, hear it, and reach a large amount of people with it. Over the last few years, the television market has become so fragmented—thanks to hundreds of channels and streaming devices—that it is getting increasingly difficult to reach a large target audience with your message. The good news is that there is still a medium you can see, hear, and reach a mass amount of people with—1.59 billion people to be exact—and that’s Facebook.
Video has been available on Facebook for a few years now and it continues to grow. In fact, the number of videos posted per person increased by 75% in 2015. Facebook now generates 8 billion video views a day. A DAY!! Because Facebook can see the opportunity this creates for broadcast advertisers who have been floundering to get the reach they once acquired via television, the popular social media site is introducing tools that will be all too familiar for traditional advertisers.
Facebook has introduced two features that make video ad placements similar to TV ad buys: Nielsen DMA targeting and target rating point video buys that leverage day-parting. These new changes provide marketers with further branding capabilities on mobile, as well as flexibility to extend TV and video campaigns to Facebook. Though this is now becoming familiar territory for TV advertisers, Facebook is advising advertisers to rethink the way they deliver ads on Facebook as opposed to TV.
According to Facebook, in order to adapt your video ads for the News Feed and to drive the best results, ask yourself these five questions:
- Is it easy to understand without sound?
- Is it easy to identify the brand being advertised?
- Is the video ad’s message succinct without overloading on info?
- Is the advertised product or service featured for the majority of the 30-second spot?
- Does the video ad contain narration or feature verbal communication to tell a message?
Marketers should make their creative concise, consider screen size, include captions, and experiment with different ideas. There is no universal method to creating video ads on Facebook. Create, test, and learn what works best for your brand while keeping the few key creative principles in mind.