The Rise of Video Advertising on Social Media

The Power of Video Turned into Ads

Social media has increasingly seen an evolution from a forum to share cat videos and photos of your kids to a legitimate platform to boost your business.

Now the introduction of video advertising on Facebook – even Instagram – has added an edge to more traditional (if you can call them that) social media-based business marketing strategies.

What was once the domain of still images and graphics has now made room for the power of video. The likes of Facebook and Instagram have recognised the power of the moving image, so have extended the ability to create promoted posts and paid advertising to video marketing too.

Obviously the likes of media companies suit video advertising; for example, at the end of 2014 Disney produced 15-second videos for Instagram to promote Big Hero 6. But video is accessible to even the smallest businesses with the smallest marketing budgets thanks to the likes of iPhone video-making.

So how do you advertise with videos on Facebook?

• In your Ads Manager, click Create Ad.
• Select Get Video Views as your ad objective.
• Select the Page you want to advertise for, or enter your business website address.
• Enter details about the audience you want to target, along with your budget.
• In the Video section, upload your video or click Browse Library to select it from your video library.
• Set a thumbnail image for your video. Keep in mind that the Facebook Advertising Policies still apply to videos, so the rule that limits text to 20% of the ad applies to the thumbnail image for your video ad.
• Enter the text you want to show in the ad and the link if your ad will direct people to your website.
• Preview your ads by clicking Desktop News Feed and Mobile News Feed.
• When you’re done, click Review Order to double-check your settings, then click Place Order. As soon as it’s approved, the ad will start running.

Account owners can also boost posts on their Pages that include a video.

Video advertising on Instagram

Currently video advertising on Instagram is only available to selected US companies, and enables those companies to produce three- to 15-second videos. We’ll keep you posted when it’s available to the rest of us.

For more information about video production services suitable for social media, contact the team from Onepost Media Productions.