Facebook Video for Marketers: Strategy for Future Success

Do you create videos for your business?

Wondering how to best leverage your videos on Facebook?

To explore Facebook video strategy, I interview Jay Baer.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Jay Baer, a digital marketing and social media strategist. He authored Hug Your Haters, a book about social care, and also hosts the Social Pros Podcast and the Jay Today show.

Jay discusses the differences between video on Facebook and YouTube.

You'll discover the tech and tools Jay uses to produce his own videos.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Facebook Video for Marketers
Facebook Versus YouTube

Jay says a lot of people do very well with YouTube videos, and just as many do well with Facebook videos. However, not too many people do equally well with both because each platform has a specific use case. People watch YouTube as a replacement for television entertainment or they're searching for how-to videos. On Facebook, videos appear in the news feed and can interrupt people while they're on the platform.

At Convince & Convert, Jay says they advise clients to think about what the video is and under what circumstances people will want to watch it. Based on that assessment, choose one of the platforms as the primary home for the video.

I mention how views of The Last Jedi trailer on Facebook far surpassed views on YouTube within the first 30 minutes of its release. Jay responds by noting a few factors that might have contributed to that difference at that particular point in time. One is that Facebook allows users to share content with others easily. Also, Facebook defines a "view" differently than YouTube.

Although we both suspect most viewers of The Last Jedi are watching the whole trailer, marketers should remember that Facebook counts 3 seconds as a view, whereas YouTube requires 30 seconds.

Also, a video on Facebook may receive substantially more views immediately after it's posted but the YouTube video may receive more views in the long run, especially on a strong YouTube channel.

To clarify how The Last Jedi example pertains to the everyday marketer, Jay stresses that Facebook drives exposure based on engagement. So if you put a video on Facebook and a disproportionate number of people like, comment, and share, then a disproportionate number of people will see the video in their feed. This visibility gives even more Facebook users an opportunity to share the video with somebody else, and the cycle continues.

Jay sees this ripple effect every time he posts a video on Facebook. If he gets immediate engagement, then more people see it. If he doesn't, users' engagement with the video will plateau.

Next we talk about streaming live video to Facebook versus YouTube. For vlogging, Jay says that you could use both Facebook and YouTube. Jay does something like this with his Jay Today show. He streams the live video first on his personal Facebook profile and posts the video file elsewhere afterward.

Jay explains that Facebook's API prevents you from live-streaming anywhere else while you're streaming to Facebook Live. To stream to Facebook Live, Periscope, and YouTube Live simultaneously, you would need multiple phones or computers. That limitation is one reason Jay goes to Facebook Live first; he can't be anywhere else.

He also notes that on YouTube (for now at least), you need to have 1,000 or more subscribers to stream live video from a mobile device. So YouTube's live video feature isn't as widely accessible as Facebook's.

Listen to the show to hear Jay discuss his approach t...