Long gone are the days where Facebook was the place to see wedding photos, pictures of random babies and 400 word status updates from your uncle who hasn't quite realised how to use the platform yet.

Nowadays the social media network is the go to place to catch up and discover video content - in fact Facebook overtook YouTube as the biggest platform for video views on desktop*.

Couple this with Facebook's amazing ad targeting tools and its ventures into 360, live video and other new ways to watch film, you can see why it's such a big part of people's video marketing strategies.

The fact is though, unless you really know how to make content for Facebook specifically, you won't reap the rewards.

* take this with a pinch of salt...in terms of time spent watching and quality of view, YouTube is still ahead by a long way.

Native Player

It might sound obvious in a blog about Facebook video but step one, upload your video onto the Facebook native player!

Long gone are the days you could simply post a link of your lovely new video from Vimeo or YouTube and expect millions of shares and views.

Since creating its own video player (Facebook native player) any organic links to third party sites are pretty much penalised on the platform. Your reach will be no- existent, so if you want to see results avoid this at all times!

It's as simple as uploading your standard .mp4, .mov, .wmv etc (full list here) video formats on your business or personal page. Fill out the form like you wouldon youtube, click, share and you’re done!

A feature that Mattr’s: One feature we really LOVE about FB's native player is that you can schedule the video post like a text or photo post, definitely something that is a little easier than Youtube.

Subtitles

If you want to put a video on Facebook you need subtitles. Why subtitles you ask? Well when you put your video up on Facebook it sits in users news feeds, so when they scroll down to your video it starts playing automatically . . . and the default autoplay setting on Facebook is without sound.

If you consider you only have around  3-5 seconds on Facebook to gauge someone's interest as they scroll past your video by simply ensuring any voiceover or important info comes up as text, this can be an incredible way to catch someone's eye and pique their interest.

And If that's not enough to make you do this, how about this: 85% of videos that are viewed silently on Facebook. It's a bit of a pain for sure, You do need to take the time to create transcripts of your video, so some extra man power will be needed, but there are services that can help you out.

5 second hook

Basically your brand spanking new video  is one of a 1000 pieces of content your audience will have thrown at them in one day, so unless you present something unbelievable that your audience can't live without, your potential client, customer or viewer will be onto the next thing on his feed in under 5 seconds.

The next question you need to ask yourself is what are you doing in the first 5 seconds of the video that is going to hook your audience?

It's no exact science but a few things can help: creating an eye grabbing title, an opening shot that essentially hints at whats to come, large text with the promise of a story, posing a question, creating a thumbnail or encouraging  to use  of reaction bar (Love, Sad, Wow etc) as easy engagement. 

As Facebook state themselves “65% of people who watch the first three seconds of a video will watch for at least ten seconds and 45% continue watching for thirty seconds”. So basically by using this method you should pretty much build a strong case to earn a new, engaged and retained audience from each video you place on your page.

Aspect Ratio

The shape of your video on Facebook (like with most platforms these days) does matter as it can carry a lot of impact to the way it is delivered. 

- Portrait: Your standard Youtube shaped video, something that people are used to seeing in their newsfeed. However, because the way the news is shaped, the autoplayed video starts within a square box which as a result sees parts of the sides of your portrait video taken away until it is opened in small screen. 

- Square: As you can see from the paragraph above, a square video is perfect for Facebook, both for style and for eye grabbing. If you're placing a portrait video within the square, use the top and bottom space to add eye catching reaction quotes, questions and call to actions. 

- Vertical: Our own Josh Hine is actually a bit of a vertical Facebook video expert after directing Facebook for Business's first vertical advert. So, what used to be the scourge of digital video, now thanks Snapchat's vertically focused UX, is now a format that millennia's respond to well. 

Do you have more tips on how to create engaging videos on Facebook? Then drop us an email! We may be a London production agency but we are all ears for your opinions and suggestions and want to collaborate you! Make sure you sign up to our mailing list in the footer too!