Creating video ads is one of the best ways to build your brand and develop a presence on social media. When you create video ads, you’re giving people something that’s creative and can get their attention quickly.
Video ads help customers see how a product or service could fit into their life or how it solves a problem they might have. They give context, in addition to being visually compelling.
As a tool, video ads tend to help quickly build a sense of brand recognition and trust with the people who see them. Videos are appealing to multiple senses, and they’re immersive for the person watching them.
There are certain best practices to follow if you want truly captivating ads in video format, however.
Start With Your Audience
Video ads, at their core, need to follow the principles of other types of effective marketing campaigns. This means your audience is what you use to drive everything you do.
You need to know who your targeted audience is and which video format is most likely to engage them and generate leads.
What are the messages your audience responds to? What resonates with them, and which social channels and platforms should focus on, based on where your targeted audience is hanging out?
Choosing a Platform
There isn’t one best platform for video ads—again, it’s about your audience, as well as your goals.
As you choose platforms, consider the following:
Facebook Gives You Flexibility in How You Create and Run Ads
You can do anything from a quick snippet ad to a full commercial. You can also use videos that you publish on Facebook as native ads on other places like your homepage. One shortcoming of Facebook is that the overwhelming majority of users don’t watch videos with the sound on.
You have to consider this in your design. For example, you’ll need captions and subtitles. On Facebook, you can create landscape and portrait feed videos, live streaming videos, and Facebook stories, which are disappearing content.
Instagram Is Very Well-Suited to Video Ads, but They’re Not Like a Typical Commercial
Instead, what often works well on Instagram is the creation of videos that are similar to user-generated content. That means you’re showing off how products are used. You also have a one-minute limit on videos. Particular options on Instagram include landscape and portrait feed video, Instagram stories, Instagram Live, IGTV for longer-form content, and Reels for short-form content.
Twitter Offers Options for Stories Content
Which Are Twitter Fleets, Live Stream, and Also Landscape and Portrait Feed Video.
LinkedIn Video Options
Include Live Streams and Landscape Feed Videos
YouTube Does Have a Huge Audience
And you can use your existing video content to get more return on your investment from it.
TikTok Is Incredibly Popular, Particularly Among Younger Users, but Older People Are on It Too.
When you create a TikTok campaign, there’s the potential to reach millions of users. When you’re using TikTok, you want your campaigns to be short and to the point, and you also want to have fun. Add sound effects and music and strategic, readable text. A strong call to action like direct links is also a big one on TikTok. There are five styles of TikTok ads—in-feed, brand takeovers, TopView, brand hashtag challenges, and brand effects.
Pinterest video ads are integrated into the feeds of users so that they appear right alongside organic pins.
You can make ads in standard or max-width sizes. They automatically start playing when they’re in a user’s home feed, and they can be viewed in a larger format, replayed, or played with audio. What’s great about Pinterest is that the audience is high-intent and ready to make purchases. If you haven’t run ads on Pinterest before, you have to set up a Business account.
Focus on Stories Instead of Sales
No matter which platform you’re using, make it a goal to focus on telling stories rather than sales with your ads.
That means that you’re never making a hard sell. You’re creating value for your audience in some way or engaging them outside of simply trying to direct them to buy a product.
You can tell a story about your brand or how your product or service can help your audience. Think about what you can do for your targeted audience.
Have Goals for All of Your Video Marketing
Anytime you’re taking on a new marketing or advertising project, you need to have concrete goals. What do you want your videos to accomplish?
Set just a few goals initially so that you don’t overwhelm yourself.
For example, maybe your first goal is brand awareness.
You want people to start to learn more about who you are and what you offer.
Keep It Short
Unless you’re doing something that’s more in-depth on a platform like Facebook or YouTube, you’re best off keeping your videos short.
For example, your videos on Instagram can only be 60 seconds anyway, and you might want to trim this in half. HubSpot found that Instagram videos that get the most comments are only around 26 seconds on average.
Include Subtitles
An estimated 83% of people watch videos on mute. If you want people to get a full experience for any of your video content, you have to optimize for people who are listening without the sound. The best way to do this is to add subtitles so your audience knows what’s happening.
Consider Your Captions
Finally, the video itself is going to bring engagement, but you also want your captions to be high-quality.
For example, when you’re using video ads on Instagram, put effort into your captions.
Around 1000 to 2000 characters for a caption on Instagram seems to be a sweet spot to generate the most engagement.
You can go with a witty tone or stick with an informative caption. You might also want to go into details about whatever the product is that you’re advertising or cover the service in a more in-depth way.
Trial and error with video ads are ultimately going to be your best asset as far as figuring out what works and on which platforms you should focus the majority of your attention.
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