Meta helps marketers and creators with video

Sahail Ashraf posted on 11 July 2022

Video will always be important for social media marketers. Meta has stepped up with a full guide on how best to use video on its platforms.

We don’t have to explain how video is one of the most important parts of your social media arsenal. We’ve covered it before. It’s essential.

Short form video (of the kind that TikTok excels in) is the one big thing that continues to rock the world of social media marketing. And now Meta has brought out a guide that is designed to help marketers create video that has an impact.

The Video and Planning Guide

Meta has created this guide to show marketers how to get the best out of video on the various Meta platforms. So it’s pretty comprehensive. Right at the heart of the guide is a ‘3-step’ process that Meta has developed that is aimed to boil down high quality video campaigns to a simple and easy to understand approach.

You can download the guide here.

We thought we would take a good look at the guide and drill down into how it works.

In-stream

An instream video is a video with an advert embedded within the timeline that targets a specific audience. You watch a mobile phone review on your tablet or laptop, and embedded in that video stream is a video about a particular mobile phone or related technology. In this way, the viewer becomes a captive audience and has little choice but to watch the video as it will start automatically unless they skip it.

Meta goes in hard on in-stream, starting with some stats that show how it is an effective way to gain attention and to convey your brand message quickly and efficiently. 

Then it goes even further, with some FAQ style content and some tips in response. This is one of the most useful parts of the guide, and shows how Meta is really pushing in-stream as a way to use video effectively.

A sample issue:

My video ads are longer than 15 seconds.

And the response:

Feature brand within the first 5 seconds to maximize brand exposure. 

The whole guide goes into a tremendous amount of detail on how to get the most out of video marketing.

The case studies

The guide really shines in this regard. Businesses and marketers will benefit from seeing just how the tips it contains can be used in a practical way. Pepsi Max is one brand that has benefited from using the in-stream ads approach the guide covers, with this testimonial illuminating the impact:

“With online video now a key part of our media screen strategy we partnered with Meta to test in-stream ads to help us to cut-through during the holiday season. We were extremely happy with the results of this campaign which resulted in increased ad recall and message association. A successful test with some impressive results – proving that in-stream video would be part of our ongoing media strategy.” – Gill McHattie, Senior Digital & Ecommerce Manager, Pepsi Max.

All this is tied up with an in-depth section on how you can use in-stream alongside your existing work for maximum results.

You’ll find some handy tips here that can help you to develop a successful Facebook video strategy. Even though TikTok and Instagram have a clear focus on short-form video content, Facebook has the broadest audience reach, so it may be worth experimenting with various tools to see how video can improve your Facebook marketing efforts.

If you are a marketing professional with a social media role, then take a look at Locowise. This platform gives you all that you need to get the most out of working with platforms like Facebook. We also have new reporting on TikTok too. Contact us for a test drive.