With so many changes, new features, and strategies it can be hard to sort out Facebook fact from fiction. Not to worry, here are 6 common misconceptions that we've heard from our clients and partners:
1 | Retargeting Is Only For Non-Video Ads
Retargeting is only for photo and link ads. Answer: Nope.
Best practice: Who wouldn't want to make another attempt to woo users that engaged with their brand, but didn't quite convert in the way they wanted them to? While retargeting isn't new, many marketers don't realize that this is available for video ads. If you are creating a series, retarget users who watched previous videos. Alternatively for single video campaigns, try retargeting users that only watched part of the video to entice them to complete the view.
2 | It's Better To Use YouTube Links
For the sake of efficiency, many marketers use YouTube (or other external links) to post video content to their Facebook page. After all, two social networks should be better than one right? Answer: Wrong.
Best practice: Upload your videos directly to Facebook to ensure a seamless user experience, and to unlock comprehensive reporting on views, users and retargeting, which you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.
3 | A Video View Means That The User Watched My Entire Video
You got a ton of views and you are feeling like you may just be able to teach Spielberg a thing or two. After all, all those views meant that they fully digested the video. Answer: Nein.
Best practice: A view is actually defined as 3 seconds or more. Be sure to check your analytics to determine how long Facebookers actually tuned in. This allows you to optimize creative moving forward to determine the best video length, imagery and narration for your brand.
4 | My Campaign Objective Should Be Engagement (Likes, Comments, Shares)
In building out your campaign details, you have the option of prioritizing engagements, reach or views. Isn't engagement the whole point? Negatory.
Best practice: For the vast majority of campaigns, video views should be the main goal in order to efficiently optimize targeting to the viewers that are most likely to watch. Engagements should only become the main objective if the creative has a strong call to action to encourage virality.
5 | Comprehensive Targeting Is Always Best
You only want to spend budget dollars on the users who will watch, promote or purchase, so wide targeting is clearly a waste of money. Answer: Nyet.
Best practice: Starting off with a mass audience can help you create an effective targeting strategy by building a bucket of active Facebook fans that can be used later for retargeting or as criteria for future campaigns.
6 | The Majority Of My Shares Will Be From The Original Post
Only views, likes, comments and shares will originate from your page post. After all, that's what my social marketing platform tracks. Answer: Not So Much.
Best practice: If you've never heard of the terms "multi-generational activity" or "dark social", here's some information to get you started. The reality is, as much as 60% of shares are from multi-generational or dark social (copying and pasting links) behavior, so be sure to ask your social marketing platform partner about how to setup your website to capture this engagement.
Want more information about Facebook video? Check out our Facebook video campaign checklist, or email, post or tweet us your questions!