Tag Archives: facebook video

FACE THE SKILLS: A rough guide to getting the most out of video on Facebook 

In the early days of video training I helped deliver we’d have a clip that showed how landscape was the right way to shoot footage and upright video was plain wrong. 

“People have eyes side by side,” the video joked, “not above each other.” 

How we laughed.

It’s an example of how things have changed that Facebook have announced plans to move ALL their video to upright video. That includes Reels, live video and what they describe as other longer video. 

It’s a huge shake-up but I’m here to tell you it needn’t be daunting. 

Why are they doing this? Because more people watch video on a mobile phone holding their phone in one hand upright scrolling with the other. 

When will this take shape? This transformation is taking place in USA and Canada first before being rolled out globally. 

This huge shift in approach and demands we all take a fresh look at how video is created.  A key part of this is to look at what the recommendations Meta themselves are making.

Here’s some help with making sense of video. 

Types of video on Facebook 

There’s three types of video you can post to Facebook. Each one has a role to play. 

Short-form video 

Firstly, you can still post longer video to Facebook. Soon, you’ll have to do this as portrait-shaped as opposed to landscape-shaped. Facebook have said that you can re-purpose existing content for this but it is unclear as to how this will take shape.

Landscape footage can still be posted with a button to convert the clip from a portrait viewing experience to landscape.

Optimum length: Ten years ago, Facebook went from 16 seconds to two minutes for optimum video to encourage ads popping up mid-way through clips. Now, more than 90 seconds is the new optimum length for shortform.

Reels

This is where I’d be putting time and effort. Reels is Meta’s TikTok equivalent that they are pushing strongly. 

Recent research on public sector content put Reels head and shoulders above other content. When Reels was first launched it came as a laboured version of something that should be fun. You could see what they were trying to do but it was limited spark. That’s got better although the search algorithm still has some way to catch up with TikTok.

Be creative. Start with a hook so a teasing intriguing question or arresting footage. Keep it short. People work best because people connect with people.

If you are not creating Reels then start now is Meta’s advice.

Optimum length: Between 15 and 20 seconds is best.  

Live video 

Live video has pulled in huge numbers but often the public sector is a little hesitant. 

Upright live video may be challenging but it’ll be interesting to see how tools like the landscape video tool Streamyard can sync with it. This tool that takes people’s webcams and adds them to a desktop studio where they can give guests name titles, add banners to the screen with questions and add the title of the discussion. I’m a huge fan. 

Alternatively, you can take the Spudman or Max Out in the Lake District approach and go live direct from your mobile device.

Optimum length: 20 to 30 minutes.  

Facebook’s tips on creating video

There’s aa few pointers that Meta have made to give people a steer. This is so much better than the earlier days of Facebook where people were left pretty much to guess. 

If you’re making video then pay attention. 

Record in vertical video 9:16

The 9:16 format is portrait-shaped. This content will be rewarded. 

Engagement

This is a big one. 

In their update, Facebook have been keen to stress engagement. That means comments likes and shares as well as eyeballs where people are watching. So, the question to ask yourself is how you can encourage this. Is it asking a question or maybe questions? 

“Focus on engagement: Our recommendation systems favour videos that have a lot of engagement,” is the guidance. 

“Beyond plays and watch time, this also includes interactions such as reactions, comments and shares.”

This on its own should encourage people to play around with live video.

Storytelling

Being able to tell a story with a who, what, when, where and why. Meta’s own guidance is that authentic storytelling is more likely to perform well, regardless of whether it’s a Reel, medium length or long video.

Authentic 

Meta still want you to be authentic. If you think you need special effects, slow motion, drone footage and exploding space rockets then you can relax a touch. Rough around the edges has a place on Facebook. 

Use Meta’s editing tools

The advice with Reels is to still finish off using the tools that Meta provide. So, use their music and their text on screen. If you use the Reels editing tools on Instagram you can add subtitles that use the AI tool to make a stab as to what they say. You still need to check that out to avoid inaccurate subtitles. 


If you’ve found this useful you’ll like ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED training to help you plan, shoot, edit and post effective comms and PR video.

BETTER FACEBOOK: How to shape your 2018 Facebook strategy with seven key questions

It’s been a few weeks now since Mark Zuckerburg’s game-changing announcement on how Facebook will now work.

In short, his message was that people will see more from family and friends, more from groups and less from pages. Facebook Live will be rewarded. I’ve blogged on what that may mean for you as a communicator here.

It’s early days on how this is playing out. Some people have embraced the change. Others have sort of hoped they would go away. I’ve found people’s response perfectly mirrors how they are as a communicator. Some have rolled their sleeves up. Others, incredibly, don’t even know the change has taken place.

After delivering Essential Digital Skills for Comms workshops, for me, it boils down to five key questions you need to be asking yourself.

Q1 Have you got money?

If you’ve got money, the chances are you’ll be less affected by the changes. But you will have to spend more to get your content into people’s timelines. But make it good and engaging content to make it work.

If you’ve got a little money, think about tapping into Facebook’s immense hoard of data. So, if you are after brass band enthusiasts in their 20s in Stafford you can find the hard-to-reach easily. With some money. But this should be a small part of your strategy.

If you’ve got no money at all you

Q2 Have you conducted a review on your page?

Think about the area you serve. If it’s a community of 100,000 how many people like your page? From research I’ve done, the answer to that is a small minority. But how are your insights? Who likes your page? When are they most active? What content are they engaging well with? Make sure your content is engaging. Short, sharable, human and informative video. Information that people actually want rather than as a tick-box bucket to chuck stuff.

Q3 Are your pages fake profile secure?

Facebook’s terms and conditions are that each person can only have one profile. Not one for home and one for work. So the ‘Dan Slee Work’ or ‘John Smith’ profiles are against terms and conditions. Facebook calls them ‘fake’. They are at serious risk of being deleted by Facebook without warning. If access to your corporate page is only through fake profiles you at risk of losing access to your page.

Q4 Is your page connecting with an audience?

Just the one page? How is that working for you? How are the smaller pages faring? Are they doing a better job of reaching that sub-audience? If they are, that’s fine.

Q5 How are you with groups?

If you want to understand how groups work go and join a few. The place where you like will have one. The excellent Public Sector Comms Headspace is another. You need to join

Q6 Have you conducted a group review on your area?

Part of the fear of the unknown is not knowing what it looks like. The unopened box on the table is mysterious because we don’t know what is in it. Same with groups. Carry out a review of the groups in your area by town, village, estate, county and ward. You’ll be surprised what you’ll find. You can do this through using Facebook’s own search tool. Make a note of the numbers and the larger groups.  You’ll be surprised what you’ll find.

Q7 Have you decided what approach to take with groups?

There are three ways to approach them. The first is ignore them. But I really don’t think that is a strategy for the forward-thinking comms person.

Approach A: Use your own profile to contribute

The second is to use your own profile to join them and take part in the conversation yourself as a representative of the organisation. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The advantage is that you are a human face contributing to the discussion. The disadvantage is that people can see who you are. You may want to lock down your profile. You may want to turn off notifications from the group so you don’t see what is being said.

Approach B: Use your own profile to contact the group admin and ask them to post on your behalf

This is less risky. Being identifiable to one person may seem a less exposed path than being exposed to hundreds or even thousands.

Approach C: Start your own group.

You’ll need to do it with your own Facebook profile and people will be able to message you. I’ve not seen an engaging group set-u by the public sector but I’m happy to see one.

Either approach A or B are tricky and ask a lot of the comms officer. This isn’t for everyone and managers would be foolish to expect this to be mandatory. But those who are answering this question are making inroads.

Of course, let’s not forget that Facebook may not be the channel for all of your audiences. But with almost 40 million users in the UK this is not a channel to disregard.

I’ll be tackling the Facebook issue and running through research on groups and what people are using them for at the ESSENTIAL DIGITAL SKILLS FOR COMMS workshop in Manchester on March 23 and London on March 29.

Dan Slee is co-founder of comms2point0.

ON SWITCH: Updated optimum video times

I’ve updated the optimum times for video content with two platforms being removed altogether.

Gone are the six seconds of Vine and gone too is the livestreaming Twitter application Meercat.

I’ve edited the  comms2point0 ever updated video resource here and the chart is here:

So, what do the changes say?

Both are Twitter applications, so not all that much.

I’ve also updated the Facebook Live and Periscope optimum length to 10 minutes. This is emerging as the best length of live video.

Luke Watson, in this excellent Search Engine Journal post, makes the point that Facebook page posts reach single digit numbers. But Facebook Live at the minute is free, so it’s worth experimenting with before it costs.

 

 

 

10 places to distribute your video to make it a success

You’ve made a cracking video but you’re really not sure what to do next.

So what do you do?

For the past 12-months I’ve looked, made, researched and co-delivered workshops on essential video skills for comms.

As a comms person I’m convinced that video has a powerful role in creating engaging content. As I’ve said before, a large chunk of the internet is now video and that’s just going to grow.

The two things you need for engaging video

Think of Pearl & Dean. Think of sound and vision. It’s two things that go together. There’s a balancing act for creating successful video as part of a comms campaign. On the one hand you need good content. But on the other hand, good content that’s sat on your mobile phone isn’t going to reach anyone. So think about when and where you can post what you’ve made.

Live streaming is a bit different

Live streaming using Periscope, Meercat or Facebook Live is video. But this is video of the moment which is disposable. If the advantage is to be five yards away from the firefighter explaining the incident is now under control then it makes sense to use that. Speed and realtime point you to these platforms.

Don’t be blinded by numbers

Have a think about your audience. If you are keen to reach 16-year-old students about to decide which college to go to then your idea of success is not to chase Taylor Swift numbers. But if you’ve only reached a dozen then you may need to have a think about your distribution. In other words where people have the chance to see the video.

10 places where people can see your video

YouTube direct. This is the grand daddy of internet video. It’s used by more than a billion people a month. In the UK, more than 40 million people use the platform every month. Post your video to YouTube but keep it at around three minutes. Add tags and a good description so people will find it. Metadata is your friend. Optimum time: around three minutes.

Facebook direct. A new kid on the block compared to YouTube. At the moment, Facebook is rewarding you for adding video content to a page. It likes video because video keeps people interested, engaged and sharing. A hundred million hours of video is watched on Facebook every day. There is a battle going on between YouTube and Facebook but it’s worth posting video here too. Facebook can soar in the short run and is outperformed by YouTube in the long run. So think about posting to both. Optimum time: 21 seconds.

Twitter direct. Like Facebook, Twitter is liking that you post video direct to itself from the Twitter mobile app. But annoyingly, it’ll only let you upload a video from elsewhere if you are using an iphone.Optimum time: less than 30 seconds.

Instagram direct. There is a tendency for organisations to sit back and think that YouTube, Facebook or Twitter means the internet is covered. What hogswallop. If you know your audience you’ll have an idea which platforms they’ll be using. If instagram or snapchat is on their wavelength then think about how you’ll be using those channels first. By doing that you’ll have an understanding of what video may work.Optimum time: Instagram was up to 15 seconds maximum but now can be 60 seconds. Doesn’t mean you should use 60 seconds, mind.

Snapchat direct. Younger people are opting for snapchat. Again, disposability rules in the content. The platform now has 10 billion views a day. Organisations who are using it well have got to know snapchat first and make specialised content. It’s not a place to throw your three minute YouTube video.Optimum time: less than 10 seconds.

Email the link internally. Once you’ve posted the video cut and paste the URL and send it to people. Embed it in the weekly email. Or send it to the 10 people in the team you’ve featured. Invite them to share it and you can start to tap into your staff as advocates. YouTube links are good for this.

Embed in a webpage. It never fails to surprise me that video carefully shot and posted onto social channels then never makes the webpage. If you look after a museum, embed the video onto the right webpage so when visitors come they’ll have more than just the opening times to look at.

A staff meeting or event. You have an audience of people corralled into a room. Of course you should show them the film you’ve made.

A link attached to a press release. If you’re sending out a press release it is becoming increasingly important to add a video or an image to it to register an interest with a reporter. Even if it’s a short video it’s worth doing.

Target influencers. If the blogger, the reporter or the big cheese are people you’d like to see the video don’t hope that somehow they’ll pick up on it. Email them direct. Tweet them direct. Tap them on the shoulder. “I’ve got this video that I think you’ll like.”

On a welcome screen on a loop. If you have a reception or a place where people gather show the video on a loop. You may want to screen it with the sound off if you’ve only got 30 seconds of good footage. Think about silent film techniques and sub-titles.

To learn more about planning, editing, shooting and posting video using a smartphone come to a comms2point0 essential video skills workshop.

Dan Slee is co-creator of comms2point0.

DIGITAL LIST: 10 things on the web that caught my eye

Back in the day when the social web seemed new case studies and examples emerged like roadsigns in the fog. Rarely and eagerly sought. 

Today, things are different and what was once rare is now expected. Such is the pace of change. So, here’s a crack at rounding-up some of the good things in one place before they get lost. Some you may know. Some may be new. I’ve veered away from posting the sort of content I’m helping to share on comms2point0. That’s more case studies, data and think pieces.

  1. Celtic fans respond with cocoa pops to online Turkish fans who threaten to stab them

Turkish football fans have carved out a reputation for trouble in the past with knife attacks on rival supporters. So, when Fenerbache drew Celtic in Europe some armchair hooligans took selfies with knives threatening violence.

The response from the Celtic supporters was rather sharp. They could have threatened even greater violence in response. Instead they used the Simpsons-inspired hashtag #thatsnotaknife to respond with an arms race of their own. They took masked selfies with household objects including a spoon, a banana and a box of cocoa pops. As an example of an organic self-organised campaign it’s brilliant.

Original link: Daily Telegraph.

2. Star Wars scenes as album covers

I’m really no Star Wars nerd. I really couldn’t tell you the name of the bar Hans Solo walked into in Return of the Jedi. Or was it Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? But this collection of mock retro album covers really is a fabulous thing of design.

Original link: cnet.com.

3. Australian batsmen Chris Rodgers and Steve Smith head through the Long Room at Lord’s

Another Ashes series and another victory for England. As ever, the two sides went head-to-head ov er social media to see who could produce the best content. Video emerged as a key battleground. Here’ is a clip of the two batsmen coming off the field through the historic Long Room. It works for me for being real-time, slightly geurilla, unpolished but giving behind-the-scenes content. It was shared almost 200-times giving a tidy digital footprint.

Original link: @homeofcricket.

4. The Humans of New York Facebook page

There are two sides to the internet. The good and the bad. The Humans of New York Facebook page is everything that’s good about the internet. It started as a photography project by a photographer. As he took the pictures the powerful human stories behind them came tumbling out. Sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes cry. Always they tell a story with humanity. This summer the page has visited Pakistan and Iran. Two countries whose web presence in my timeline is shrouded in darkness. The Humans of New York page let some sunshine in.

Original link Humans of New York Facebook page.

5. The Homes of Football

As the Humans of New York is to cities the Homes of Football Twitter is to football. Roy Stuart Clarke has been taking pictures of the sport for more than 20 years. He’s not interested in the action. It’s what happens away from the pitch that he’s more interested in.

Original link: @homesoffootball.

6. Pages from Ceefax… revived

Back in the day you had two choices. You went to the paper shop and bought a paper and maybe they something on Stoke City. Or you used ceefax and turned to p312. It was the internet of the day and how I loved it. But then its faster and slicker younger brother the web came along and turned our heads. But a geek in a bedroom has rebuilt Ceefax and has taken a live news stream so you can watch today’s news again. Slowly.

Original link: pagesfromceefax.net

7. The Isles of Scilly Police Facebook page

This is as close to a perfect public sector Facebook page as its possible to get. Public servants talking like humans. There’s wit, humour and drama. All of it points towards the fact that there isn’t much crime there but if there is they are ready to strike.

Original link: Isles of Scilly Police Facebook page.

8. dorsetforyou.com’s social media directory

As new sites are created it’s sometimes hard to keep track of ones that have been started. That great Facebook page. What was it called again? Councils across Dorset – there’s seven of them – do collaboration while others just talk about it. They have a shared website and they’ve got a shared A-Z where people can find social sites from across the region.

Original link: dorsetforyou.com 

9. The Official North Korea Instagram

Access to the life under the Pyongyang regime is closely restricted. But bizarrely, one of the few routes is via Instagram. The official North Korean government account @northkorea_dprk_today is one route that’s open. Propaganda posters, pictures of crops and smiling people prevail along with lengthy narratives in support of the socialist utopia. If you want to get a flavour of what the USSR would be like on social media it’s here. A historic oddity. No pictures of starvation or opponents getting machine gunned, however.

Original link: @northkorea_dprk_today.

10. RNLI crew rescue a man from a sinking ship 

When the RNLI go to work they do it miles from view with no-one really to see. The trouble is that people love to see what they get up to. This footage from the onboard camera is raw and unedited but was seen by almost 3,000 on the Facebook page and more via mainstream media. This demonstrates the benefit of sharing the sweets by sharing access to those on the ground as well as the usefulness of video.

Original link: Peterhead RNLI.

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