Facebook has grown to be one of the leading sources of social media for all generations. It is a place where you can catch up with new and old friends, follow pages that you are interested in as well as follow celebrities. Recently there has been a drastic change to what many see on their news feed. Instead of status updates and posting photos, as you scroll through your news feed you see many more videos. They are short videos that play automatically and are typically to provide entertainment to users while advertising a product.

Tasty is one of the most popular accounts that posts easy to follow recipes and creates videos of people making them on Facebook. They have become a phenomenon and people get sucked in watching food videos. In addition to Tasty videos many other companies use Facebook video to promote their product and brand. In order to learn more about how to post a Facebook video that will capture one’s attention there are four main steps that you should follow.

 

Step 1: Pick content that users want to see.

When posting on social media, content is key. Posting videos on Facebook or other social media sites is an effective way to provide users with helpful information and get your name heard. Content marketing is creating valuable content to users to acquire and engage customers with the intent that they will turn into customers.

 

Step 2: Make sure the video plays automatically.

When people are scrolling through their news feed they are more likely to to watch a video if they do not have to click anything and it plays automatically. This also means that they will watch the first few seconds, which is a reason for making the first part of the video engaging so the user will continue to watch the rest.

 

Step 3: Provide captions.

Most people do not turn the sound on when scrolling through news feeds so it is critical to provide closed captioning for all the words that are in the video. Additionally, for food videos, such as Tasty videos it is important to provide the ingredients and measurements as captions so users can follow along with the video.

 

Step 4: Represent your brand.

It is important that you provide content that is valuable and helpful to your customer but you also want your customer to know who is providing the content so they remember you in the future. For example, when posting a Tasty video, if it is sponsored by Pillsbury and includes cinnamon rolls, the next time people are out grocery shopping they will be more inclined to buy Pillsbury brand because they enjoyed the Tasty video, or maybe even made one of the recipes before.

 

Connecting to the blog article about live video, it is important to stay up to date with the trends that are going on regarding social media especially because of how fast they change. Live videos are taking over media and companies must stay up to date the current trends and adopt them in order to reach everyone on social media in the most effective ways.

Content marketing, especially using Facebook videos, is an effective way to provide useful information for customers while promoting your brand. With the sudden increase in videos on Facebook it is important to jump onto the trend and promote your brand on Facebook. Especially if you already post on Facebook you should consider using videos because many people scroll right over posts or even photos. Our society has become very visual and interactive and posting Facebook videos is one way to do so.

Stephanie Kurensky is a student in Katie Krueger’s Marketing in the Digital Age course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.