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Understanding How Facebook And Instagram Distribute Video
September 20, 2022
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Facebook & Instagram want to be the best place for people to find and enjoy videos online.
Whether it’s through short-form videos like Reels and Stories or longer-form videos with “on-demand” or going live, they took the time this week to explain the tactics that have the greatest influence on distribution for videos right now.
It’s a great list to keep close to ensure the content you work on is the highest, best, and most strategic use of your time.
- Originality
Your account should be your platform — a place to show the world who you are and how you think or create.
- Capture and Retain Attention
Videos that capture the audience's attention and inspire people to watch to the end may earn more distribution on Facebook. Retention is one of the indicators of how well your content is matched with what the audience wants to see.
- Captions
A lot of people watch videos with the sound turned off, and captions can grab their attention and make your content more accessible and inclusive.
- Loyalty and Intent
When people regularly come back to view an account’s videos, Meta takes it as a strong, positive signal for distribution. This is especially true when they see people actively searching for your content.
You can encourage these behaviors in your videos by:
- Publishing bonus content in between your regular posting cadences to stay connected with the audience. You can use different formats like videos, reels, stories, live videos, and even photos or links.
- longer-form storytelling is a powerful tool for conveying brand messaging, driving consideration, and telling nuanced stories
- Reels and shorter videos are great for sharing and discovering content in fast, immersive, and fun ways
- Optimizing your content for Facebook search. This includes writing clear titles, and descriptions for your posts, and adding a few relevant tags. This can help more people see your content, both via Search results and via the recommended videos that they show to people in Feed.
- Engagement
Inspire people to have meaningful, back-and-forth, respectful discussions in the comments. This must happen in a way that is not spammy or gratuitous.
Be authentically shared.
Generate interactions. They look at likes, comments, and reactions to help determine which content should get distribution priority. But, again, these interactions should happen organically.
Videos may face reduced distribution if they:
- Rely too heavily on static images.
- Look like manufactured sharing, content not related to any theme of their Page.
- Resort to baiting tactics, urging people to interact with content through likes, shares, comments, and other actions in order to artificially boost engagement.
- Intentionally withholds information, sensationalizes content, or misleads viewers.
Let us know what we can do to increase video retention and build greater awareness and engagement.
-Lori
Reach out to me anytime on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.
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