Facebook & Instagram Video Best Practices

TL;DR

  • Be original, conversational, and authentic to engage your audience

  • Create long-form videos using Facebook Watch to keep fans engaged for a longer period of time

  • Utilize Instagram’s Feed posts, Stories, Lives, IGTVs, and Reels to grow your brand and interact with your followers

Sharing your fitness app on social media is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy because it helps grow your brand and business. As we all know, social media is way more than just posting photos for our friends to like and comment on. Social media videos are essential today, and when executed properly, they can make all the difference in engaging your community.

In order to create a video that benefits your brand and brings in new subscribers, you must remember these four principles when you distribute your video:

  1. Integrity: Your video content should be original, meet the community standards for the social media platform, and create authentic engagement.

  2. Duration: The length of the video should be catered to each specific platform. For example, Facebook Watch videos should be at least 60 seconds long, while Reels are ideal for 30-second videos.

  3. Loyalty and intent: Create videos specifically for your target audience in the hopes that they will become return viewers.

  4. Conversation: Your content should facilitate conversations, video shares, and reactions.

Keep reading to learn how to build the foundations for success when it comes to posting videos on Facebook and Instagram.

5 Video Best Practices for Facebook & Instagram

  1. Get to your main idea within the first 30 seconds of your video to draw your audience in from the start.

  2. If necessary, rework content to fit the social platform you’re publishing it to. For example, a long-form Facebook Watch video may translate to IGTV, but will need to be trimmed down for an Instagram Reel.

  3. Talk directly to your community in an interactive and conversational manner.

  4. Create your videos for mobile (vertical videos!)

  5. Design your videos for sound-off viewing.

  6. Play around with each platform’s formatting and effects.

  7. Collaborate with other creators to gain exposure to new fans.

Now that we know some simple tips to remember when filming a video for both platforms, we can get into the specifics of posting videos on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook Tips

Facebook Watch is the platform’s free video-on-demand service, in which businesses and companies that have a Facebook Page can post Facebook Watch videos to disseminate information. These long-form videos are at least one minute long.

Since June 2019, there has been a 74% growth in people who spend one minute in Watch every month. On average, daily visitors are spending over 26 minutes viewing videos on Watch.

If you choose to create Facebook Watch content, you can keep people engaged by following these principles:

  • Be engaging: Create videos that are able to spark meaningful interactions and authentic shares between your followers. Your video should inspire a discussion to take place in the comments section.

  • Be original: Only share videos that you created firsthand, not something you’re resharing.

  • Be relevant: Videos should capture people’s attention because they are relevant to their interests. You can optimize your videos for search using clear titles, descriptions, and tags.

  • Be consistent: Publish content on a regular basis to keep your fans engaged so they will return to your page regularly.

  • Be retentive: With Facebook Watch, you have the ability to create higher-quality and longer videos (three-plus minutes) and your goal should be to create content that keeps your viewers watching to the end.

Instagram Tips

Instagram has many ways to share videos on its platform, including Feed, Stories, Live, IGTV, and Reels. All of these channels have different viewing experiences and therefore, you should tailor your content to each one specifically. If you are looking to grow your brand to its fullest potential, you must take advantage of all of these different channels and post on each one consistently.

Feed

Share your everyday favorite moments and memories, and follow these best practices:

  • Post a mix of videos and photos in a vertical format

  • Use hashtags and geotags

  • Use carousels to post more photos and videos, creating higher engagement

  • Keep active by engaging with your community in the comments section

  • Post once a day

Stories

Stories should be used to interact and create a close connection with your audience, following these best practices:

  • Utilize the tools Instagram provides:

    • Questions sticker to answer your follower’s questions or ask your own

    • Poll and quiz stickers to playfully involve your audience

    • Music and lyrics stickers to add audio

    • Countdown sticker to build anticipation for any moment you are sharing

  • Post to your Stories on a daily basis

  • Regularly update your “My App” Story highlight with app-related content

  • Post Stories five to eight times per idea you are sharing (i.e. to discuss a new program or challenge)

Live

Livestream to your followers anywhere, any time to show part of your daily life. Follow these tips:

  • Go Live to show part of your daily routine, share exciting news, or just connect with your audience in real time

  • Read the comments as they come in and answer questions in a Q&A style

  • No need to plan or write up a script beforehand, just be yourself!

  • Go Live once a month

IGTV

Create longer videos to share even more with your audience. Keep these tips in mind:

  • Maximum 60-minute videos

  • Immediately draw in the viewer within the first three seconds

  • Always keep your content original

  • Use sound, editing, and graphics to make your video stand out

  • Post an IGTV once a week

Reels

Reels is the perfect place to keep up with Instagram trends, while expressing yourself, and reaching new audiences. Follow these tips:

  • Ideal for 30-second videos

  • Used for entertainment and to create trending content

  • Shared via your explore page in a new way that helps you reach new audiences

  • Experiment and play around with your favorite techniques to create Reels

  • Create and post a Reel every day to keep engagement high

The goal is to be consistent, so post regularly in a way that you can maintain and your followers will not feel too overwhelmed — or too underwhelmed!