In this episode, Brian Meert discusses the most common mistakes businesses make when creating their Facebook ad creatives and the impact better creatives have on ad performance.
Anna Barnes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaebarnes/
https://www.instagram.com/bananabarnesie/
https://www.facebook.com/anna.barnes.1253
Brian Meert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmeert
Duke of Digital
https://www.dukeofdigital.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dukeofdigital/
AdvertiseMint
https://www.advertisemint.com
https://business.facebook.com/advertisemint/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/advertisemint/
https://www.instagram.com/advertisemint
In this episode, Brian Meert discusses the most common mistakes businesses make when creating their Facebook ad creatives and the impact better creatives have on ad performance.
Anna Barnes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaebarnes/
https://www.instagram.com/bananabarnesie/
https://www.facebook.com/anna.barnes.1253
Brian Meert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmeert
Duke of Digital
https://www.dukeofdigital.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dukeofdigital/
AdvertiseMint
https://www.advertisemint.com
https://business.facebook.com/advertisemint/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/advertisemint/
https://www.instagram.com/advertisemint
I've seen a lot of businesses make this one mistake and it's costing them a lot more than what they realize. Raise your pinkies because in today's episode we're gonna teach you how to fix this by improving your creative. Presented by AdvertiseMint.
Introduction:The Duke of digital will guide you through the rapidly changing landscape of digital marketing, social media and how to grow your business online. To submit a question for the show text 3 2 3 8 2 1 2 0 00 or visit Dukeofdigital.com If you need an expert to fix your ads the friendly team at AdvertiseMint is ready to help. Visit AdvertiseMint. That's mint.com or call 8 4 4 2 3 6 4 6 8 6. to grow your business, here's your host Brian Meert.
Brian Meert:I want to introduce you to today's guest Anna Barnes. Hi. What's up. Hey how's it going. It's going great. I'm glad you're able to be here. You know Anna oversees the video division at AdvertiseMint. We've worked together for quite a while. Tell me a little bit about some of the stuff of what you do here on on a daily basis and how that works.
Anna Barnes:Yeah. So I'm the director of video for what we call video mint which is a sector off of AdvertiseMint. And we create fast paced video productions for businesses that need help with their creatives and their Facebook ads. So a lot of people come to us with creatives that are from like an old TV commercial or anything like that and they think that they can run that as a Facebook ad and it's going to perform just as well as it did on TV a nd advertising i n the old kind of platforms. And what we do is we take their creative and turn it vertical for Facebook and Instagram advertising or we create new content for them in a fast paced fashion that's g onna get their results up right away.
Brian Meert:And I love this. I mean it's what you just said took like 20 seconds to go through but there's so much that goes into this. And it's such a fascinating topic because a lot of businesses still approach Facebook ads like traditional advertising and that is such a big mistake. And it's incredible because of what's going into the technology behind the advertising. And ultimately I guess from our standpoint what we've been able to do is we get to see a lot of different either clients or people coming through saying Can you review what we're doing. So we get to see a lot of these mistakes that are being made to be like you. And one of the most common mistakes I see is as a company thinking I need to make one big image I need to pick up perfect stock photo or make a little stock video and I'm going to upload it to Facebook. And there we go. That's great. I'm done and it's over.
Anna Barnes:Yeah well what we've noticed is that you can do that approach but everything that you put out has a timeline and they get it. It's going to die within a certain period of time on Facebook even if you create the most amazing video that's has the biggest celebrities and it has the best special effects and you put on Facebook and performed amazingly well but it has it has its own timeline like everything has activity on Facebook. So well we found that we like to do is just create a bunch of little video content that aren't as high of a scale. And we put those out there and they last for a good period of time but then you just keep putting more and more out there so that nothing is really even if something does get ad fatigue. You have something new right away and Facebook likes that they see oh there's another video and there's people commenting there's liking on this new thing and it's just constantly putting new stuff out there and that's what people want to see it's just more people talking about what you're selling and what you're advertising.
Brian Meert:Yeah. I love that you know to some extent to take a step back. It really goes down into the algorithm the technology behind Facebook which is where this change came from a lot of people don't understand how it works or what goes into it. And because they don't understand it they they plan for what they've always done in advertising and to some extent you know the simple version is Facebook doesn't want to lose users. They don't want people to leave Facebook Instagram and go somewhere else. And the one quickest way to get Facebook to lose users is to have it be boring. And so advertisers that put up boring ads Facebook is like we don't want those here and we want to incentivize advertisers they're putting up content it's different new engaging fine and it's just it's incredible to see the difference in cost for advertisers that very much invest in creating that new content or something that's out there versus advertisers that just put up an ad and sit back and think it's all OK. Yeah.
Anna Barnes:People don't want to be spammed on Facebook they come to Facebook to engage with people and connect to a community. And when they go on and see an ad that's just like by this time like here's what I'm selling. Get it now. Give me your money. Like people aren't interested in that they want to see real people talking about something and creating a conversation and something that they can engage with and comment on and like and be part of the community on it.
Brian Meert:Yeah. So I mean that's the kind of the premise of today's conversation and I asked Andy to be here because this is by far I think one of the most critical elements that's overlooked by a lot of companies. And I just I don't think Dave they understand what's really happening. I don't think they understand the value. I mean when we've done this for a lot of advertising I mean you work directly with the media buyers and there's times don't come back and be like costs are like 50 percent lower once we're putting out new creative and this is incredible versus other advertisers like no we already have something that's good just use that you know maybe change a format to re edit it up but it's something that people have seen before. And I think that's really the main issue is that once someone's seen it the lights will skip right past Oh skip right past it and I think that's where you know in the algorithm you're actually penalized if if people are skipping over your ad there's a timer that goes on the back end of Facebook when your ad is in the screen of the news feed on your phone that timer is running and the longer that goes the more Facebook views your ads are valuable. So it's it's incredible that that's just something that's kind of come into play. Most people just don't know about and they just assume oh it's just my ad and I'm just paying you know this high CPM price and everything is OK. So what I wanted to do was to run through a couple of things creative best practices questions for you to help be able to share some of the advice with other people that maybe you weren't aware of this before today. So the first question I had was you know in your opinion what's kind of changed with AD creatives over the past couple of years.
Anna Barnes:So ads on your mobile devices now all should be mostly vertical. Everything that you've created for like TV that's horizontal it shouldn't it should be optimized for a mobile device now and be turned into a vertical. So formats like for 10 80 by 10 80 which would be square on Facebook or a by 30 13 50 on Instagram would be the same on Facebook it just takes up more space in the feed and allows your what you're selling to be seen on a larger scale basically.
Brian Meert:I think this is crazy because this is generally the biggest stumbling block for a lot of people because their entire creation process has been great for widescreen format. Right. And so you know I don't know what would you say like if they're there in widescreen. They have to reissue. Can they edit some of it.
Anna Barnes:I know a lot of people come to us with these horizontal formats already and what we do is we'll just put it into I don't cut our premier whatever you're editing it and we just chop it up into a vertical format. So if there's two people in the video we just focus on one person and then cut to the other and it's just where we just basically blow it up and make it bigger for your screen so you can repurpose old videos. But I mean if you have to have the means to create new content shoot a vertical.
Brian Meert:Got it. Yeah. No I mean it definitely I mean it is critical when it comes to the real estate on a mobile phone and I think that's where it's where everyone's eyes are at when it comes to digital. Not that you know computers or your desktops aren't critical or important but it really is the mobile phone. I mean we just see most of the traffic coming from that. So you know when you go in mobile devices and especially with like the story formats or kind of the new video the feed format of like apps like tick tock you know it is video first in a vertical format and that's just how people are viewing content now.
Anna Barnes:Right. And what I've noticed actually as we went back from after shooting in vertical for a really long time we went back to try and shoot in a horizontal for a web page for one of our older clients and we just noted that there was like a lot of dead space like you don't need all that extra space around you that you just need the person who's talking. And that's what people want to see is that person would you say like Should businesses be focusing on filming everything in vertical now or should they do both there. I mean well we primarily shoot just for vertical if you're shooting just for Facebook Instagram ads shoot for vertical. But if you want to put it on like you're your Web site or anything like that I mean it doesn't hurt to shoot for horizontal and then cut it up to vertical for your ads.
Brian Meert:It's great it's great advice. You know what else what else has changed when it's come to kind of creative over the last couple of years has there been anything else besides just the vertical content kind of mobile phones.
Anna Barnes:What we've noticed is that the attention span of the viewers has dropped ticking off significantly like they have what Facebook described as the attention span of a goldfish. Yeah. So they have like one point seven seconds to grab your attention if you if you put a video out there. People are scrolling so fast haters want to figure out something that's gonna entertain them really quickly on Facebook. You have one point seven seconds you got their attention so everything needs to be kind of front loaded into your videos so that you know that they know exactly what you're selling right away or they know exactly what this person is trying to talk to them about.
Brian Meert:Yeah. No and I think that's you know another thing that when it comes to creatives you know it's amazing how many advertisers will begin with something that slow or that they think is very artistic or it blends into the brand. And I'm like You don't understand you. No one's going to see anything you've lost them.
Anna Barnes:You need to cut all of the excess like what I would call fluff like you just need to stick to the core elements of what this ad is and what what you want the viewer to know by the end of the video.
Brian Meert:Yeah yeah. I think the best example of this would be movie trailers. Yeah. You know movie trailers traditionally started out with you know a little green audiences everywhere you know and then it would go into a slow moving something of you know setting the stage for what the movie is. And on social that it's over. You know people were going by now. They'll have trailers with three to four three seconds of rapid cuts of what's in the trailer before the trailer begins. Because they need to be able to get someone's attention.
Anna Barnes:Exactly. It's not like the whole movie isn't going to be great. It's like you just need to cut out all of that fluff and even if you're kind of I don't know. Some some videographers and editors are kind of attached to their footage like it's their baby. But you just seem to like cut out all that fluff and just really sticks to core elements because that's all that people care about.
Brian Meert:Yeah yeah it is interesting. I mean almost because I've always loved movie trailers. And now when I watch the trailers of the trailers and I'm like man it is an art to figure out what to put in that three seconds which is you know the romance or the action or the you know the intense events or the fights or anything that goes on where you're like man this is you've got to grab my attention in two to three seconds.
Anna Barnes:Here's the thing that you can create all those alternative versions with the romance of making the action the beginning and whatever else and you can put that on Facebook and test and see what works what grabs people's attention best. So that's also one of the key elements is that you should test different beginnings.
Brian Meert:Yeah yeah. Oh for sure. And I think that's something that we always recommend is you know there isn't necessarily a perfect dad. I think you know that's one thing that we've always discussed here in the office which is the myth of there is one perfect dad. And I think you know that's something that's very much changed with the tools that have come out in terms of Facebook Instagram advertising is that you very easily can try five different versions in different formats or different layouts with different openings different closings and you know just switch around the stuff and so there isn't necessarily. We've done it perfectly and we're done it's let's create five versions and we upload them all. We'll find out which one does the best within the Facebook system and the Facebook algorithm and ride that one exactly and see how you can just keep making it better. Yeah I think it's so interesting because a lot of times in terms of creative you want to do things perfectly. And now what happens is you have a system that is like no we want to pick which one will perform best and we want to analyze the data. And so you've got to be able to just upload multiple versions and let the algorithm of the platform be able to figure out which one it likes best. And when you do that you know you can hit the gas on that one.
Anna Barnes:Exactly and you can come up with like the most high end high scale production and it could just flop where you could upload a video on your cell phone that's just somebody talking directly like a selfie video and it just looks like it succeeds so unbelievably well.
Brian Meert:Yeah. So it's so true. How that it does actually work like there are no actual rules. Yeah. Now you know we worked with a drone company one time or was a drone filmography here in Los Angeles and he had a couple of different videos but two main ones one was like this beautiful drone video of some of the most amazing shots like following trains you know right next to tunnels into the forest and over houses and just see had these really high end drones that he was filming these with and he had another video that was taken with a cell phone where he was out in a parking lot. It was on the ground and he was just lifting it up and it came back down and it was it was it was nothing exciting you know but it was one of these big you know like 10 rotor drones could probably carry up to like 30 or 50 pounds like it was a big one and that one destroyed this beautiful you know two minute video of some of the most scenic drone footage like what you'd see on the Apple screensaver on the Apple TV. It was just incredible to see people just felt like it was real or gritty and the results were you know more than double in terms of what he actually got out of the ads because that was the one that people looked at and were interested in. So I just I find it so fascinating that it doesn't always have to be perfect and in fact sometimes when something isn't perfect they can actually work to your advantage because it's real.
Anna Barnes:It looks like user generated content sometimes looks like a real person is talking about it.
Brian Meert:It looks like what else you would see on the news.
Anna Barnes:Exactly. It just blends in. Like people don't think it's an ad. They're just like at the end maybe sometimes I'm like oh you tricked me it's an advert. You got their attention and you.
Brian Meert:Yeah. Yeah. And I would say you know that kind of leads into the next thing that you know I'd love to talk about which is you know engagement. And that's something that's so critical now to be able to get with your ads. You know if you put up an ad and it's crickets you know that's Facebook sees that and they start to paralyze you being like Hey your ad is boring. And so being able to get people talking about your ad or conversing underneath your ad is so critical. But it's something. And this is what's funny you can't ask for.
Anna Barnes:So like what are your thoughts on Yeah you used people to like prompt them to comment below or like a smiley face if they like something versus the angry face if they like the other thing. But now we just kind of what we do to prompt engagement in a way that is allowed on Facebook is well we'll put something in the video that like maybe intrigues people to post their experience on it as well. So like we work with a beauty brand and I don't know how to phrase this with so we work with a brute a beauty brand that is a little bit. It's more of a like high tech product I guess. Yeah. So people don't always understand how it works. So what we do is we show them exactly how it works but sometimes it just kind of goes over their head. But there are people online that have had the products because it's been around for like 15 20 years now and they'll go in and comment like two people that have asked questions like How is this working or will it work on me. And they go back and it creates this whole conversation like yes it will work. I like it. It has this this effect on me it will have this effect on you and then it just creates this whole board line and people are posting pictures of their experiences with it and it just prompts people in a way that you wouldn't necessarily need to. You don't necessarily you don't necessarily need to ask for it just create the conversation.
Brian Meert:Nice nice. And I do think that that's something that is kind of key is that they forget a lot of advertisers forget that it is a social platform. And that adds a whole different element meaning when you're driving down the road you see a billboard you're like as a billboard like it's kind of secondary or you know whatever when you are watching TV it comes on like you may be at your house by yourself or with one other person. But when you see ads like your entire network you can tag people you can share your experiences right back with them. You can say I love this product I hate this product you know everything you have. You have the ability to instantaneously be able to give your feedback. And I think a lot of people forget that that they just approach it on I'm just giving someone's eyeball and they miss the ability to have that conversation with people or be able to go back and forth with them.
Speaker 8:Right.
Anna Barnes:And if you're shooting a video like a person and the talent is really really key you need to pick somebody that is easy to engage with. Like you don't want to pick. I mean you can pick like the most high end fashion model and she just doesn't really have anything to say like people want to be able to talk to you and have a conversation with the person that's in the video as well. People comment and like say like Oh you're beautiful or Oh I like your voice sounds like so and so or anything it prompts some sort of engagement like they want to talk with the person that's in the video. So if you pick up a boring person nobody's going to want to really talk to them. But if you pick somebody that they would want to be friends with like every time I have a talent come in I talk I tell them to talk to the camera as if this is your friend on the other side of the camera like you want to tell them exactly what you're experiences. And more often than not that's what performs best on Facebook.
Brian Meert:So true. I mean imagine walking into like a big networking meeting or something right. You look around everyone's doing the exact same thing and then there's one person that's lighting up or dancing or doing something funny I just want to be their friend. You want to hear what's going on over there like all of a sudden you're drawn to that. And people really need to realize that they need to do something that kind of stands out. And it doesn't need to be out of control standing out or awkward. It just needs to be something that's kind of fun or interesting that other people like. I want to look in that direction and see what's going on right.
Anna Barnes:And sometimes that even builds a bit more trust in the product.
Brian Meert:Oh yeah for sure. All right let's. Let's move on. So what what do you think businesses should know about Facebook and Instagram kind of creators from this point moving forward.
Anna Barnes:So you really want to be able to catch the media's attention in the field like you want to have something bright and colorful you want to have something that what would here's here's a term I'm gonna throw out its pattern interrupt. You want to be able to grab somebody's attention in a way that they wouldn't expect it to be like you want to put something on their feet that they wouldn't expect to see right away. And that's going to grab their attention to want to stay and figure out what's going on the video that can be with like a thumbnail. That's just a little bit out of the blue or but not spammy. You know you want it to so relate to the video and then really front load the message. I think we talked about that a little bit before but that's just that's really key to make sure that what you're what you want to be seen most is in the front of the video.
Brian Meert:I want to touch on that for a minute. I've seen some amazing videos come through from clients and they've got funny and they've got humor. They've got a great story. But what happens is it starts to slow and no one ever gets to the actual good part of the video because they didn't front load it with something that says here's what you're going to get out of this video or here's the benefit to you or did they just they start it off where it's just a little bit too slow. So I mean they've done everything right except for a front loaded where a person knows what to expect out of out of the video or gets the value prop right up front and something that you just said really stood out is you want to make the ad about the viewer.
Anna Barnes:You don't want to make it about like I don't know maybe the creator or something that's you want. You want to provide value to the viewer on the other end of the video you don't want to just make it be like me me me like this is the product and it's amazing here like you want to show the viewer how it's gonna help them in their daily lives.
Brian Meert:So Drew you know it's I've had that conversation so many times with other businesses around like hey we've got you know a couple of videos here. All of them are about a person giving you money right now today. And I was like What. What ones do you have or what videos do we have that help show the user what's valuable to them or answer their questions or help them have an emotion. And there's just a lot of times where people like well know we have to make sure we have sales.
Anna Barnes:And I'm like you're missing we need you know we need a mixture of all of these need to be able to build a relationship with the person on the other side of the phone because just then on the phone it's just them holding their phone and this person in front of them that they don't know is trying to sell them something. Yeah but if you make it about them they're like oh I'm now involved in this conversation.
Brian Meert:Yeah I mean what's crazy is you know one of the things that is kind of a rule of thumb that we shoot for here with a client that we have is that no person and would ever see the same creative from a company more than twice. And I know there's a lot of people listening that their minds are probably blown by that to be like Wait what. How is that. And it's not easy. I I've worked through that on a couple of projects where you know it's tough coming up with new things being able to execute getting the creatives done and filmed and shot or edited and everything together especially when you get into the higher budget clients where there's a lot of moving parts and it's very easy to try to burn through creatives where they've got budgets that could allow everyone that they're looking to target to be able to see that in a couple of days. What that means is we've got to be right behind it with something else that's new. You know what. You know in terms of that is basically kind of two things that I would say we generally shoot for or try to create what we would call the lean forward or lean back. Could you talk about that so that people can kind of understand what that is in reference to.
Anna Barnes:Right. So you want to when you're showing somebody a video on Facebook Instagram you want to kind of design the video for the moment that they're in. So there's two different types of moments when somebody's taking out on their phone it could be when they're leaning forward which is when they're like on their way to work or they're waiting to get their coffee or anything like that. And in that time they don't have a lot of time to sit on their phone and watch a long video. So you want to keep the ad so you want to keep that short and to the point and it's no longer than six 15 seconds max. When there's lean back that's normally when they're at home and they're relaxing and they're ready to sit on their phone for a little while and in that time you can make that a little bit longer you and explain the product's little bit more and more detail and they'll have the time to sit there and watch it and really maybe even engage with that at that time.
Brian Meert:Yeah. So there is value and there are depending upon where a customer is kind of in their journey there is value for longer form content. So I think it's another kind of myth that people have about videos is everything needs to be three seconds or you know seven seconds or you're very very short. And we've found at times the complete opposite.
Anna Barnes:Right. We have created like a few three to five minute ads that just put in all the information that anybody would want to know. And that actually performed pretty well in the top of the funnel because everybody that we showed the ad to knew exactly what they were getting it by the end of the ad. Like they're like oh this is this. These are the features. This is what's going to do it. This is what it's going to do for me. And this is why I need it. And so they'll buy it right away because they know everything that they need to know they didn't need to wait and think about it. They're like yep this is what I want.
Brian Meert:Yeah. So even though while some of the lean lean forward audience maybe you know they may not have time. The people that did have time in that moment would watch the entire thing and it's the end of it. They're like Oh yeah I'm ready to buy. Exactly. Which is so interesting because that's generally counter intuitive to what the advice is for most people which is just create only short videos. Just a quick little snippet and that's it. Which I do think is important because you're you're trying to get someone's attention. But as they move further down the funnel we start to add the longer videos that answer the questions that walk them through. Show them how the product is used and have that all kind of build out into building that credibility right.
Anna Barnes:Well I think the reason why we have the majority of videos shorter format is because the majority of the day is the lean forward versus the lean back like you you're leaning back ready to watch a long ad between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. when you're ready to go to bed you're relaxing and stuff like that. So the rest of the day is when you would want to be targeting with those short format ads.
Brian Meert:Yep yep. One last point I wanted to touch on for four Instagram or Facebook creatives you know talk about designing for sound off and this is something else it's you know extremely critical. They can you know make or break campaigns and I've again seen tons of videos that look fantastic but most of the people have the audio off and a lot of times they miss that. Walk us through some of the things that you do.
Anna Barnes:Right. So just like what I was saying before the lean forward period like you're in a bus you're at your desk you're waiting for coffee you're not listening to the video with sound on unless you have headphones and. But sometimes like you're in your office and you are just scrolling through your phone just like mindlessly for a minute and you're like oh here's this ad but you don't wanna turn the sound on because that's disruptive so you want to be able to put subtitles on your video or just design it for sound off completely with nobody talking which I don't usually like to do. We normally like to do the subtitle thing but you also want to delight for sound on. So if somebody is going to have their sound on with their headphones or if they're leaning back in their bed they'll be able to listen to it and feel the person for real like on the in the video verses. This is it.
Brian Meert:Yeah yeah. No no. It's maybe verse says I think you know it's interesting because you're so many so many people I see you know whether in different scenarios or at a store you know as the I'm always watching you know what what people are doing out especially if it involves Facebook and Instagram and you know so many people would just stop and watch and they when they can comprehend what's going on in the video with the words or with the captions whether through you know video meme sometimes we'll use those sometimes we'll put them in creatively right on top of the videos sometimes we'll use motion graphics cut in between the video.
Speaker 10:Yeah. Yeah. Go for it.
Anna Barnes:So for motion graphics we what we've done is actually if you don't want to go sit through and put the subtitles on manually for the entire video if you have like a one minute or 30 second video it's will front load it and just put all of the most important information like hey it's so-and-so talking about this product and this is why I'm excited to try it and it's just those core elements at the beginning that come in in an interesting way and that can help grab attention as well.
Brian Meert:Nice. So I love it. Yeah it's always made sure to front designed for sound off make sure that that's in there as well. It's such a critical element and the videos that you know generally these are I guess the stuff that we talk about today are the ones that we see perform the best when they have kind of all these elements in place. Well let's let's move on now. So you know people there's businesses out there right there are small businesses someone is just starting. There's huge mega businesses with everything that that's running. You'll talk to me through you know how to create videos when it's kind of on a budget. Like what. What would you recommend like if I'm just starting now a company. I've got a small business I can't get a big film crew to come through. I can't hire actors and models. You know what would be your thoughts on how to be able to get videos to perform well on Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 11:Give me a second. OK. So you don't need a huge investment you don't need.
Anna Barnes:You don't need a big budget to be able to invest in videos for Facebook and Instagram. It's not the same as like television at a Super Bowl ad. If you're creating like this huge scale production with a celebrity and motion graphics and everything like that you can perform very well on Facebook even with like a cell phone just as long as there's a person on the other end of it talking to you. So what we like to do actually is not create those huge high budget things and instead give them like two to eight videos a month. So what we do is like a kind of subscription thing so that we're creating a bunch of videos consistently and constantly testing what's working fasting and figuring out what we could be doing better by putting videos up every single month into Facebook and seeing what sticks. So we don't even use like the highest end talent we use. Up and coming talent they can come and just like honestly they're a little bit more exciting in front of the camera just because they're trying a little bit harder because they want to be able to like make it through. So we use up and coming talent that no Facebook can perform well and talk to people as if they're their friend and we just create short videos out of that. Like you don't need a huge production crew you can just do it at home or in your office or if you just get like a white backdrop like that performs just significantly well on its own.
Brian Meert:Yeah know it's interesting because you know a lot of times companies or brands or you know startups will talk about you know the anchor video. Right. And for those of you are familiar anchor videos are generally two to three minute video sometimes longer. Know this would be like when you go to Kickstarter you know there's a product and what they're trying to do is to walk you through you know all the elements of the product why it's beneficial to you. Who the founders are why it was created. You know they try to in a short period of time kind of give you everything and a high quality experience to be able to say this is who we are and what we do.
Speaker 6:And you know there's a lot of companies out there that will go even beyond that where they're like we are trying to you know hire comedians and every other phrase and anchor video is funny and and witty clips and you know we've seen those work well but they still run against the downside of Facebook which is all ads eventually will die or burn out and you can show that to a person one time. But the minute they see it a second time they're scrolling past it and it's now penalizing you. So we find that they don't last forever.
Anna Barnes:Right. So you could pile all of your money into one big high production anchor video or you could do multiple little ones that you disperse over time that won't create as much for ad fatigue.
Brian Meert:Yeah. Yeah. So I mean that's it's just something to always keep in mind. You know it's the high value videos are fantastic. You know they they do have value but at the same point you know the smaller consistent updated videos we've seen to perform generally as well. And a lot of times they come at a much much lower price actually that you that the anchor videos generally are expensive to produce and there's a lot that has to go into making sure that they're correct and the script is dried and they're just they take a longer point of time and that's it just goes back to kind of the element of I think perfection that a lot of brands and companies like it needs to be perfect and I think the ability to give your phone over to 10 different people and be like hey film yourself talking about this this product of this service what would you like about it. It just feels so real and authentic or people like oh hey I like it because the color is good or I like it because my mom had something like this when I was a kid and I always wanted one just like it or you never know what stories kind of come out with it and those a lot of times just or are authentic and people can respond to it. Hi. The same story too.
Anna Barnes:Exactly and you can take months create years creating that huge anchor video whereas the shorter less high budget video would take a week maybe in that way you're putting the video out there and getting sales right away. So you're not you're you're losing money investing in video that's going to take so long to produce.
Brian Meert:Got it. OK so let me ask you this kind of rapid fire question how much time should I spend on making a video a single video that would go up and live on Facebook and Instagram and let me ask this from two standpoints one would be a small business you know limited team limited resources the other one to be established business a big brand. They're growing they're wanting to do more what would be your thoughts on that like how much time should be spent on making every one of these videos.
Anna Barnes:I would say you shouldn't spend more than a month creating a video. Sometimes we'll create a video within a week depending on how intensive the script is and who we want to cast for it. It really shouldn't take that long when you're producing for Facebook and Instagram if you're creating a low budget video. If you're creating a higher budget video it could take up to six months. If you're getting a set and doing you know proper design and set design and you need a larger crew to fund like and talent and shot sheets and scripts.
Brian Meert:But if you're just having one script with two angles and you're moving around a backdrop it shouldn't take you more than a week to shoot that nice nice and I would even say you know take that maybe a little step further which is you know I get and I've had lots of conversations with you know entrepreneurs or small business they're starting now they have to do a hundred things perfectly but they are limited with their resources. I would still say you know it is fine to grab your cell phone film yourself in a vertical way and try a couple of different versions and upload those and see how they work. And that's a great way I think to be able to get started. And then once you start to realize I want to improve on that and get a little bit better that's when I think you should reach out to a video team.
Anna Barnes:Yeah I agree completely you can do the video yourself. Like in selfie style on your phone and just throw out and see what works.
Brian Meert:Nice. OK last question before we come to an end. What advice would you have for for other wisdom or what advice would you have for other businesses or entrepreneurs that are out there. In regards to kind of creating videos that will perform well on Facebook or Instagram just start producing content and putting it up to see what works.
Anna Barnes:You would be surprised like the most organic looking shaky video could perform outstandingly well and if you and you're not going to know unless you put it out there and give it a shot you as long as you kind of create a video that has all the elements in it that would this is a good question as long as you know what you want to say in the video and have somebody that knows how to say it well you can create a good video put up on Facebook to perform well.
Brian Meert:I love that. I love that. Great advice. Well thank you so much. I mean if anyone listening needs help with their videos or want to be able to figure out if there's options for video team they can be able to reach out. You can reach Anna and her team at 8 4 4 2 3 6 4 6 8 6 ext 2 and that'll get you right into where you can talk with someone about your options and what's available to you. But thank you so much Anna for being on the show for having me. I think it's you. Thank you for your advice. Like it's something that you know we were joking before we came in here that you know it's like what are we going to say. Because I guess we talk about it all day every day so it feels kind of common but there are so many people that I see doing this wrong and it just I see what happens next which is they get overcharged by Facebook. It always makes me cringe to be like and you don't get to see the advertiser next to you your competitor that's paying 40 percent less than you because they're putting up videos you know every week and you've only put up one in four months and you don't see that price. But we do get to see kind of behind the scenes. And so I just always am like I want to tell you guys like a video is in creative are what make the difference. But thank you so much for joining us today. Have a wonderful day.
Outro:Thank you for listening to the Duke of digital podcast with Brian Meert. One to network with other business owners. Join our exclusive group at Facebook dot com slash groups slash. Do you have digital. Fancy the Duke diva five star review on your favorite podcast app and you could be mentioned on the show. The Duke of digital was produced by advertise mint and recorded in Hollywood California. All rights reserved.