Speaker 1: Facebook video ads are one of the most effective types of creatives that you can make, but the difference between a great Facebook or Instagram video ad and one that doesn't perform well at all is huge. So in this video, I'm going to show you everything you need to create a great Facebook video ad that also works on Instagram. You'll learn what equipment you need, how long to make your videos, the style to use and the structure, meaning what to say and when, as well as some cool little editing tricks that you can use to get more engagement and increase the performance even further. First of all, let's just dispel the myth that you need fancy equipment and things to make a good video ad. All you need, a smartphone, one with a camera, a tripod, something to put on, you can see I've got this one here, and I recommend a lavalier mic if you've got one. So that's one of these mics that clip on. The reason for that is because audio is the most important part of a video ad. Sounds weird, I know, but you can actually get away with a video ad where the picture quality isn't perfect, but you can't really get away with one where the audio quality isn't good. If the audio quality isn't good, people are going to scroll past that really quickly. So if you've got those three things, it's all you need. In terms of the format, what I recommend is square or vertical. So I would take your video and record it in a vertical or portrait format, because that way you can use it on the vertical placements like reels and stories, and you can crop it and use it in a square format on Facebook and Instagram newsfeed, for example. It gives you the most flexibility in terms of where your video ad can run. And that's really important because you want to get the most bang for your buck out of every piece of content or every ad that you create. And by doing it that way, you spread it across the widest range of placements. Now, when it comes to video length, I like to aim for 60 seconds or less. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to the optimum length of an ad. But the reason I go for 60 seconds or less is, again, it gives me flexibility in terms of where I place my video ad. The limit for reels ads, both Instagram reels and Facebook reels, at the time of recording this video, it always changes. But as of right now, it's 60 seconds. So if I can get my video ads under 60 seconds, they'll run on the Facebook newsfeed, the Instagram newsfeed, Instagram reels, Facebook reels, and pretty much every other placement. So that's why I like to go for 60 seconds or less. Now, when it comes to creating a great Facebook video ad, the most important thing is, of course, the content. And so now let's look at exactly what you should say and when, or in other words, the structure of the ad. The first thing in any ad is what we call the hook. And the objective of the hook is to get the attention of your ideal future customer. Now, note there I said, of your ideal future customer. We don't just want to get anyone's attention. And that's why it's not a great idea to get attention by doing things like yelling, hey, stop, check this out, don't scroll. Things like that don't work. Maybe they work five years ago, if ever. But it's not an effective way to get attention. The better way to get attention is to create a great hook. Here are my three favorite ways to do that. The first one is to go with a contrarian take or a contrarian opinion. So the way that you do that is you say something that differs from the traditional sort of views or opinions in your industry. Something that goes against what most people kind of view as being the truth. And the reason this works so well is because if somebody just believes something is being true, and then they see somebody who's saying the opposite to that, they're usually going to stop and listen. Either because A, they want to defend their point of view. We naturally want to defend something that we believe as being a core truth. Well, the other reason is it just invokes a genuine curiosity. And you think, hey, what's this person talking about? I just like, I'd always just assumed that that was the way things are. So here's an example. Let's say you have a product or a service that teaches people how to get their baby to sleep better. As a parent of two young kids, this one's applicable to myself. So we'll roll with it. Starting a video ad with a contrarian take could be something like this. You can get your baby to take great naps and sleep through the night without forcing them to cry it out. And no, it doesn't include bed sharing. So what I did right there in that example was I contradicted a common belief in that space, which is that you either need to use harsh, what they call sleep training methods, which is letting your baby cry until they fall asleep without going back in and checking on them, or just doing nothing and dealing with it. They're kind of viewed as the only two options. And then at the end there, when I said, and it doesn't involve bed sharing, the belief there is that the only other way to do it is kind of bring them into your own bed, which most parents don't want to do, because then that means that their sleep is disrupted all night. Now let's look at another example that's a little closer to home, and we'll talk about online courses specifically. If I taught people how to sell online courses, I could say something like you can sell a seven-figure online course without ever bothering with social media. Again, because the common belief is that, well, if you want to be in this industry, you have to be big into social media to promote yourself. And contrarian opinion is, well, you don't have to do that. Now, the second framework I like to use to create a great hook is to lean into the fears of your audience. And that's because for better or for worse, as humans, we're more likely to move away from pain than we are towards pleasure. And so by bringing somebody's attention to a pain or a fear they have that they may not have even known they had, they're more likely to take action to move away from that than if you say something positive and ask them to move towards something they actually want. Strange? Hey, that's human nature. So here's an example if we use baby sleep again. This one mistake I see parents making is the most common reason I see for babies not sleeping through the night and refusing to take long naps. So you can see with that example, we're talking about a mistake. And so naturally, parents want to know what is the mistake and are they making it so they can avoid it? We could do the same in the golf niche. Here's an example of that. If you're a golfer and you're making this mistake with your swing, it's probably costing you five to 10 strokes every time you play. Again, you can see there it's talking about a mistake. So golfers want to know, hey, am I doing that thing? And if they are, you know, they're going to want to learn how to fix it. And the third framework that you can use here to create a great hook is just to simply go with something that evokes curiosity. So using an example that applies closely to me, I could say something like, The way to succeed with Facebook ads in a post iOS 14.5 world is to use something that I call compounding consolidation. Now, just so you know, I literally made that up on the spot. There is no such thing as compounding consolidation, just to clarify that. But you can see what I did there. Naturally, people who are suffering with tracking since the iOS 14.5 update are going to be interested in that. And by using that method name, the compounding consolidation that I just made up, that evokes more curiosity because it sounds like, ah, there's something here that I don't know about. This is something I haven't heard of. I'm going to stay and listen to whatever this guy's talking about. To see this in action, take a look at this really good example. Now, does color grading require expensive equipment and years of education to master? Absolutely not. So once you've got a great hook, the next step is to really connect with their pain or struggle or challenge. And the reason for that is because it demonstrates to the audience that you really do understand what it is that they're going through. And that's important because if you want them to listen to you, they really need to believe that you are somebody who understands them and therefore can actually help them solve that problem. Now, this doesn't have to be long or complex. If I use my iOS 14.5 example, I could say something like this. Since iOS 14.5 was released, we've seen 25% or more of our conversion events not being tracked in the Facebook ad manager. That means that making good decisions about the performance of our ads has become extremely difficult, okay? Or if we take the baby sleep example, I could say something like this. Most parents believe that if they want to improve their baby's sleep, they can either do nothing or they have to choose these really harsh sleep training methods that leave their baby crying all alone in a room by themselves with no one coming in to check on them. But that's just not true. You can actually improve your baby's sleep and yours using methods that are both gentle and effective, okay? Again, that's as simple as it needs to be. You just need to speak a little bit more to that pain or that struggle that your audience is experiencing. After that, you need to answer the question in your audience's mind, which is, why should I listen to this person? So I like to just add something really simple here and just introduce who you are and what you do. So for me, I would say something as simple as, hey, I'm Andrew Hubbard, founder of Hubbard Digital. I've managed over $50 million in profitable ad spend for clients all around the world, including people like X, Y, and Z. And I would say a few names of past and present clients that people have heard of. If I was to take the sleep example, I could say something like, hey, I'm Andrew Hubbard. I'm a pediatrician and certified sleep specialist who's worked with babies for over 10 years or something like that. Please note, I am not a pediatrician or a sleep specialist, just to clarify in case anybody is wondering about that. That's literally all you need to say here. Keep it short. Remember, you've got 60 seconds. You don't want to waste it on talking all about you. The audience just needs to know who the heck you are and why to listen. After that, you're going to talk about your solution. So what is it that you're offering and how can you actually help people? So if I take the iOS 14.5 example again, at this point, I would say something like this. I found a way to track my campaign performance with 99% accuracy so I can continue to make great data-driven decisions and see exactly which campaign, ad set, and ad is delivering the best performance with any given account. This is easy to set up. It's actually free and it is really, really reliable. It basically gets you back to the same point you're at before iOS 14.5. So you can see that's really simple. I'm just explaining what it is and what the benefit is for the person listening. If we use the sleep example again, I could say something like this. Create a free online training series for new parents that walks you through how to get your baby to take better naps, have great sleep, and do it all without any harsh sleep training or crying it out. Best of all, you can start doing these things from tonight and see the benefits right away. You need to be thinking about this from an audience perspective. And the main thing here is that you communicate why this is so beneficial for them. The final part of your video ad script is your call to action. This is where you tell the audience what to do next. It sounds obvious, but it gets missed surprisingly often. So you simply say, hey, here is what you need to go do next in order to get the thing. So if I take my iOS 14 example again, I would just say something like this. Hey, if you wanna learn exactly how I do it, there's a free training you can go and watch. All you need to do is click the link below or above this video to go and check it out now. And if I take the baby sleep example, I would say something very similar. I would say, if you want to learn how to get your baby to sleep better starting from tonight, go ahead and click the link above or below this video and sign up for the training now. It's free and I guarantee it's going to be worth every minute of your time. It only needs to be short and sweet. Tell them very clearly what they need to do to get the thing. That's literally the structure of your video ad. But now let's talk about some clever editing tricks that you can use to get people to watch your video ads for longer, to engage more and to take action more frequently. All of which are obviously really important in improving the performance of your Facebook video ads or your Instagram video ads, one in the same here. But before we do, I'd like to take a really quick moment to thank the sponsor of this week's video, Skillshare. If you have a particular skill you'd like to improve from video editing to marketing to freelancing and entrepreneurship and much more, you can find classes that match your goals and interests. Like this one that I'm checking out now, Advanced Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro by Jordi van der Poot. Jordi hosts one of the biggest YouTube channels about filmmaking and video editing, Cinecom, with over 2 million subscribers. So he's quite literally one of the best people in the world to learn the skill of video editing from. And Skillshare is where you can get access to world-class experts like Jordi and so many more. I joined Skillshare with the goal of learning more about productivity and filmmaking. And every class I've taken on the platform has exceeded my expectations and provided something that I now actually use on a regular basis. The quality is incredible. I've learned a ton from Skillshare. And the good news is, thanks to Skillshare, you can actually get access to every single class for a month for free. All you need to do is click the link in the description. The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a one-month free trial of Skillshare. So thank you again, Skillshare, for sponsoring this video. So back to editing your ads, the best way to do it. I like to create two different formats, one square version and one that is a portrait format, as I mentioned before. So the square version is going to run on Instagram feeds, Facebook feeds, and many other different placements. The portrait version or 9x16 version is going to run on Reels and on Stories placements. So the first edit you're going to wanna do is to crop those accordingly. One of the easiest ways to increase retention or get people to watch your video ads for longer is by doing these two simple things. The first one is adding a timer bar along the bottom of your video, like in this example.

Speaker 2: Be ready to exit. When the right opportunity comes along for an exit, most entrepreneurs...

Speaker 1: The second thing you can do is adding these hard-coded, really attractive subtitles that follow along with the words as they're being spoken. That also gets people to stay and watch for longer. As a matter of fact, the majority of video content on Facebook and Instagram is watched with sound off. So those subtitles or captions are extremely important and actually have them add value. Instead of being those little ugly subtitles that you see on most Facebook video ads, it actually provides a nice little boost. The next thing you wanna do is go ahead and cut out anything that's unnecessary or repetitive. And you should be ruthless with this. Anything that doesn't need to be in your video ad shouldn't be there. Cut it out. They're the basics. You don't wanna go too crazy with your video ads. And the reason for that is because we tend to see videos that look native performing better on the platform. That means something that's quite simple and could have been recorded by one of your friends on Facebook. That's native content. If you do wanna go a little bit further, having different zooms at different times throughout the video is another great way to increase retention and also adding sound effects at different points where it makes sense. Now, once you've gone ahead and you've got a great video ad, the next thing to do is write really good copy to go with it. And to do that, you should watch this video next where I walk through everything you need to know to create great Facebook and Instagram ad copy. Hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one. Bye.