Why Your Facebook Video Ads Should Be Silent

The best places to advertise are where consumer traffic is heaviest. That's Advertising 101. In the electronic world, there is no heavier consumer traffic than on Facebook. But before you rush onto the world's busiest platform with your ad, there are some recent changes involving Facebook video ads you should be aware of.

Facebook is now asking businesses to develop video ads that don't require audio.

There's plenty of other video content that includes audio on the social media giant, but Facebook says this move is designed to protect both them and their advertisers.

The concern is that the audio of an ad could begin playing loudly at an unexpected moment. The research Facebook commissioned revealed that four out of five people would have a negative reaction should that happen, both to the social media platform and to the advertiser.

But while advertisements can't include sound anymore, Facebook announced it will soon offer an opt-in to businesses that would automatically enable captioning for advertising videos. That should save advertisers some money, since they won't have to add captioning themselves.

Grab your viewer's attention quickly.

An important rule for video ads, especially on Facebook where they must be silent, is to grab the viewer's attention quickly. Audience rating and research firm Nielsen did the study on Facebook ads. Nielsen said nearly half the value of a video ad is in the first three seconds. Seventy-four percent of the value comes in the first ten seconds.

Facebook researched video ads on its service as well as on Instagram, and determined that the most effective ads share a common feature: they display an attention grabbing image before the ads starts playing.

If you're still thinking advertising with Facebook video ads, make sure your video is easily understood without video. Four out of 10 ads running on Facebook do not make sense without hearing them as well as seeing them.

While it remains to be seen how this new, no-sound policy will impact the effectiveness of advertising on Facebook, it still attracts the most eyeballs and could be a good opportunity to share your message with the masses.

To view the original article, visit the VScreen blog.