Creative That Converts: Social Media Best Practices Webinar

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Adlucent recently hosted a “Creative That Converts” webinar in partnership with Facebook to talk about optimal creative and how brands can best take advantage of social media. Our speakers were Laura Musa, Director of Channel Solutions at Adlucent, and Meredith Nagel, Partner Manager at Facebook. The main focus of the webinar was to highlight the importance of setting up campaigns for success through optimal creative, building for mobile-first, and implementing social media best practices. Run through our recap of the webinar to learn how to get your creative in top shape, and, for insider tips and tricks, check out the full recording.

OPTIMAL CREATIVE

For creative to be considered “optimal,” it must be designed and built with mobile in mind – in other words, mobile-first. Facebook defines mobile-first creative as a video that is:

• Either 15 seconds or less
• Or is longer than 15 seconds with a height greater than its width

Nagel explained how a brief video accommodates users’ short attention span and captures interest within the first 3 seconds while viewers are most engaged. Aside from timing, vertical orientation must be kept in mind when designing creative for mobile since that’s how people scroll feeds on their phones. Vertical mobile video takes up the full-screen real estate, preventing users from getting distracted by other elements or unrelated content. In order for a brand to be successful, building for the mobile-first mindset must be a top priority.

MOBILE-FIRST CREATIVE

The growing popularity of mobile has resulted in more engaging content that drives substantial results. Average attention span has drastically decreased over time. Consumers can stay focused for about 8 seconds in 2019, which proves that easy-to-consume, or “snackable,” content should be the main focus of a brand’s creative strategy. Nagel spoke on these key statistics:

• 79% of vertical video consumers said they would choose the vertical format in most cases because it is more engaging.
• 7 of 10 tests conducted by Facebook showed that vertical ads drove an increase in brand lift.
• 15-second videos that match user attention spans were better able to communicate messaging and led to improved performance outcomes.
• Vertical video takes up more space on a mobile screen, which results in more attention and real estate for messaging.

How to Build for Mobile-First?

Facebook considers these 3 best practices for mobile-first building.

Make Your Video Shorter. Create snackable video assets that are 15 seconds or less, in any direction. Shorter time frames lead to higher engagement.

Make Videos Vertical. By editing videos to be vertical, rather than horizontal or square, you take up more real estate on the mobile screen to keep user attention longer.

Make Static Into Video. Video can be as lightweight as 10 seconds long with a small but meaningful animation highlighting your brand or product.

Nagel mentioned that Facebook runs a series of tests and has research opportunities that prove what creative assets work and do not work well for users. Designing for mobile-first with vertical video is definitely one of the tactics that work!

PLAY MORE: CREATIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES FOR STORIES

Nagel touched on best practices for brands that want to take advantage of all the features that Instagram has to offer. Users rapidly adopted Instagram stories, with over 500 million accounts posting stories every day in 2019. Instagram stories experienced quicker growth than Facebook saw with the Instagram feed, which may prove that the stories experience is what users prefer.

Dynamic Ads in Instagram Stories

Instagram stories give brands the ability to create purchase campaigns with lower-funnel conversions using interactive dynamic ads. Dynamic ads within Instagram stories give users the ability to make purchases through “add-to-cart” actions. Brands should take advantage of where people are spending most of their time. 62% of people surveyed said that they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in stories, so implementing dynamic ads is a win.

Polling & Stickers

If your brand is looking to drive deeper engagement, polling and stickers can help drive upper-funnel brand awareness. Originally made for organic stories, polls and stickers can now be used for paid ads as well. Keeping users active on your stories results in more view time that can increase engagement and conversions.

Shopping

Although not yet available on paid, brands can use Instagram shopping organically within the platform to connect with future customers. 130 million Instagram accounts tap on shopping posts to learn more about products every month, with 70% of shopping enthusiasts turning to Instagram for product discovery. Deep engagement with Instagram’s mobile shopfront posts allows brands to build high-intent audiences and reach potential customers – who may not know about your brand just yet.

“Instagram stories is the modern-day window shopping.”

– Meredith Nagel

ADLUCENT’S CONVERSION-FOCUSED CAMPAIGNS

Adlucent is a performance-driven agency that takes a data- and audience-first approach to social media strategy. Musa explained how, through better architecture and structured testing, we can create smarter campaigns to drive conversions. Here are the highlights from the ad element testing:

Ad Elements to Test

Musa explained that to see what ad elements provide the most impact for your brand, you must do thorough testing.

Testing helps a brand see what ad elements work best for them. Musa touches on high-, medium-, and low-priority ad elements to test for each campaign

High-impact elements changes can improve your ad performance the most. Musa mentioned how ad type is one of the most crucial elements to test to enhance brand awareness or sell more products.

Elements that have a medium impact on how ads can perform include images vs. videos, colors, CTA buttons and image style. Musa highlighted “variants within stories” in this section. The main goal is to get stories up and running with lightweight motion. Then, you can adjust smaller elements within stories, such as including text as an overlay or omitting copy altogether.

Low-impact elements that should not be the main focus of testing are things like stock photos and emoji usage. Musa explains how Adlucent hasn’t found these elements to make a significant impact on ad performance, but they are worth testing if you have the time, budget and resources.

CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS Q&A

Are there unique factors as to how a brand or business should present on Facebook versus other platforms?

Facebook recommends building creative for mobile-first. While we cannot speak for other platforms’ best practices, if a brand/business were advertising on another mobile-first platform, there should not be a problem using similar assets.

Following the creative best practices outlined today is what we have tested and proven out as successful on Facebook-only. You are welcome to test these best practices across other platforms, but we cannot guarantee the success that we can with our specific platform.

Please note, however, that within the Facebook platform, you have the option to utilize Placement Asset Customization. This tool allows you to tailor unique versions of the same or different assets across each of our placements, whether automatic or manual.

You spoke a lot about B2C companies. How do the strategies you talked about translate to B2B companies?

From the Facebook perspective, the only strategy that would change B2C and B2B would be targeting. The creative best practices we reviewed today do not discriminate across different objectives or placements. As such, we see success utilizing as many of these creative formats across as many placements as possible in order to “fish from the lake” as opposed to “fish from a pond.” Sure, there might be nuanced learnings from a given B2C vs. B2B campaign. For example, a B2C client may respond well to stories, while a B2B client responds well to carousel units. But, these strategies cannot be assumed unless first tested. Always be testing!

The Creative That Converts webinar focused on how video is a creative mandatory when it comes to brands developing a social media strategy that results in quality traffic, conversions and overall performance. By playing with creative elements through testing, you can make social more efficient and meet paid social goals effectively. To learn more about Adlucent’s paid social services, feel free to get in touch.

Victoria Flores

Victoria Flores is a Demand Generation Manager at Adlucent. She has a background in content marketing, SEO, and graphic design. Her passion for creative marketing allows her to develop unique and effective solutions to drive demand. You can find her out on the Texas trails or bouldering when she is not at her desk.