Facebook Cover Videos: A Cure For Banner Blindness Or Just More Noise?

As you may or may not know, Facebook is currently rolling out Cover Videos for company pages that work in much the same way that you’d expect.

The space where your Cover Photo currently sits will be replaced by a short looped video (up to 90 seconds, apparently) that renders when a user lands on your page.

This is the point where many marketers and business owners get all excited that they can make their company page look more inviting and finally put that expensive promotional video to good use.

Think of the opportunities…

But we think there’s more to it than just salad dressing for your company page. We see this as an enormous bandage to solve the irreparable problem of banner and content blindness.

WHAT IS BANNER BLINDNESS?

Banner blindness, simply put, is where visitors seemingly ignore banner information on webpages. This used to be both conscious and unconscious – but it’s certainly shifting further towards the latter as we all become more impatient and data hungry.

When was the last time you really stopped and looked at the Cover Photo on a Facebook company page? Thought so.

Banner blindness has slowly mutated into something even more concerning – content blindness.

Facebook is well aware of this problem. We all have tunnel vision. We know what we want and we know where to get it. Anything else is just a distraction. So why is Facebook providing us with more ammunition to further distract our potential customers from their goal and subsequently, our goal?

THE INFORMATION ERA

You’ve probably heard the term ‘information era’ thrown around at seminars and in thought-leadership blogs. The Internet is no longer a novelty – it’s something that almost everyone and everything relies on. It’s almost scary how reliant we are on the Internet. Remember the last time your connection went down? Sorry for bringing back such harrowing memories.

Information is so accessible to us now that we know what we want and we know how to get it. The old marketing concept of interrupting users with shouty and pretty things simply doesn’t work anymore.

There’s more to it than that. Marketers need to take more of an inbound approach. Inbound Marketing is born from the idea of creating content that is genuinely valuable and helpful for your potential customers.

Alongside a carefully crafted strategy to move them along the Buyers Journey, this is a far more effective means of turning an anonymous web visitor into a warm prospect than just dangling something pretty in front of their nose and hoping they bite.

BACK TO FACEBOOK COVER VIDEOS

Do we think Facebook Cover Videos are a good idea? Yes. Anything that an Internet superpower does to suggest progression is a fantastic move in our eyes. The Internet is developing so fast that if it begins to stagnate, it might as well be moving backwards.

Do we think that marketers and business owners need to be careful? Absolutely.

Buyer behaviour has changed and will continue to change. Social media used to be somewhat of a one-stop-shop for content offers and interaction between businesses and customers. That’s not really the case anymore.

People look at social media as a sign of legitimacy. You can’t hide on social media. Freedom of speech and the availability of information means that social media has moved from the ‘Awareness Stage’ of the Buyers Journey into more of the ‘Consideration Stage.’

BUYERS DO THEIR HOMEWORK

They identify their problems, find solutions for their problems, look for the best option and then commit to purchase.

If your beautiful Facebook Cover Video integrates with your Inbound Marketing Strategy and serves more of a function than just looking pretty - then you’re probably onto a winner.

If your Facebook Cover Video purely exists because the feature is available, you probably need to dig the whiteboard out and have a big think about your marketing goals and objectives.

We’re sure you’ll see Cover Videos rolling out your way over the next few weeks. You might have it already – in that case, let us know how you’re planning on using the feature!

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