How to Make a Year-in-Review Video on Facebook

Creating a year-in-review video for Facebook is one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience, celebrate your wins, and build community spirit as the year wraps up. It turns your feed from a simple marketing channel into a scrapbook of shared memories. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from gathering your best moments to editing and sharing a video your followers will love.

Why a Year-in-Review Video is a Brilliant Move for Your Brand

Before jumping into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." A year-in-review video isn’t just filler content, it's a strategic asset that humanizes your brand, strengthens community bonds, and sets a positive tone for the year ahead. When done right, these videos act as powerful social proof and a genuine 'thank you' to the people who supported you.

Here’s what a great recap video can do for you:

• Boosts Engagement: Reflective, story-driven content naturally encourages likes, comments, and shares. People love nostalgia and celebrating milestones, making these videos highly engaging.
• Builds Brand Loyalty: By showcasing your journey - including the successes, the behind-the-scenes moments, and the people involved - you give followers a reason to feel emotionally invested in your brand.
• Tells a Cohesive Story: Your social media feed is a collection of individual posts. A year-in-review video ties those threads together, summarizing your brand's growth, values, and personality in one compelling package.
• Showcases Your Best Work: It’s your highlight reel. You get to remind everyone of your most popular products, biggest achievements, positive customer reviews, and viral moments.

The Simple Route: Using Facebook's Automated Year-in-Review

Sometimes, Facebook makes it incredibly easy by offering an automated feature, often called "Year Together" or something similar. This is usually more common for personal profiles than for business pages, but it’s worth checking for. This feature automatically compiles a slideshow of your most-liked photos and moments from the past 12 months.

If it’s available to you, you’ll typically see a notification or a banner at the top of your news feed prompting you to "create" or "view" your year-in-review video. From there, the process is straightforward:

1. Preview the Video: Facebook will generate a pre-made version. Watch through it to see what moments it chose.
2. Edit and Customize: The tool usually lets you swap out photos and videos you don’t like for others from your timeline. This is your chance to replace any awkward or off-brand moments with better ones.
3. Share It: Once you're happy with the compilation, write a thoughtful caption and share it directly to your feed.

While this method is fast and effortless, it lacks brand control and often isn't available for business pages. For a more professional and impactful recap, creating your own custom video is the best approach.

Crafting Your Own Custom Year-in-Review Video: A Step-by-Step Guide

Making a video from scratch gives you complete control over the narrative, branding, and emotional impact. It might sound intimidating, but with today's tools, it’s easier than ever. Here’s how to break it down into manageable steps.

Step 1: Define Your Story and Gather Your Content

The foundation of a good video is a good story. Before you open any editing app, decide on the angle you want to take. What is the one key takeaway you want your audience to have?

Consider these potential themes:

• Growth & Milestones: Focus on major achievements, like launching a new product, opening a new location, hitting a revenue goal, or reaching a follower tally.
• Community & Customers: Build the entire video around your followers. Highlight user-generated content, positive reviews, and testimonials.
• Team & Culture: Give your audience a peek behind the curtain. Show employee birthdays, team outings, fun office moments, and introduce the faces behind your brand.
• Before & After: Highlight transformation. This works well for renovation projects, personal fitness journeys, or showing the evolution of a product from concept to launch.

Once you have a theme, start digging for assets. Scour your digital archives for the best content from the past year. Create a dedicated folder on your computer and start saving everything you find. Look here:

• Your Facebook and Instagram feeds for your most popular photos and videos.
• Instagram Stories archives and Reels tabs for authentic, vertical video moments.
• User-generated content (UGC) where customers have tagged you (always ask for permission before using!).
• Behind-the-scenes footage captured on your phone. Even blurry, candid clips can add a ton of personality.
• Screenshots of positive testimonials, press mentions, or glowing comments.

Step 2: Pick the Right Video Editing Tool

You don't need to be a professional filmmaker to produce a polished video. Countless apps and software are designed for speed and simplicity. The right tool depends on your comfort level and how much creative control you want.

Beginner-Friendly Tools

• Canva: More than just a graphics tool, Canva has a surprisingly robust video editor with thousands of templates, a massive library of stock footage, and royalty-free audio tracks. Its drag-and-drop interface makes it perfect for first-timers.
• CapCut: Owned by the makers of TikTok, CapCut is a free, powerful mobile video editor. It's fantastic for creating fast-paced, trendy videos with cool effects, text overlays, and an auto-captioning feature that saves a ton of time.

Intermediate Tools

• Adobe Premiere Rush: If you want a bit more control, Rush is a great step up. It's a simplified version of Adobe's professional editor, Premiere Pro, and it syncs across your phone and desktop. It offers more advanced transitions, color grading, and audio tools without being overwhelming.

Advanced Tools

• Adobe Premiere Pro / Final Cut Pro: These are the industry standards for professional video editing. They offer limitless creative control but come with a steep learning curve. Unless video production is a core part of your job, this is likely overkill.

For most brands, Canva or CapCut will have more than enough power to create an excellent year-in-review video.

Step 3: Edit Your Video for Maximum Impact

Now for the fun part: putting it all together. As you start arranging your clips, keep these best practices in mind to create a video that holds attention and resonates emotionally.

• Hook Them in 3 Seconds: Start with your most visually exciting clip - a huge team cheer, an incredible "before and after" shot, or a rapid-fire montage of smiling faces. The first few seconds are what determine if someone keeps watching.
• Keep It Short and Sweet: On social media, shorter is almost always better. Aim for a final length of 60 to 90 seconds. Pack it with back-to-back highlights to keep the energy up.
• Music Sets the Mood: Music does the heavy lifting for emotional impact. Choose an audio track that matches your story - is it upbeat and celebratory, calm and nostalgic, or inspiring and epic? Use the built-in libraries in your editing app, or explore services like Epidemic Sound for amazing royalty-free options.
• Let Text Tell Part of the Story: Use text overlays to introduce different sections ("Q1 Highlights," "Our Amazing Team"), call out specific achievements ("10,000 Happy Customers!"), or guide the narrative. Remember, many people watch videos with the sound off, so captions and text are essential.
• Mix and Match Your Media: Variety keeps things interesting. A perfect balance between high-quality videos and quirky, candid photos and quick-cut video clips creates a rhythmic, energetic video. It’s much more appealing to view than a simple slideshow.
• End on a Positive Note: Finish by expressing gratitude to your audience for being part of your journey. You can also tease what's coming next year to build anticipation. A simple "Thank you for a great year!" or asking a question like "What was your favorite memory of 2023?" makes a perfect call-to-action that encourages comments.

Step 4: Prepare and Post Your Video on Facebook

Your masterpiece is finished! Now, you just need to make sure it looks its best on Facebook and gets in front of as many people as possible.

• Export in the Right Format: For optimal quality, export your video as an MP4 file. For aspect ratio, vertical (9:16) is best, as it fills the entire mobile screen. A square (1:1) format is also a safe and highly visible choice.
• Write a Compelling Caption: Don't just post the video and leave it. Your caption should add context. Summarize the spirit of the year, shout out your team or community, and end with a question to prompt discussion, like "What are you most excited for in the new year?"
• Pick an Eye-Catching Thumbnail: The thumbnail is the static image people see before they click play. Choose a vibrant, compelling frame from your video, or create a custom thumbnail with text to attract attention.
• Tag Relevant People: If your video features business partners, collaborators, or prominent customers (who have given you permission), tag them in the post to expand your reach.
• Post at the Right Time: To kickstart engagement, post your video when your audience is most likely to be online. Check your Facebook Page Insights to find your peak hours.

Final Thoughts

A year-in-review video is so much more than a summary of events, it's a celebration of connection and a powerful way to make your audience feel like a part of your brand's journey. By planning your story, using simple tools, and focusing on authenticity, you can create a piece of content that resonates deeply and kicks off the new year on a high note.

Once your video is ready, the next step is sharing it at the perfect moment to maximize views and engagement. This is where planning becomes so important. At Postbase, we built our platform for the way social media works today, with a focus on video-first content like Facebook videos, Reels, and Shorts. You can use our visual calendar to plan out your content, schedule your year-in-review video to go live at the exact time your audience is most active, and trust that our rock-solid reliability means it will post every single time without a hitch.