How to Promote Videos on Facebook

Getting views on your Facebook videos can feel like a guessing game, but it doesn't have to be. With a solid strategy, you can turn your video content into a powerful tool for building your audience and growing your brand. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from optimizing your videos before you post to using organic and paid strategies to amplify your message.

Prepare Your Video for Maximum Impact

Success on Facebook starts before you even hit the "publish" button. How you prepare your video file can make all the difference between someone stopping their scroll and swiping right past. Here's how to set yourself up for success.

Think Vertical and Grab Attention Instantly

Most people use Facebook on their phones, so your video should be created for a vertical screen. Vertical videos (like a 9:16 aspect ratio) fill the entire mobile screen, creating a more immersive experience for Reels and Stories. For standard in-feed videos, a 4:5 aspect ratio is a great choice as it takes up more real estate than a traditional landscape (16:9) video.

Remember, you have about three seconds to convince someone to keep watching. Your video's opening needs a strong visual hook: an interesting action, a surprising camera movement, or bold text on the screen that asks a question or makes a provocative statement.

Add Native Captions

Assume your video will be watched without sound. Studies have consistently shown that the vast majority of people - up to 85% - watch Facebook videos on mute. If your video relies on someone speaking, you absolutely must include captions. They make your content accessible to everyone, whether they're in a quiet office, a noisy bus, or are hard of hearing.

You can upload your own SubRip Subtitle file (.srt) or use Facebook's auto-captioning tool. Just be sure to review the automatically generated captions, as they often contain errors you'll want to fix for clarity and professionalism.

Create a Custom Thumbnail

The thumbnail is your video's first impression. While Facebook will suggest a few frames from your video to use as a thumbnail, they are rarely the most compelling option. A custom thumbnail gives you control over that initial impression.

• Clear and High-Quality: No blurry or pixelated images.
• Eye-Catching: Use bright colors, expressive faces, and easy-to-read text overlays.
• Relevant: It should accurately represent the content of the video to build trust with your viewers.

Master Organic Promotion Strategies

You don't need a massive budget to get your videos seen. A strategic and strong organic approach can generate significant views and engagement. It's about being smart with your content, timing, and community interaction.

Write a Compelling Post

The text that accompanies your video is just as important as the video itself. Your goal is to provide context and encourage people to click play.

• Catchy Title: Facebook gives you a dedicated title field for your video. Use it. A title like "5 Mistakes You're Making at the Gym" is much more compelling than "My Workout Routine."
• Descriptive Copy: In the post body, tell viewers what your video is about and why they should care. Ask a question to spark conversation in the comments. Tag any relevant pages or people who are featured.
• Relevant Hashtags: Use 3-5 relevant hashtags to help Facebook categorize your content and show it to users interested in those topics.

Post When Your Audience Is Online

There is no single "best" time to post on Facebook, it depends entirely on your specific audience. Luckily, Facebook provides this information for free.

Go to your Facebook Page > Insights > Posts. You'll find a graph showing you which days and times your followers have been most active over the last week. Schedule your video to go live just before these peak times to give it the best possible launch.

Use Facebook Groups to Your Advantage

Facebook Groups are communities of people gathered around a shared interest. Sharing your video in relevant Groups can put your content in front of a warm, highly-targeted audience.

The key here is to add value, not spam. Don't just drop a link and run. Engage with the community first. When you do share your video, include a thoughtful introduction explaining why you think the Group members would find it useful or interesting.

Cross-Promote Your Video

Your existing audience on other platforms is a goldmine. Let them know you've published a new video on Facebook.

• Post a short clip to your Instagram Stories with a "Link" sticker driving to the full Facebook video.
• Send an email to your newsletter subscribers with an embedded thumbnail that links to your video.
• Mention it on X (formerly Twitter) or LinkedIn if the content is relevant for those audiences.

Pin Your Best Videos

If you've published a video that's particularly important - like a product announcement, a brand story, or a high-performing tutorial - pin it to the top of your Page's feed. This makes it the first thing people see when they visit your Page, giving it a much longer lifespan and maximizing its views over time.

Amplify Your Reach With Paid Promotion

Organic promotion is powerful, but sometimes you need to guarantee your video gets in front of a specific audience. This is where Facebook Ads come in, turning a well-performing video into a massive success.

Boosting a Post vs. Ads Manager

You have two main ways to pay to promote a video:

1. Boosting a Post: This is the simplest option. You click the "Boost Post" button on an existing video, select a simple objective (like getting more video views), define a basic audience, and set a budget. It's fast and easy, but it offers limited control.
2. Facebook Ads Manager: This is the professional-grade tool. Ads Manager gives you much more sophisticated options for targeting, bidding, and ad creatives. For a serious promotion strategy, this is where you want to be. The learning curve is a bit steeper, but the power it gives you is immense.

Setting Up a Video Views Campaign

If you're using Ads Manager, the "Video Views" campaign objective is a great place to start. Facebook will optimize your ad delivery to show it to people most likely to watch it for at least two seconds (ThruPlay).

A key to a successful ad campaign is targeting:

• Interest and Demographic Targeting: Target users based on their location, age, gender, and interests (e.g., Pages they've liked, topics they engage with).
• Custom Audiences: This is where it gets powerful. You can show your ad to people who have already interacted with your business, such as anyone who has visited your website, signed up for your newsletter, or engaged with your Facebook Page.
• Lookalike Audiences: Once you have a Custom Audience, you can ask Facebook to create a "Lookalike" audience - a new group of users who share similar characteristics with your existing customers. This is an incredible way to find new, highly qualified viewers.

After You Publish: Engage and Analyze

Your work isn't over once the video is live. The first few hours are critical, and how you manage the new engagement can boost your video's visibility in the algorithm.

Respond to Every Comment

When someone comments on your video, they are sending a strong signal to the Facebook algorithm that your content is interesting. Encourage this by responding to every comment you receive, especially in the first few hours.

Each reply reignites the conversation and can help trigger more notifications, bringing people back to your post. Ask follow-up questions to keep the discussion going.

Monitor Your Video Analytics

Pay close attention to how your video is performing. In Meta Business Suite or Creator Studio, look for these key metrics:

• Audience Retention: This graph shows you exactly when viewers are dropping off. Did you lose a huge chunk of your audience in the first 5 seconds? Does everyone stop watching at a particular point? This feedback is priceless for making better videos next time.
• Average Watch Time: This tells you, on average, how long people are watching your video. A longer watch time is a strong positive signal.
• View-Through Rate (VTR): This is the percentage of people who watched your entire video. For longer videos, analyze who is making it to the 25%, 50%, and 75% marks.

By analyzing what works, you can double down on successful formats and topics while cutting out the strategies that aren't capturing attention.

Final Thoughts

Promoting videos on Facebook effectively combines smart preparation, strategic organic posting, targeted paid advertising, and active community engagement. By focusing on creating content for your audience, optimizing it for the platform, and using the built-in tools to your advantage, you build a repeatable system for getting your message seen.

We know that managing all these moving parts - planning your video schedule, remembering peak post times, and keeping up with comments - can be a lot to handle. At Postbase, we built our platform specifically for today's visual, video-first social media landscape. You can use our visual calendar to plan your entire content strategy at a glance, and our reliable scheduler was designed from the ground up to handle video, so you can trust your content goes live exactly when it's supposed to. We give you all the tools you need - scheduling, engagement, and analytics - in one clean dashboard, without the frustration.