As many have noticed, Facebook allows you to replace your cover photo with a video. Given LIVE STREAM Las Vegas is a video production service (that specializes in multi-camera, broadcast-quality content, filmed on location), we thought it a good idea to use our Facebook cover photo as a demonstration of a few clever techniques.
First things first, however. . .the dimensions of your Facebook video are odd. . .not the standard 1280×720, 1920×1080 or even 640×360. Instead, the recommended size of your Facebook cover video is 820×312. Another parameter that is enforced is the length of the video. It must be between 20 – 90 seconds long.
One thing immediately apparent when landing on a Facebook page with a video cover is while the video auto-starts, there is no sound. As a result, we did a number of things to address this:
- A slight pause before speaking: In the video, you’ll notice I laugh, wave, and say “hi” before I get started with the important content. This is to give the viewer time to turn on the sound.
- Click Corner For Sound: In the lower right corner of the video, you’ll see instructions on how to turn on sound. I prefer this method to turn on sound versus clicking on the video which interrupts the video for a moment to launch a new video-player window.
- Closed Caption: In the event our visitor can’t turn on the sound of the video, we’ve included closed caption.
While Facebook cover videos have been around for awhile (testing began back in April 2017), most business pages haven’t put them into play. If done well, these videos are a nice way to separate yourself (and your company) from the competitive herd.