The Official Lightswitch Video Guide to Understanding Facebook for your Business
Tips and tricks to help your business get the most out of Facebook
Facebook consists of several post options, giving your business a wide variety of options to choose from.
If you're wondering how to start promoting your business via Facebook, whether that be organically or through paid media - you've come to the right place! We're breaking down best practices for Facebook Feed, Ads, Reels, and Stories.
Facebook Feed
The Basics
Feed is the constantly updating list of status updates, photos, videos and more in the middle of the Facebook home page. Your Feed includes updates and posts from friends, pages, groups and advertisers (Meta).
Summary: Facebook is great for businesses, especially small businesses, that want to increase visibility and brand awareness – namely those that market directly to consumers.
The Basics:
- Still images or Video
- Supports all aspect ratios from 9:16 to 16:9, but video resolution should be at least 1280x720 pixels
- Facebook Stories are only available for 24 hours, Feed posts are available until you delete them
Recommendations
- Primary Text: 125 characters
- Headline: 27 characters
- Duration: 1 second to 241 minutes
- The recommended size is 1280x720 pixels for video, but vertical and horizontal videos work as well
Note: Recommendations vary a bit for Facebook Search Results, and multiple image and video sizes are accepted
Who Uses Facebook
- Facebook’s largest audience are between 25-34 years old (23.7% of users) (Sprout Social)
- Facebook has a higher percentage of male users (56.6%) than female users (43.4%) (Sprout Social)
- When shopping online, 19% of U.S. consumers start their search on Facebook (Sprout Social)
Businesses Who Successfully Use Facebook
- Restaurants
- Home Services
- Subscription services
- Music & Performing Arts
- Direct to Consumer products
- Apparel
- Financial services
- Healthcare services
- Educational content
How to use Facebook most effectively
- Aim to engage with your audience within the first 3 seconds
- Include captions on your videos - People prefer to watch videos with the sound off!
- Optimize your videos for mobile (vertical video)
- Most people access Facebook on their phones (only 2.6% exclusively use computers)
- Don’t underestimate the power of Reels – although typically thought of as only being seen on Instagram, Reels see about 150 billion plays daily across all of Facebook’s apps
- Utilize cost per impression (CPM) bidding (as opposed to cost per click (CPC) bidding) to be eligible for Autoplay (Sprout Social)
Facebook Ads
Types of Facebook Ads
Ads are - you guessed it - any advertisements that you run on Facebook. This includes in-stream video ads, Stories, and Feed videos.
- Facebook Feed video ads
- Facebook in-stream video ads
- Facebook Stories video ads
- Facebook marketplace video ads
Ratio
- Feed video ad ratios are 1:1 for desktop and mobile ads or 4:5 for mobile-only ads
- In-stream video ad ratios are 16:9 or 1:1
- Stories video ad ratio is 9:16
- Carousel video ad ratio is 1:1
Video duration
- Stories videos ads max out around 2 minutes
- Feed videos ads can go up to 241 minutes (or around 4 hours)
- In-stream video ads can be as long as 10 seconds
- Carousel video ads can go up to 241 minutes
- Maximum file size: 4GB for all ad placements
- Resolution: At least 1080 x 1080 pixels for all ad placements
- File type: MP4, MOV or GIF file types are accepted for all ad placements
Recommended dimensions for Facebook Ads
Facebook Feed ads:
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Minimum size 600 x 600 pixels
- Ratio 1.91:1 to 1:1
- Maximum file size of 30 MB
Facebook Right Column ads:
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Minimum size 254 x 133 pixels
- Ratio 1:1.
- Remember: These are a desktop-only ad format
Image sizes for Instant Articles
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Ratio 1.91:1 to 1:1
- Maximum file size of 30 MB
Image sizes for Facebook Marketplace ads:
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Ratio 1:1
- Maximum file size of 30 MB
Image sizes for Facebook Search:
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Minimum size 600 x 600 pixels
- Ratio 1.91:1 to 1:1
- Maximum file size of 30 MB
Image sizes for Sponsored Messages
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Ratio 1.91:1 to 1:1
- Maximum file size of 30 MB
Messenger inbox ads:
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Ratio 1:1
- Minimum size 254 x 133 pixels
- Maximum file size of 30 MB
Messenger Stories ads:
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Ratio 9:16
- Minimum width of 500 pixels (Hootsuite)
Paid Targeting Capabilities
- Languages
- Interests
- Gender
- Geography
- Age brackets
- Demographics
- Education Levels
- Homeownership
- etc.
- Behaviors
- Previously purchased similar products
- Use your app
- etc
