While videos are a much better way of promoting your product or service in social media, especially if they are fun or touching or funny, not everyone is blessed with Internet connection that would make watching them enjoyable (and uninterrupted). But that shouldn’t stop brands from reaching that market, especially if they have great potential. Facebook’s solution for this is to come up with a new product for brands and it is something as simple but genius as a slideshow.
This is a new kind of product that advertisers can use in order to still present their product that can be viewed even by those with slow connections. It basically takes still images from your already existing videos and then make a, what else, slideshow out of them. You can use 3-7 still images, either from an existing video, still photos, and even stock images from Facebook’s library. You then can choose how long the slideshow will be, anywhere form 5 to 15 seconds. It will then use a vide-like motion that will allow viewers to still see the essence of the ad and the product. Oh, and there’s no sound, so that minus additional bandwidth.
Brands like Coca-Cola have already started using the slideshow feature, and one of their campaigns was to raise awareness for the new season of their show, Coke Studio Africa in Kenya. They were able to reach 2 million people and raise ad awareness by 10 points, all by using slideshow instead of video. Other brands that want to reach similar audiences will likely do the same.
Facebook is rolling out the Slideshow feature to Power Editor and Ads Manager in the next few weeks. Let’s see if these slideshow campaigns will be more effective or another annoying thing that people will complain about on Facebook.
SOURCE: Facebook
