In this comprehensive guide, we’ll dive into what Reels are and how your brand can take advantage of these bite-size videos. We’ll share tips from Meta for creating a successful Facebook and Instagram Reels strategy, including how to boost your Reels to reach a wider audience.

What are Instagram Reels?

Instagram Reels are short-form videos that offer you options beyond the square sizing of the network’s feed. Reels have a 9:16 aspect ratio and can be 15 to 90 seconds long. Users have the option to add background audio, whether a voiceover, music or trending sound. In contrast to long-form and typically more polished videos, Instagram Reels are bite-sized, casual and highly discoverable. When posting a Reel, you can choose to add it to Facebook and Threads too.

Joana Rocha, Senior Technical Partner Manager for Reels Ads, Video and Threads at Meta, says Reels are a major driver of Instagram traffic.

“Approximately 50% of time spent on Instagram is on Reels,” she says. “Reels is a rich, growing, creative canvas where brands can turn attention into action.”

Rather than showcasing long-form scripted content such as an in-depth tutorial, these are meant to be quick videos for entertainment or education. You can select a cover for your Reel, so it seamlessly blends into your main feed’s grid style. Instagram profiles also have a Reels section that displays a Reels only grid.

Instagram and Facebook Reels algorithm explained

Meta’s goal is for users to easily find and view content that resonates with what they enjoy and Reels play a key role.

“Our aim is to make Reels entertaining, relevant and inspiring,” Rocha says. “We know it’s important to recommend content that does that, and will continue iterating on the experience to make it better.”

Instagram and Facebook’s algorithm takes several factors into consideration when serving content to users. This includes inputs from individual users themselves and broader patterns from the community. The algorithm caters suggested content to users based on their interests and content they’ve liked or commented on. Trending and popular Reels from across Instagram are also suggested. Rocha says the goal is for both types of content to inspire individual users to create Reels of their own.

How to make a Reel on Instagram and Facebook

We’ve put together a quick start tutorial for how to make a Reel on Instagram and Facebook so you can get started.

How to make a Reel on Instagram

Follow these steps to create a Reel on Instagram:

1. To get started, navigate to your brand’s profile page and tap the plus sign at the top right of the app.

2. Select Reel from the Create menu.

3. Once you’re here, you’re ready to start making your Reel! If you’ve pre-recorded and edited a video, you can upload it from the initial Reels screen. Otherwise, choose Camera near the top right to record a new Reel.

4. Before you record, choose your timeframe. You can select 15, 30, 60 or 90 seconds from the Length option on the right side of the screen. This will determine how long you can spend recording your Reel.

5. You can stop and start recording at any point to switch camera angles, record different subjects or do quick costume changes. Be as creative as you want when creating a Reel on Instagram. You can also use different templates or effects on Reels when recording on your phone.

Before moving on to your next snippet, you can delete and re-record or trim any parts of your previous snippet. Instagram also gives you the option to speed up or slow down your Reels recording for an added effect to your video.

6. Once you’ve finished recording, you can add music and effects, including on-screen text. Press the forward arrow to preview your Reel and make sure it’s what you want it to be.

When adding text and overlay effects to Reels, keep in mind key video specs. Rocha recommends, “Work within the safe zones so your text sticker overlays, calls to action or key messages aren’t obscured by the Reels user interface. Keep the bottom 35% of your 9:16 creative free of text, logos and other key elements.”

7. Lastly, write your caption and search for Instagram Reel hashtags to add to your caption (or comments after publishing). Then decide where to share your Reel on your profile before you publish it.

How to make a Reel on Facebook

Publishing a Reel on Facebook is fairly similar to Instagram, especially in terms of features and effects. Follow these steps to create a Reel on Facebook:

1. Go to your brand’s profile page and select Video. Here, you’ll see a Create Reel option listed before your previously posted videos.

2. Begin recording or select a previously recorded video. You can select different effects, use a green screen, change the speed and more. You can stop recording and start again at any time to create a new scene. You can also add music or other audio and any additional effects before publishing. Remember Rocha’s tips about overlay and text placement apply to Facebook as well.

While you can craft a Reel in the Instagram and Facebook apps, Sprout Social’s platform makes it easy to upload and post Reels. You can upload a thumbnail image for the main feed. You can use the Compose feature to plan out your content in advance, schedule it and track performance against your goals. When choosing a day and time to schedule, consider the best times to post on Instagram or use Sprout’s Optimal Send Times™ to automatically select the time your audience is most active.

Reels best practices and tips

With so many options to create and customize your Reels, here are some best practices and tips to help you navigate where to begin.

Create engaging content

Sometimes the social media content you make doesn’t need to have a sales or conversion objective. Instagram Reels give you the opportunity to make and share content simply for your audience to enjoy, helping you build customer relationships and connection with your followers. Showcase your product, your team or your service in an authentic way by creating unique content.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Make fun content for your audience. The entire point of Reels is to make bite-sized content that excites your audience and gets them to follow along for more great content.
• Create tutorials. Instagram Reels is the perfect place to make short, easy-to-follow tutorial clips that showcase how to use your product or service, or how to do something that’s relevant to your industry.
• Share behind-the-scenes videos. Introduce employees, show off new products yet to launch, share how your product is made, etc.
• Show off products. Take videos highlighting new product releases or showcase how your products can be used.
• Repurpose videos. Has your brand already developed a presence on other networks that support video? Repurpose your videos to save time from creating net new content.
• Promote sales with Instagram Reels. Let your audience know when you’re offering sales and discounts by sharing announcements on your Instagram Reels.
• Make educational content. Instagram Reels is a great place to put 15-90 seconds educational snippets that explain a concept to your audience that’s relevant to your business or industry.

As part of your engagement plan, make sure you post your unique content during the best times to post on Facebook or Instagram to maximize visibility and engagement with your audience.

Add interactive elements

Reels can up level your visual content by making it more interactive. Beyond inspiring discussion in your comments, interactive stickers and text can grab viewers’ attention and keep them focused on your content longer. Add a poll or quiz to incorporate trivia or get a feel for customer opinion on a topic. Insert a question submission box as part of an “ask us anything” Reel and respond in future posts or on an Instagram Live. You can also add emoji sliders and animated graphics for additional quick but fun interactions.

Use trending songs and sounds

Instagram trends are often tied to specific audio. Newly released songs that trend on social media often find their way to the radio and older songs can experience a resurgence in popularity if they go viral. Audio and visuals go hand in hand in this medium, according to Rocha.

“Audio—whether that’s music, voiceover or sound effects—is a key driver of engagement and entertainment on Reels,” she says.

When making a Reel, browse trending sounds and select one that fits your content. Sometimes these sounds have memes or dances tied to them, so consider participating the way other users are if possible. Look for sounds emerging in popularity instead of one that’s already viral to stay ahead of the curve. Be sure to listen to the full sound and understand how it’s being used to confirm it’s brand appropriate. Also consider consulting with your brand’s legal counsel during internal content approval processes to confirm usage rights and legal compliance.

Respond to comments and feedback

Once you’ve posted your Reel, it’s validating and exciting to see comments roll in. Be sure to respond to comments, especially relevant ones, on a regular cadence. Whether answering questions or playing off of humorous comments, your brand’s audience will appreciate the reciprocation.

Sprout’s Smart Inbox will help you respond to comments across networks. Comments left on your posts appear in the Smart Inbox, eliminating the need to switch back and forth between apps and tools.

Partner with creators and influencers

Reels can be an impactful addition to your influencer marketing approach. Influencers and creators can be concepting and production partner for Reels. Rocha says influencers fuel the Reels ecosystem and can drive business outcomes from discovery to purchase.

“53% of people we surveyed agree they are more likely to purchase an item if it’s been promoted by a creator on Reels,” she says.

Rocha says that adding partnership ads on Reels to existing campaigns can led to a median 5% improvement on cost per result and a 20% higher conversion rate. In short, partnering with an influencer on a Reel can mean big return on investment (ROI) for your brand.

When selecting influencers to work with, look for those using Reels successfully. Sprout Social’s influencer marketing platform can help you locate and connect with influencers who’ll be a great fit for your brand. You can negotiate a partnership that includes Reels specifically, whether made by your brand featuring the creator or crafted by them.

Boosting Reels on Instagram and Facebook

Boosting your Instagram Reels extends your reach. You can boost Reels on Instagram when publishing them. You can also boost a Reel on Facebook by selecting the “Share on Facebook” option before publishing and then following the prompted option to boost to more people. To boost a Reel, choose it from your profile and then select Boost Reel in the bottom right. This will take you to a dashboard where you can choose a target audience, duration of ad and other specifics for your boost.

You don’t want to boost every Reel you post, however. Be strategic in your selections. You may want to boost Reels that tie to a broader campaign, feature new products or are part of your holiday marketing strategy, for example. You can boost a Reel you just published or previous ones that have performed well.

Within Sprout, boosting Reels on Instagram or Facebook is easy and shows up in several areas within the platform as an option. You can boost any post you publish within Sprout with the “boost post” option in the publishing workflow. You can also find options to boost in the content calendar and in reports. If you see a post is performing well, you can boost it with just a few clicks.

How to measure Reels performance

Once you’ve done the hard work of creating, editing and sharing a Reel, you’ll likely be eager to see how it performed. Track metrics like comments, shares, likes and engagement rate. For Reels specifically, you can add views as an additional video-specific metric.

Instagram insights and Facebook analytics enable you to monitor how your Reels are doing within native dashboards. You can see insights for individual posts and view them alongside all of your Instagram or Facebook content.

With Sprout’s analytics dashboard, you can track all of these metrics from Instagram and Facebook in one location. Reporting in Sprout streamlines data from all of your other social networks to give you a look at the bigger picture. This can help you understand how your Reels are received on Instagram and Facebook and uncover nuances between the two audiences and channels.

Start creating Reels today

There’s no better time to get started with Reels on Instagram and Facebook. With these short, digestible videos, you’ll be able to build a more engaged audience. Using the tips in this article, you’ll be able to start experimenting and find what resonates most with your customers. Once you find your rhythm, boosting will maximize your efforts and increase social ROI for your brand. Having the right tools in place will help you seamlessly integrate Reels into your social strategy–explore our guide to the top Instagram marketing tools to consider.

The post Your complete guide to creating a Reels strategy for Instagram and Facebook appeared first on Sprout Social.

Successful marketers know that decisions aren’t made with owned analytics alone—routine competitive analyses are essential for getting the full picture.

Using Facebook data to bolster your competitive intelligence can provide you with the insights needed to zig where others zag. It’s no wonder Facebook is the most-used platform by marketers worldwide.

If you’re ready to engage in some good old-fashioned competitive sleuthing, you’re in the right place. Here’s everything you need to know to start monitoring your competition on Facebook.

What is a Facebook competitor analysis?

A Facebook competitive analysis is the process of evaluating your competitor’s Facebook activity for benchmarking data. These reports also provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your competitor’s social media strategy overall.

Conducting a Facebook competitor analysis involves reporting on key brand growth and engagement metrics for your brand and its rivals. It also requires a closer look at your competitors’ posting habits, content formats and how their audience engages with their posts. Your team can use this social data to set a baseline for audience growth, publishing and engagement goals.

These findings can help you define what it means to offer superior content and service on social media, increasing the business impact of your presence on the network.

Why should you do a Facebook competitive analysis?

When conducting a social media competitive analysis, make Facebook your top priority. According to Sprout’s 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report, 83% of social users have a Facebook profile, and nearly half (44%) interact with brand content on the network at least once a day.

All of these little interactions compounded over time make Facebook a goldmine of strategic insights. If that’s not enough, here are some other reasons to consider.

Establish more relevant KPIs

Competitive benchmarking on Facebook can take the guesswork out of goal setting.

For example, say you’re trying to set a new engagement goal. Looking at your historical data can help you set an achievable target, but without competitive insights, you risk setting goals that aren’t in line with industry standards.

Your Facebook competitor analysis can motivate you to aim higher with your social content while keeping your strategy attainable and actionable.

Identify content gaps

Competitive analyses can illuminate cracks in your content strategy while supplying the information needed to fill them.

For instance, an oral health care brand conducting a Facebook competitive analysis might notice that Quip incorporates month-long observances into their content strategy. This provides an endless stream of social media content creation ideas that tap into trending topics.

Since these posts do well from an engagement standpoint, that brand may consider how they can put their own unique spin on similar events.

Create better content for your followers

Coming up with new content ideas is a top challenge for many social media marketers.

Industry data can provide valuable insights during brainstorming sessions, helping you generate smarter, more relevant content ideas for each social platform. That’s where your Facebook competitor analysis comes in.

The analysis will help you identify your rival’s content themes. As you notice them, ask yourself how your brand might approach something similar. What would you do differently? What opportunities are they not taking advantage of?

Eventually, you’ll come up with a unique piece of inspired content that stands independently from its source material.

Understand the strength of customer service efforts

Consumers are also more likely to turn to Facebook for customer care compared to any other channel—especially Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers.

A quantitative and qualitative review of your competitor’s Facebook pages can help you clearly define what they are and aren’t getting in terms of customer service. This will show you exactly what it takes to gain a competitive edge on social.

Facebook competitive analysis tools will help you keep a pulse on what your audience expects from brands on the network. Eventually, you’ll find ways to one-up their service offerings, cementing your spot as the brand people turn to for a better customer experience.

Learn from your competitors’ strategies

A Facebook competitive analysis gives you a clear snapshot of what’s working—and what’s not—for your top competitors.

By digging into their content, engagement metrics and audience interactions, you can pinpoint winning strategies, like the best posting frequency, content formats that get the most traction and the optimal times to post.

This data helps you refine your content strategy, adopt what works and avoid common pitfalls, so your brand stands out. Plus, it gives you a deeper understanding of how competitors are positioning themselves, helping you stay ahead with more strategic differentiation.

How to conduct a Facebook competitor analysis

Let’s go over our top tips for executing a Facebook competitive analysis effectively.

1. Identify your Facebook competitors

Before conducting your competitive analysis, narrow in on three to four key competitors on Facebook. Tracking every single competitor big and small can quickly become an unwieldy task. Instead, aim for an even representation of direct, indirect and aspirational competitors.

This is a good time to talk to your sales team and customers about which competitors helped them make their decisions. This will help you understand your position in the market and improve your approach.

2. Gather your data

Once you’ve confirmed your target competitors, it’s time to gather your data. While this process can be time-consuming, especially in competitive industries, thorough insights lead to more informed strategies.

Use a social media analytics tool to streamline your approach to tracking competitor metrics. If you’re using Sprout, you can even dig into data at the post level to figure out what content formats and themes are resonating most with the audiences of individual competitors.

Remember, this isn’t a one-time task. To stay ahead, it’s crucial to update your analysis quarterly or biannually, aligning with your overall social media reporting.

3. Analyze your competitors Facebook presence

Competitive intelligence involves both quantitative and qualitative insights. To gain the most comprehensive understanding of your competitors’ social channels, you need to explore how they present themselves across each platform.

Start your analysis by asking these three key questions:

• How active are your competitors? Examining their posting frequency can reveal insights into their content and customer care strategies, as well as potential gaps you can exploit.
• What types of content do they share? Review each competitor’s last 10 posts and determine the percentage that are promotional, such as calls to action for sign-ups or purchases.
• What is their brand persona? Identify the different brand voices your competitors use and evaluate how effectively they resonate with their audience.

4. Use a tool to conduct a Facebook competitor analysis

According to Sprout’s Social Media Productivity Report, 63% of social marketers agree manual tasks prevent them from doing high impact work. Social media analytics and listening tools are essential for conducting a Facebook competitor analysis while balancing the other duties of your role.

These tools offer valuable data-driven insights, such as engagement rates and follower growth, which help you objectively evaluate competitor performance and spot trends. Social listening tools also track audience sentiment toward competitors, providing richer qualitative insights that reveal how well they engage their audience and where they may be falling short.

5. Identify areas of improvement

The insights from your competitor analysis can reveal strategic opportunities to help your brand outpace the competition. Focus on doubling down on what’s working well and closing any gaps that may be allowing competitors to get ahead.

Use these findings to develop a clear action plan, and share it with your team to gain their support and collaboration. Engaging your colleagues in this process not only fosters teamwork but also ensures everyone is aligned in driving the brand forward.

6. Create a Facebook competitor analysis report

Numbers are nothing without the right context.

For example, what if one of your competitors ran an enticing social media contest during your reporting period? That would definitely have an impact on either their engagement or audience growth. If your report lacks that context, it can result in an unfair assessment of your team’s performance.

Use storytelling to give your data meaning. Include the “why” behind your most interesting numbers so that your teammates understand the full story behind the report as well. This social media market research worksheet will help you explain what’s really driving competitor performance in 90 minutes or less.

Get the worksheet

How to analyze competitors on Facebook with Sprout

You could do some of this research manually, but Sprout will make the process much more efficient. Sprout’s Facebook Competitors Report lets you track metrics for any Facebook page to compare them against your own.

Getting started with Sprout

If you don’t have a Sprout account, no problem.

Step 1: Start a free 30 day trial by setting up an account with your business email [you don’t even need a credit card].

Step 2:.Go to “Account and Settings” and select “Connect a Profile.”

Step 3: If you need to, choose a group for this Page from the “In Group” dropdown.

Step 4:.Navigate to “Connect for Facebook.” > “Connect Page” to link your Facebook Page.

Step 5: Select “Go to Facebook” and follow the simple instructions to authorize the connection.

How to use the Facebook Competitor Report

Here’s how you can discover what your competitors are doing differently on Facebook:

Step 1: Set filters

Use the Filter Menu to customize the data you want to see in your report.

You’ll find three different filters within the menu: Pages, Competitor Pages and Date Range.

• Use Pages to select which owned Facebook pages you’d like to include in the report.
• Use Competitor Pages to manage and select competitor Facebook pages
• Use the Date Range date picker to select a time period for your report.

Step 2: Check the summary

The top widget in the Facebook Competitor Report is a summary table. This features averages of key metrics including Fans, Public Engagements and Public Engagements per Post.

Use the trends highlighted in the summary as starting points for your competitive investigation. For example, if you notice that your fan average is lagging behind, that may be the first item to review and cover in your report.

Step 3: Dig into the numbers

You’ll find three different chart widgets in the Facebook Competitor Report:

• The Audience Growth chart shows how your audience grew compared to your competitors’ during the selected time period.
• The Publishing Behavior chart shows the different types of posts you and your competitors published during the selected time period.
• The Engagement chart evaluates how people are engaging with posts based on publish date.

Each of these charts goes deeper into the high-level metrics available in the Summary table. They also provide averages of each metric for both owned and competitor Facebook pages. Use this information to benchmark your performance against your competitors’ averages.

Step 4: Review post-level data

Use the Top Posts widget to review the most popular posts published during your selected time period.

The Top Posts widget will help you analyze published content across all competitors to understand what’s resonating within your shared audience. As you review the data, stay on the lookout for qualitative trends as well. What type of visuals and messaging drive the most engagement? Are there any topics people seem particularly excited about?

Understanding these trends will come in handy during your next brainstorm.

Step 5: Share findings

There are a few different ways you can distribute your report from Sprout.

If you’d like to limit the number of disparate files floating around people’s inbox, try the link sharing option. This will allow you to share reports with multiple stakeholders regardless of whether they have a Sprout account or not.

Top Facebook competitive analysis tools

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social provides social media marketers with a well-rounded perspective on competitors’ performance across various platforms and data points.

With Sprout’s range of competitive reports, you can evaluate and enhance your social strategy using valuable metrics from Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and more. Sprout’s suite of competitive intelligence tools enables teams to see what your competitors are posting and compare your growth to the profiles you are monitoring.

Through Sprout’s Premium Analytics, you gain in-depth insights into your social platforms, accompanied by customizable interactive charts and graphs tailored to your objectives. If you want to discover how to use Sprout for analyzing your Facebook competitors, sign up for a free 30-day trial today.

2. Socialinsider

Socialinsider is another social media management tool that offers several different features—including Facebook competitor analysis reporting.

Marketers use Socialinsider to monitor metrics like views, engagement, follower growth and more, while also giving them access to information like historical content trends and top-performing content. The platform also helps users get competitive insights at the campaign level, so you can study specific plays in competitor strategies.

3. Brandwatch

Brandwatch offers data analytics for consumer intelligence and social media management, including competitive benchmarking for Facebook and X.

These tools allow users to monitor their competitors’ social media output, while tracking all mentions of specific competitors across the web. Reports can be exported and shared via Excel, PowerPoint, PDF file or through the Brandwatch API.

May the best brand win

A Facebook competitor analysis can be exactly what you need to level up on the network. Understanding where their strengths and weaknesses lie is the first step to understanding how to outperform them on social.

Compiling that data takes a lot of work, especially when analyzing multiple competitors. Sprout Social can eliminate all the data collection work so you can focus on planning your next steps. Sign up for a trial today to test out the Facebook Competitor Report free for 30 days.

The post How to conduct a Facebook competitor analysis report [plus template] appeared first on Sprout Social.

With feedback and communication tools like ratings, reviews and Messenger, the platform helps brands, like you, to build trust with their audience and start conversations that lead to sales. Facebook analytics also enables social media marketers to dive deeper into content performance and engagement to see what’s working and what isn’t.

However, keeping track of your Facebook likes, comments and messages manually can quickly become a full-time job without some help. But thanks to social media data analysis tools, Facebook monitoring has become more effective than ever.

This article will highlight the benefits of Facebook monitoring and best practices to ensure you do it correctly. Plus, get recommendations for using Sprout Social and other tools to streamline the process.

What is Facebook monitoring?

Facebook monitoring is the process of tracking and responding to audience interactions with your brand on the platform. These engagements include wall posts, comments on posts or ads, page mentions, Messenger conversations and reviews.

For social media marketers, Facebook monitoring allows you to keep a pulse check on your brand. It helps you better understand how people feel about your brand and quickly respond to feedback. This timely engagement can deepen your audience’s connection to your brand and make them feel seen, heard and valued.

Benefits of Facebook monitoring for brands

Think of Facebook monitoring as a watchdog for your brand’s Page. It helps you spot trends or potential issues and respond to them quickly. For example, if you’re getting a lot of positive comments on a particular post, that’s a sign it’s resonating with your audience, and you should look deeper into why it’s so popular.

On the other hand, if you’re getting an influx of negative ratings and reviews, monitoring helps you respond quickly and prevent minor issues from becoming crises.

Best practices for Facebook monitoring

Monitoring Facebook messages and comments may seem pretty straightforward at first. However, if you want to make the most of your efforts, here are some best practices to remember.

Set clear goals and objectives

What do you want to achieve with Facebook monitoring? Do you want to improve customer service by responding to questions, concerns or complaints faster? Boost engagement by ensuring your team responds to all Post comments? Do you want to improve brand sentiment by tracking the ratio of positive to negative comments and reviews? Setting clear goals and objectives will give your monitoring efforts direction and focus and connect them to your overarching Facebook marketing strategy.

Choose the right Facebook monitoring tool

Whether you use Facebook’s native monitoring features or a third-party tool like Sprout Social, a Facebook monitoring platform will help streamline your efforts and boost efficiency. Just consider your needs and goals to pick the best one for your brand.

Do you have a large social media marketing team? Consider choosing a platform with robust collaboration and approval features. Want to increase productivity? An all-in-one tool that offers end-to-end management and Facebook analytics tools and that integrates with your other social channels will save you time and energy.

Develop a monitoring strategy

So, you’ve established your goals and objectives and settled on a tool. Now, you must determine how exactly you want to respond to engagements. For example, if you have multiple team members, how do you ensure they know who responds to which message? Also, how will you ensure your responses are on-brand and timely?

Creating a monitoring strategy will get everyone on the same page about how your brand responds to engagements. Key considerations should include defining responsibilities, approval workflows and recommended response times.

Monitor relevant keywords

To further streamline your monitoring efforts, use your monitoring tool’s Tagging features to track the most relevant keywords to prioritize messages. While your brand name and its variations are a give-in, some other keywords to consider are:

• Brand product names
• Brand hashtags
• Campaign hashtags
• Industry hashtags, if applicable
• C-suite names if they’re active online or an industry thought leader
• All the above repeated for a competitor if you want to conduct a marketing competitor analysis

For example, sportswear brand Nike (or a competitor) would likely track their #WinningIsntForEveryone Paris 2024 Paralympics campaign hashtag to see how their audience is engaging with the posts.

Use analytics to track results

Finally, use analytics to see how well your Facebook monitoring strategy is working. Use sentiment analysis to see if brand perception skews more positively or negatively. Facebook audience insights will also reveal if engagement rates have improved since you started monitoring. Facebook listening will show you what content resonates with your audience the most.

How to use Sprout Social for Facebook monitoring

Sprout Social has many features to ensure you never miss a comment or message. Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of the key capabilities to use for Facebook monitoring.

Step 1: Get familiar with the Smart Inbox.

Sprout’s Smart Inbox feature unifies all of your messages, mentions, comments and reviews into a single unified dashboard. It can also track brand keywords, search results and hashtag campaigns in real-time.

It has three main components: the Left Bar, messages stream and Filter Menu. The Left bar is a navigation bar that allows you to toggle between different Inbox Views. For example, All Messages contains all the messages from all the profiles you’ve connected with Sprout, whereas Completed Messages shows messages that already had an action performed.

Step 2: Respond to messages

To respond to a message from Facebook, click the arrow icon in the bottom right of the message. You have the option to take the conversation from public to private by clicking Switch to Private Message (unless the user’s Facebook settings don’t allow you to).

You can also hide comments by tapping the three-dot icon and clicking Hide on Facebook. This feature helps protect your audience and brand image from spam or insensitive content.

Step 3: Use Case Management to resolve customer issues faster

Use Message Actions to categorize messages and track what’s complete and what requires further action. Save messages to come back to later, or mark them as complete. You can also categorize messages as positive, negative or neutral to better track your overall brand sentiment.

Plus, use Case Management to create cases for more complex issues that need attention. You can pass the message on to another team member to respond to it–without losing context from the original conversation.

Step 4: Use Sprout’s Task and Tagging features

Use our Task and Tagging features to assign messages to specific team members and tag the messages with keywords to track them later. Tags allow you to associate incoming or outgoing messages with your brand’s product launch, campaign or other initiative.

Step 5: Use Sprout’s collaboration features to improve workflows

Create Message Approval Workflows to ensure every response meets your brand’s standards. Sprout’s collaboration features allow you to define specific publishing and approval abilities for certain team members. Once enabled, users can submit messages for approval. This action will trigger a notification to the team member with approval permission so they can review and respond promptly.

Want to give Sprout Social a try? Sign up for our 30-day free trial.

8 Facebook monitoring tools

There’s a Facebook monitoring tool for every brand and budget. You just need to find the one that works for you. Here are some of the most popular platforms on the market.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social’s Facebook management tools help you stay on top of everything. The Smart Inbox pulls comments, reviews‌ and Messenger conversations into a central dashboard to review and respond to them in one place. Our social CRM provides conversation history and customer details, to personalize responses.

Listening features like Query Builder and Alerts will notify you as soon as you get a brand mention or a spike in message volume. Plus, collaboration tools like Tagging, task routing and approval workflows prevent duplicate efforts and keep everything organized, efficient and on-brand.

See the Sprout Social difference for yourself and try us for free for 30 days.

2. Brand24

Brand24 is an AI-powered social listening tool that tracks mentions across social media,
news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts, reviews‌ and more. Its Facebook integration allows brands to track public mentions like posts, comments and reviews. It also has customized alerts to help users respond to mentions quickly. Beyond monitoring, it also has reach and sentiment analysis, competitive analysis reports and personalized recommendations with its AI-Brand Assistant tool.

3. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media management tool that provides scheduling, content creation, analytics and social listening capabilities. Users can create feeds to monitor keywords, hashtags and all public Facebook updates. They can also create these feeds to monitor their accounts based on a theme or activity. Plus, like Sprout, their social media inbox lets you respond to comments and DMs in one place.

4. Buffer

Buffer has a unified dashboard where you can see all your unanswered comments from across your social media channels in one place. It highlights the most important comments and informs you if the post has questions, negative sentiment or comments about a purchase. Their keyboard hotkey and smart emoji features also help users quickly respond to messages and engage with their audience.

5. Mention

Mention helps users keep track of social media conversations, including Facebook mentions. In real-time, users can monitor what’s said about a company, including its products, competitors‌ and customers. They also have a keyword tracking function that allows users to Monitor, measure and engage with opinions shared about specific terms.

6. Awario

Awario is a brand management platform that tracks conversations across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums and reviews. The tool’s media monitoring helps users monitor all relevant conversations on Facebook by tracking keywords and mentions. It also offers access to historical Facebook mention data and sentiment analysis.

7. Keyhole

Keyhole is a social media management tool with publishing, listening, analytics and historical insights capabilities. It can track any public Facebook page, yours or competitors,’ and provide in-depth performance and comparison insights. It also has hashtag and keyword tracking and sentiment analysis.

8. Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite is a centralized space for Meta users to manage their Facebook, Instagram, Messenger posts, ads and communications and track their content performance. Its Inbox feature lets you see all of your Messenger, Instagram Direct messages, Facebook and Instagram comments in one place. You can filter messages by platform, respond to them directly from the Inbox, organize and assign them to people to address as well.

Build a more engaged audience with Facebook monitoring

Facebook monitoring is more than keeping an eye on likes and comments. It’s about understanding what your audience cares about—from your brand to your industry as a whole. It’s also about how you respond to these conversations.

The right tools and strategy will help you react quickly to feedback, improve customer relationships‌ and avoid potential issues before they escalate. Want to take your Facebook game even further? Learn how to get more out of your social presence with our tips for increasing Facebook engagement.

The post Facebook monitoring made easy: A guide for social marketers appeared first on Sprout Social.

With less competition on Facebook, you can score better deals with influencers and gain more visibility for your brand. Also, research shows US adults are more likely to make a purchase directly on Facebook than on any other social media platform.

In this post, you’ll learn all about Facebook influencer marketing and how to create successful influencer campaigns that deliver great results for your business.

What is Facebook influencer marketing?

Facebook influencer marketing is when brands collaborate with influencers who have a strong following and engagement on Facebook.

These influencers create valuable, authentic content that resonates with their audience through posts, videos, live streams and other formats. Brands can partner with influencers in their niche and use their credibility to build trust and drive brand awareness and sales.

In 2024, influencer marketing on Facebook has shifted toward smaller influencers (nano and micro-influencers) who often have higher engagement rates than larger influencers. This makes them an attractive option for targeted campaigns, especially for niche brands.

Is Facebook right for your influencer marketing campaign?

With other social networks stealing the spotlight, you might be wondering if Facebook is still worth your time. The short answer is:

It depends on your target audience, industry and marketing goals.

Facebook is most effective for brands targeting a wide, diverse audience.

The platform has over 3.065 billion monthly active users, with the largest chunk in the US being adults between 25-34 years old. This makes Facebook especially useful for businesses in lifestyle, fitness and family-oriented niches​.

Source

Also, Facebook Groups are great tools for niche targeting and building community around your brand. They provide a space for influencers to engage with people who are deeply invested in certain topics, products or services, and potentially convert them into customers for your brand.

Another important consideration here is your budget. Facebook offers less organic engagement than other platforms, and paying for ads can quickly get expensive.

Working with micro and nano-influencers is a better alternative as these creators offer higher engagement at a fraction of the cost. In fact, some influencers might even accept freebies or mentions as payment for sponsored posts.

That said, Facebook might not be as effective for companies targeting younger demographics who are more active on platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

To determine if Facebook influencer marketing fits your brand’s strategy, explore more about your industry’s influencer landscape by visiting Sprout Social’s Influencer Directory. Access up-to-date, industry-level data to estimate costs, results, competitiveness and more.

How to execute a Facebook influencer marketing campaign

Launching a successful campaign on any platform (including Facebook) requires careful planning. If you’re new to Facebook influencer marketing, this step-by-step guide will walk you through the entire process.

1. Define your goals

Your social media goals dictate the type of influencers you work with, the kind of content you create and how you measure success.

For example, if your goal is brand awareness, your focus should be on reaching a large audience with your content. If driving conversions is your primary objective, you’ll want to track metrics like click-through rates and sales.

Setting clear, specific and realistic goals gives direction to your campaign and ensures both parties are working to achieve the same end results.

A fitness brand might set a goal to increase product visibility by 30% over a three-month campaign. They could partner with influencers who specialize in health and wellness, and ask them to showcase the brand in their daily workout routines via Facebook Live or Reels.

2. Understand your audience

Before you start pitching to influencers, you want to be sure your target audience is actually present on the platform and are interested in influencer content.

You also need to know what type of content they’re interested in, which creators or brands they engage with and what problems they’re looking to solve.

Start by digging up data on your existing customers.

• Use your CRM platform to uncover insights like demographics, purchase history and sales conversations.
• Talk to customer-facing teams like sales reps and customer service agents to identify common questions or pain points.
• Gather first-hand information by interviewing or surveying customers, especially about their online habits and interests.

Then, head to your Facebook audience insights. Look at demographics like age, gender, location and active times. You can also analyze your existing content and understand what type of posts and videos work best.

Also, understand your audiences’ habits on the platform. Do they like to engage in Facebook Groups? Do they share posts on their feeds? Do they actively comment or simply lurk?

Sprout Social’s Listening tool is also excellent for spotting trending conversations and topics among your target audience. You can also study your competitors to see what type of content they’re posting on Facebook and how your audience is reacting to or engaging with it.

Once you have all of this data, create detailed audience personas to share with potential influencers later on. Add information like demographics, interests, habits, frustrations, and favorite content types and best times to post.

Organizing everything in one place will help you pick the right influencers, get them on the same page, tailor visuals and messaging, and choose the right formats for max engagement.

3. Choose the right influencers

Selecting influencers might seem straightforward, but there are lots of moving parts involved. You have to look beyond large followings to partner with influencers that truly align with your brand values and target audience.

Sprout Social Influencer Marketing (formerly Tagger) can help you discover top influencers in your niche. Use smart filters to sort through vetted influencers with relevant audiences. Analyze their following, content, engagement rates, authenticity and influence across various platforms, including Facebook.

It’s tempting to target big influencers with millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of followers. But small businesses often benefit from working with smaller, engaged, loyal influencers who have smaller but very active and loyal followings.

Smaller influencers typically cost less (some are even willing to accept non-monetary payments) and are likely to dedicate more time and effort toward your partnership. On top of this, the targeted engagement they bring to the table gives your brand a higher ROI overall.

4. Develop a creative strategy

When you’ve decided on the influencers you want to work with, it’s time to brainstorm the creative aspects of your campaign. Here, you can either work with the creators during the planning stage or hand them briefs you’ve already created internally.

Both ways have their perks. Remember to give influencers enough creative freedom so they can do what they do best and craft content their audience loves. Sponsored content shouldn’t feel forced; it should naturally integrate into the influencer’s daily posts.

At the same time, ensure you’ve provided guidelines on campaign goals, brand voice, values, aesthetics and other specifics that are important to your business.

Here are some other details you might want to mention in your creative plan:

• Content types (e.g. Facebook Live, Reels, Stories, image and text posts etc.)
• Topics and themes
• Posting frequency
• KPIs and metrics

Work closely with your influencers to brainstorm creative concepts that’ll engage their audience while promoting your brand in an authentic way. You can also co-create content with your company’s creative team instead of relying solely on the influencers’ resources.

Use a mix of formats, like videos, Group posts and live sessions, to keep your influencer campaign interesting and dynamic.

For example, if you’re collaborating with influencers to create a series of “unboxing” videos, you could pair them with live Q&A sessions so followers can ask questions and get feedback from someone they trust.

5. Negotiate payment and terms

Once you have a creative strategy in place, you can go over the terms and conditions of the partnership with the influencer and finalize a contract.

To establish transparent, mutually beneficial and long-term relationships with influencers, you have to be clear about things like:

• Compensation
• Content deliverables
• Creative control
• Exclusivity
• Performance expectations
• Duration of the agreement
• Ownership and usage rights
• Termination clauses

Payment, for example, is an important consideration. According to Sprout Social’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report, 59% of influencers say they want to work with companies that have clear budgets and payment structures.

Your payment structure will vary depending on your budget as well as the influencer’s size and engagement rate. Here are some payment structures for Facebook influencer marketing:

• Flat fees for the entire campaign
• Commission-based model
• Pay per post (or per Reel, Story etc.)
• Product gifting or discounts

You could also go for a hybrid model and mix multiple compensation models for an ideal fit that works for both your brand and the influencer.

For example, combine discounted products with a flat fee per post. Or, combine flat fees for the entire campaign with commissions based on engagement or leads generated.

As for influencer pricing, our report shows that most influencers charge between $250 and $1,000 per post.

6. Launch the campaign

Finally, it’s time to execute your campaign.

Provide detailed briefs to influencers that outline campaign objectives, creative guidelines and any other information you finalized during the planning stage.

Then, let your campaign unfold. Your part here will mostly be focused on management and monitoring. You can also set up an approval process to review influencer content before it goes live on Facebook. Influencer Marketing by Sprout Social (formerly Tagger) can help you do that easily.

Make sure influencers are posting on schedule, sticking to brand guidelines and responding to comments. This is also a good time for your brand to jump in and engage with the influencer’s audience by liking and replying to comments.

7. Monitor and optimize performance

As the campaign is rolling out, one of your responsibilities as a brand is to continuously keep an eye on its performance.

Monitoring your campaign helps you ensure it’s meeting your KPIs. If certain posts or content formats perform better than others, for example, you can easily adjust your strategy in real time.

Here are some Facebook metrics to track during (and after) your campaign:

• Engagement rate
• Follower growth
• Conversions

Sprout lets you monitor the progress of your influencer campaigns in real-time. You can even see the results alongside your organic metrics to assess how your sponsored campaigns fit into your bigger Facebook marketing strategy.

8. Analyze campaign results

At the end of the campaign, your job is far from done. This is where you measure the overall performance against the initial goals. Did you achieve your desired outcomes?

Create detailed reports that break down this data. Look at metrics like:

• Reach
• Page visits
• Follows
• Engagement

Use Sprout’s influencer management platform to generate custom reports and access detailed Facebook analytics that give you an accurate picture of your campaign’s performance.

You can also dive deeper and understand how your target audience reacted to your campaign. Use sentiment analysis to uncover the emotions behind comments.

Also, analyze your campaign’s impact on your company’s bottom line. Check out metrics like website traffic (traffic source), conversions, downloads, sales, popular product categories or pages and other specific data to understand the ROI.

Take note of your wins as well as any learnings for future campaigns. What could you have done better? Discuss these findings with the influencer if you plan to work together again in the future.

9. Maintain relationships

It’s okay to do one-off collabs with influencers. But those are rarely high-impact. Building long-term relationships with influencers can bring you better results over time because it creates consistency in messaging and builds trust with the audience.

It can also turn influencers into true brand advocates, which automatically boosts the authenticity and impact of their endorsements.

After the campaign, thank your influencers and express interest in future collaborations. You could also send them personalized thank-you gifts, or offer perks like discounts and early access to new products to keep them engaged with your brand.

Also, keep in touch with your partners on social media, even when you don’t have an active campaign. This helps build loyalty and makes them feel more inclined to work with you again.

Tips for successful Facebook influencer marketing campaigns

Want to take your Facebook influencer campaigns from average to amazing? Follow the tips below to boost your chances of success on the platform.

• Run Facebook ads to boost your campaigns: Combine organic influencer posts with paid advertising to squeeze more out of your campaigns. Pairing sponsored content with Facebook’s powerful ad targeting tools can help you reach a wider audience and amplify campaign results.
• Use Facebook Live to interact directly with followers: Co-host or ask influencers to host Facebook Live sessions where they review or use your product, answer questions and get feedback from followers in real time.
• Optimize your content for mobile: Use mobile-friendly formats like Stories and short-form video (i.e. Facebook Reels) to reach audiences scrolling through Facebook on their phones.
• Encourage user-generated content (UGC): Have influencers inspire their followers to create their own content using your product. People tend to value authentic feedback from real users more than traditional promotional posts from brands.
• Cross-promote on other platforms: Expand your reach by encouraging influencers to share campaign content on multiple platforms like Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. Make sure to optimize and tailor the content to perform well on each network.
• Use an influencer marketing platform: Sprout Social Influencer Marketing (formerly Tagger) lets you automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks like finding the right influencers, managing contracts and payments, and measuring campaign success so you can focus on strategy.

Kickstart your Facebook influencer marketing campaigns

Facebook might not be the first platform you think of for influencer marketing, but it offers some great opportunities for brands in specific niches or those targeting a large, diverse audience.

Execute successful influencer campaigns that drive results by carefully selecting influencers, aligning creative strategies and combining organic efforts with Facebook ads.

Ready to launch your Facebook influencer marketing campaign? Learn more about how Sprout Social’s influencer marketing platform can help you find the perfect partners and manage your influencer campaigns across Facebook, Instagram and more from start to finish.

The post Facebook influencer marketing fundamentals: What you need to know appeared first on Sprout Social.

With such a vast audience, Facebook analytics tools are designed to help you avoid wasted ad spend and diluted messaging to broad audiences. They reveal your most engaged audience segments, so you can optimize your campaigns through strategic audience testing.

Read on for an overview of how to use Facebook’s audience insights tool, so your brand can make the most out of Meta’s biggest platform.

Why is it crucial to understand your Facebook audience?

Understanding exactly who your target audience is does more than just save money. It guides your social presence and helps you create impactful content, establishing a foundation for higher engagement and improved return on investment (ROI).

Want to know how your audience interacts with Facebook? Start by researching the latest demographic data. Learn who uses Facebook, how often they use it, what they use it for and if users fit within your target audience.

As of July 2024, 53.8% of users are female and 24.2% are aged 25-34 with most of them younger than 44. That said, the platform is still popular with older audiences. A Q2 Sprout Social Pulse Survey found that Facebook is the most-used network for Gen X and Baby Boomers.

Facebook audience insights provide critical data on your current audience, so you can zero in on your target consumers. With this on-hand, your decisions will be more informed and customer-centric, translating to more impactful campaigns, advertising efforts and creator partnerships.

To put these insights into action and start building stronger connections with your audience, download our free worksheet—a step-by-step guide to refining your strategy.

How to access Facebook audience insights

On Facebook, there are two ways to discover audience insights from your business profile. First, you can see organic audience data including:

• People who like your Page broken down by gender and location
• Number of total Followers
• Reach and engagement metrics

To dive into your business profile’s data, start with the ‘Insights’ tab in the Meta Business Suite for an overview of your performance across accounts, then click on ‘Audience.’

Here, you’ll get data on your Facebook and Instagram followers, their demographics and the top cities and countries where your audience resides.

Navigate the audience tab in two ways:

• Current audience: This represents ‌people who are already connected to your business in some way, such as followers of your Facebook Page or Instagram profile, or people who have engaged with your content or ads.
• Potential audience: This encompasses people who are not yet connected to your business but may be interested in your products or services. These insights help you identify and target new customer segments based on shared characteristics with your current audience or specific criteria you define.

Second, running an ad campaign lets you access all data from your organic view along with additional detailed audience information, such as:

• Age
• Content preferences (top-performing posts and videos)
• Device usage

Head to Meta Ads Manager and access information using Ads Reporting and Audience tabs in the main navigation menu.

You can also explore how your Facebook ad campaign performed with your different audience types, which we’ll explain in the next section.

What are the different types of Facebook audiences?

When you run a Facebook ad campaign, you have four audience targeting options to ensure you reach your ideal audience. Each of Facebook’s audience types offers a unique way to connect with potential customers. Knowing how to apply these can drastically improve your campaign performance by targeting the right people at the right time.

1. New audiences

New audiences is the default setting option and refers to new customers who haven’t previously interacted with your brand. You can refine this audience by selecting categories like:

• Location (e.g. city, country)
• Demographics (e.g. education, financial and life events)
• Interests (e.g. family and relationships, fitness and leisure)
• Behaviors (e.g. mobile device user)

2. Custom audiences

Custom audiences enable you to connect with people who already show an interest in your business. It’s made of information—called “identifiers”—you’ve collected about your customers (such as email, phone number and address) and provided to Meta. They might have engaged with your content, visited your site, used your app, completed a recent purchase or they might be on your customer list.

3. Lookalike audiences

Lookalike audiences are made up of people who share interests with your custom audiences, but haven’t interacted with your business yet. Create a Lookalike Audience and select a source to automatically generate a new audience segment that mirrors your best customers.

When you create your lookalike audience, you can use a percent range to choose how closely you want your new audience to match your source audience.

These audiences save you time because, rather than starting from scratch to create a new audience, you can rinse and repeat the success of your most successful content and campaigns.

4. Saved audiences

Whenever you create a new custom audience, save it for future use, but remember to reselect your ideal location each time.

How to use Facebook audience insights

Since Facebook generates the highest ROI of any social network, it’s crucial to customize and save your best-performing audiences to consistently optimize your ad spend for maximum impact. To get started with the Facebook audience insights tool, follow these steps.

1. Upload a custom audience source

Get started by selecting Create a Custom Audience from the Audiences tab of your Ads Manager. From there, choose a custom audience source, including your owned sources like data from your website, app activity, a CRM customer list and more.

You can also use Meta sources, like video engagement, your Instagram account Followers, lead forms, event participants and Shopping users.

2. Customize your audience with filters

After selecting your source, indicate additional rule inclusions or exclusions to better refine your audience.

You have multiple criteria to choose from:

The Facebook audience meter will let you know whether your audience is too specific or too broad. Continue iterating until your reach is just right (the ideal audience size is between 2–10 million people). Further customize your audience by age, location, language and gender.

You’ll want to nail down your audience at least a week ahead of a campaign launch. It can take Meta up to three days to match your audience to profiles on Meta technologies.

3. Zone-in on interest-based audiences

If you have a relatively large audience (at least larger than 2 million), use additional interest-based targeting to pinpoint a specific audience using the same categories mentioned earlier. Then, add the name and description of your audience list and how long you’ll retain it. Now you’re ready to tap Create New List.

4. Review your audience metrics

After launching your ad campaign, review how your audience list is performing. Are you reaching your campaign goals? If not, make the necessary adjustments to your list. Experiment with narrowing or broadening your audience and redefining your inclusions and exclusions.

5. Save and replicate your best-performing audiences

If your audience performs well, save it for future use. To reach and engage new consumers with similar demographics and behavior patterns, create a lookalike audience.

By tapping Create a Lookalike Audience from the Audiences tab, you’ll be prompted to select an existing audience or data source, select the audience location and size and determine how similar your audience should be to the original (1% lookalike means the audience is as similar to the original as possible). Once you create this audience, you can rerun your ad campaign or continue tailoring the list.

How Sprout Social helps define your Facebook audience

Sprout Social’s AI-powered insights can reveal trends that aren’t immediately obvious in Facebook’s native tools, helping you optimize your campaigns better and improve your Facebook strategy.

It’s a powerful Facebook audience insights alternative to increasing your audience size and engagements, which are keys to increasing demand.

Here are a few platform highlights that give you a deeper understanding of your target audience.

Social listening

With Sprout’s Social Listening solution, AI and automation sift through millions of data points to surface vital trends, insights and audience learnings—in mere seconds.

Listen in to conversations about your brand, your competitors, campaigns and other current events important to you.

As the Profile Overview demonstrates, the tool enables you to compare followers, volume, potential impressions, likes and engagements from various Facebook profiles to help you benchmark your strategy and visibly demonstrate your campaign’s influence.

Using the Performance Summary tool, you can investigate topics most relevant to your audience. Uncover which keywords are driving conversations and use them to refine your interest-based filters when creating Facebook custom audiences.

The Device Demographics dashboard further enhances your ability to define Facebook audiences by providing crucial insights into user behavior. Create more precise custom audiences, optimizing ad spend and improving engagement by focusing on the devices and platforms where your audience is most active and responsive.

Plus, use the Conversation Breakdown widget for a visual breakdown of top smart categories, keywords, hashtags, mentions and emojis found in your Topic. Analyze sentiment, track engagement and identify emerging trends in conversations about your brand on Facebook.

Network-specific and aggregate metrics

Sprout’s analytics tools speed up data collection and distribution so you can focus on the KPIs that matter, inform strategy and prove ROI. The tools enable you to maintain complete oversight of all connected social profiles from one location.

Use reports like the Facebook Pages report to dig into audience growth trends, impressions, engagements and post link clicks. Compare these findings with other network results to determine audience growth patterns, peak engagement times and content preference shifts.

Sprout’s My Reports is a custom reporting tool that lets you combine data from various sources, including Facebook Pages, to create a comprehensive view of your audience’s behavior and preferences.

For example, a global coffee chain could create an audience analysis report that combines Facebook post engagement data with Instagram Story views.

Correlating these metrics with in-store sales data and seasonal trends reveals interesting trends. For example, millennials, for instance, seem to engage most with sustainability content on Facebook in the fall. Gen Z, on the other hand, is more likely to share limited-time offers on Instagram Stories during the summer.

This detailed, cross-platform analysis sharpens campaign strategies across various channels but also guides content creation and budget allocation. It could even inspire new product development for seasonal offerings, ensuring every dollar spent maximizes impact.

Paid reporting

To test the performance of your Facebook ad audiences, use Sprout’s Paid Performance reports. The Facebook and Instagram report highlights campaign-level data for ad campaigns across Meta platforms. Trends appear against your key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you identify top-performing channels and campaigns.

A multi-location fitness franchise could use Sprout’s Paid Performance reports to compare the effectiveness of their localized Facebook ad campaigns across different markets.

Analyzing metrics like cost per acquisition, engagement rates and conversion data alongside demographics may show their high-intensity workout ads resonate strongly with millennials in urban areas on Instagram. On the other hand, their family-friendly gym membership promotions might be more successful with Gen X users on Facebook in suburban locations.

By dialing into these insights, the franchise can decisively pivot their advertising strategies—maximizing both reach and relevance in their diverse market segments.

Maximize Facebook audience insights to up-level your strategy

Make the most of your Facebook strategy by starting with the intel you need to target your ideal audience. To elevate your strategy, start by integrating these insights into your daily operations—whether it’s fine-tuning your audience targeting or using AI-driven tools like Sprout for deeper analysis.

By pairing Facebook’s insights with Sprout’s AI tools, you’ll uncover emerging trends, giving you an edge in targeting your audience.

Ready to transform your Facebook strategy with deeper audience insights? Start your free 30-day Sprout Social trial today.

The post How to use Facebook audience insights for more effective targeting appeared first on Sprout Social.

Whether it’s a brand promotion, video, news update or even a meme, visual content rules the social media landscape. What has become so important is effectively conveying your brand on social media through images and video.

The visual face of your brand is oftentimes the first thing your audience sees and possibly the one thing they remember. It’s difficult to reuse the same image across all social networks unless you have a free social media image resizing tool like Landscape.

Sprout Social’s very own tool is free to use to resize, crop and scale social media image sizes. And along with our resizing tool, we’ve provided all the specific dimensions and a few quick tips to help you decide which image best fits each position.

Before we get into it, here are some additional resources:

• Easily reference this social media image sizes list in our always up-to-date Google Doc.
• Bookmark our social media video specs and ad guide!
• Download free social media images that are already optimized!
• Find more information about Sprout-supported files and sizes in our Help Center.

Easily manage multimedia content with Sprout

Sprout’s Asset Library simplifies publishing and asset management by providing you with a centralized location to store images, videos and text.

Quickly create, organize, edit and publish assets directly from the Asset Library to deliver on-brand, visually engaging posts for any connected social network.

Start Your Free Trial

Social Media Image Sizes Per Network

These links will make it easier for you to navigate to the specific social media image sizes per network:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• TikTok
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Google My Business

Facebook Image Sizes

With 2.96 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the world’s largest social network. For that reason alone, it’s important to have attractive and engaging images that are optimized for the platform.

Remember that different devices, whether it’s mobile or desktop, render differently. Make sure that you are choosing dimensions based on where you want the majority of viewers to see your image.

Learn more about Facebook image sizes

Get specs and tips for implementing the best visual content on Facebook with these guides:

• Always up-to-date list of Facebook ad sizes & specs
• The Picture-Perfect Facebook Cover Photo Size
• Facebook Event Photo Size & Dimensions Guide

Facebook Profile Picture

Say cheese: your profile picture represents you or your brand on Facebook. This is the round photo that appears on your timeline layered over your cover photo. Your profile picture will also appear when you post to other walls, comment on posts or when your profile is searched.

Facebook profile picture image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 320×320 pixels
• Minimum file size: 180×60 pixels
• Displays:
  • 176×176 pixels (desktop)
  • 196×196 pixels (smartphones)
  • 36×36 pixels (most feature phones)
• Recommended file type: JPG, PNG
• Profile pictures are cropped to a circle

Facebook Business Page Profile Picture

Facebook changed its Profile image for Business Pages to appear to the left side of the screen. The new look helps Facebook Business Pages follow a similar appearance as personal accounts. However, the dimensions are the same, but the photo appears on the page slightly different.

Facebook Business Page profile image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 320×320 pixels
• Minimum file size: 180×60 pixels
• Displays:
  • 176×176 pixels (desktop)
  • 196×196 pixels (smartphones)
  • 36×36 pixels (most feature phones)
  • Recommended file type: JPG, PNG
• Profile pictures are cropped to a circle

Facebook Profile and Business Page Cover Photo

Your Facebook cover photo will only appear on your Facebook timeline, and it stretches across the entire screen, which gives you more freedom to choose something creative or supplement your profile picture. Where your profile picture might be a good choice for a picture of you or a brand logo, use this space to post something that speaks more toward you as an individual or as a brand.

Facebook profile and Business Page cover photo image guidelines

• Ratio: 16:9
• Minimum required size: 400×150 pixels
• Recommended image size: 851×315 pixels
• Mobile display size: 640×360 pixels
• Max file size: 100kb
• Recommended file type: JPG, PNG
• Notes:
  • The left side of your cover photo will be covered by your profile picture. On mobile, it could be 75% of your profile picture will overlap into the cover photo.
  • Images with a logo or text may be best as a PNG file
  • Business Page dimensions are exactly the same as personal accounts.

Facebook Shared Image

A shared image is one of the most common forms of sharing on Facebook. These images will always appear on your timeline, and ideally they will show up in most of your followers’ News Feeds — though with the Facebook algorithm determining which content will be served, it’s unlikely that everyone will see your post. The more people engage with your post, the more likely it is that the rest of your followers and their followers will see that activity.

Facebook shared image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1080×1350 pixels
• Maximum file size: 8MB
• Recommended file type: JPG, PNG, GIF
• Appears in feed at a max width of 470 pixels (will scale to a max of 1:1)
• Appears on page at a max width of 504 pixels (will scale to a max of 1:1)

Sprout Guidelines:

• Same as above, except:
• Max number of images per post: 10 in Sprout

Facebook Shared Link

Another great tool in your Facebook belt is the ability to share a link. It’s very similar to posting a shared image, but it gives you even more fields to work with. You can choose to create a shared link with a small square image to the left and text on the right, or with a larger rectangular image on top with text underneath.

Facebook shared link image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1080×1350 pixels
• Displays:
  • 479×246 pixels (desktop)
  • 320 pixel width (mobile)
• Minimum size: 200×200 pixels
• Maximum file size: 8MB
• Facebook will scale photos under the minimum dimensions. For better results, increase image resolution at the same scale as the minimum size.

Facebook Event Image

Facebook Events help capture the attention of users and cut through the noise on Facebook. Reminders are sent to your audience and having a good space with an even better image is important. Make sure you have the right dimensions down for a Facebook Event cover photo.

Facebook Event image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1920×1005
• Facebook will scale down to minimum dimensions: 400×150 pixels
• Facebook recommends for best results, choose photos that are 400×150 pixels.

Facebook Fundraiser image

Facebook has added the ability to create a fundraiser for charitable organizations or personal causes. The cover photo for these fundraisers slightly varies from a typical Facebook cover photo, with a minimum size of 400×150. The best experience across many display types will come from a higher resolution image, though.

Looking for Facebook ad sizes?

Facebook ad formatting can be even more complex than organic posts, so for more guidelines, check out our complete guide to every Facebook ad size!

Find more information on the image sizes for Facebook, visit the Facebook Help Center.

Find more information about Sprout-supported files and sizes in our Help Center.

Twitter Image Sizes

With 436 million monthly active users, Twitter is one of the social media networks that your customers will most often use to discuss your brand.

X (fka Twitter) Profile Photo

Your X profile photo is the main image that represents you or your brand across the network. It’s going to be seen across the site in a number of places by a number of people so make sure it’s of the highest quality. Here’s the places your profile photo will be visible on the site.

• On your page: The largest display of your profile picture is on your homepage and can be viewed by your followers as well as individuals who stumble upon your page.
• In-stream: A smaller version of your profile picture appears in a follower’s X stream every time you Post or are Reposted.
• Who to follow: Your profile picture is also going to appear next to a link to your page in the “Who to follow” box. This is located directly to the right of your X stream on desktop. Choose a recognizable image here.

X (fka Twitter) profile photo image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 400×400 pixels
• Maximum file size: 5MB
• Image types include: JPG, GIF or PNG

X (fka Twitter) Header Photo

Your header photo is the image that spans the top of your X profile page. It’s quite a bit larger than your profile photo so make sure to save it at the highest resolution possible. Because you have more room to be creative with this picture and it will likely be the first thing your visitors see, make it something captivating.

X (fka Twitter) header image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1500×500 pixels
• Maximum file size: 5MB
• Recommended file type: JPG, GIF or PNG

X (fka Twitter) In-Stream Photos and Shared Links

X users can attach photos to any of their Posts. Depending on whether you’re attaching one or many photos or sharing a link, the way photos crop and display in stream will vary slightly.

Fortunately, in 2021, X made waves with #TwitterCropIsGone, eliminating the sometimes-unfavorable automated cropping for vertical images that had often become the subject of memes and in-jokes among users of the platform. Extremely wide or tall images with unusual dimensions may still get cropped, but for most images in standard 4:3 or 16:9 dimensions, you won’t have to worry as much about centering subjects around automated cropping.

The following are some best practices to get an optimal result, and you can also preview the end result in Sprout’s Compose window before you publish.

Recommended sizes for images by types of Posts:

• Recommended image sizes:
  • Minimum: 600×335 pixels
  • Landscape: 1024×512 pixels (minimum) and 1600×900 pixels (recommended)
  • Square: 1080×1080 pixels
  • Portrait: 1080×1350 pixels
• Recommended aspect ratio: 16:9
• Maximum file size:
  • 5 MB for JPG, PNG
  • 15 MB for GIFs
• Maximum number of images per post: 4 images

Sprout Guidelines:

• Same as above

Find more information on in-stream photos at the X Help Center.

Find more information about Sprout-supported files and sizes in our Help Center.

Instagram Image Sizes

Instagram is one of the most popular photo-sharing social networks. It’s the best place to showcase your visual creativity, even down to making a compelling grid out of the way your photos’ thumbnails display in sequence.

Instagram Profile Picture

Instagram is based on visuals, which should be an indication of how important it is to follow these image size guidelines. Ensure your profile image is recognizable so users can find you even easier through search or explore.

Instagram profile picture image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 110×110 pixels
• Recommended aspect ratio: 1:1, 4:5

Instagram Photo Size (Feed & Ad)

Because Instagram is all about sharing visual content – both images and videos – that appear in your followers’ feeds, it’s important to use higher resolution photos. Whether you’re posting natively in the app, via desktop or through a social media management tool, these guidelines below will help you put your best foot forward.

Instagram photo size (feed & ad) image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1080×1080 pixels or 1080×1350 pixels
• Recommended minimum width: 1080 pixels
  • Images with a width between 320 and 1080 pixels will be kept at the original resolution as long as it fits the recommended aspect ratio listed below
  • If images are a lower resolution, Instagram will enlarge to a width of 320 pixels
  • If images are a higher resolution, Instagram will shrink it to a width of 1080 pixels
• Recommended aspect ratio: 1.91:1 or 4:5
  • Images will be cropped to fit a supported ratio
• Maximum file size: 8MB
• Recommended file type: JPG and PNG
• Maximum number of images per post: 10 images

Sprout Guidelines:

• Same as above

Instagram Photo Thumbnails

When someone goes to your page, they’ll be presented with all of your content arranged in rows of thumbnails. These smaller renditions of your images and videos will expand when clicked and include a place for people to comment.

Instagram photo thumbnails image guidelines

• Thumbnails will appear at 161×161 pixels
• Recommended image width: 1080 pixel
• Feed aspect ratio: 1:1

Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are a popular source of visuals on the app. There are both video and image options available to publish. And while this feature was originally meant to be ephemeral, it’s possible to upload your own content and build a strategy around Stories engagement.

Instagram Story image guidelines

• Recommended resolution: 1920×1080
• Minimum resolution: 150×150
• Aspect ratio: 9:16

Sprout Guidelines:

• Same as above, except:
• Aspect ratio: 4:5 to 1.91:1 for Story Images published through Sprout

For those looking for more info on Instagram ad sizes, including video specs, check out this guide!

TikTok Image Sizes

With 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok has grown considerably over the last few years. With nearly half its users under the age of 30, TikTok is becoming the social platform for younger target audiences.

TikTok Profile Image

All TikTok users have the option to upload a profile image to their accounts. This is the perfect opportunity for businesses to showcase their personalities through branding or to highlight a specific campaign.

TikTok profile image guidelines

• Minimum image size: 200×200 pixels
• Recommended file type: JPG, GIF or PNG

Looking for more TikTok specs? Our Always-Up-To-Date Video Specs guide can answer those questions.

LinkedIn Image Sizes

With 467 million registered users, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. Where other social networks may be good drivers of traffic and customers, LinkedIn is a great place for you to source great employees and to connect with other industry leaders.

LinkedIn Personal Profile Image

LinkedIn started using a new layout for personal profiles and kept the box logo with company pages (more on that below). However, the personal profile dimensions for LinkedIn is very straightforward. This is the main image that represents you on your personal profile. So anytime someone takes a look at your profile for some quick info, this is the prominent image that represents you. It’s important to get the size right.

LinkedIn personal profile image guidelines

• Minimum image size: 268×268 pixels
• Recommended image size: 400×400 pixels
• Maximum file size: 3MB
• Recommended file type: JPG or PNG

LinkedIn Cover Image

LinkedIn’s background image is a newer feature for your personal profile. It’s a little bit trickier to find something that really fits that space well, but if you get it right, your profile will look great.

LinkedIn cover image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1584×396 pixels
• Maximum file size: 8MB
• Recommended file type: JPG or PNG

LinkedIn Company Logo Image

One of the two brand logos that you should be uploading to LinkedIn is the standard company logo. This is the bigger of the two and is going to show up right next to your brand name on your LinkedIn homepage. This image also appears in the “Companies you may want to follow” section. The more enticing the photo, the more likely you’ll gain followers.

LinkedIn Company logo image guidelines

• Minimum image size: 268×268 pixels
• Recommended image size: 400×400 pixels
• Maximum file size: 3MB
• Recommended file type: JPG or PNG

LinkedIn Company Cover Image

Unlike the personal background image, the company or standard business background image covers the entire top of the page. The image appears much larger than the personal dimensions, giving businesses a bit more space.

LinkedIn Company cover image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 1128×191 pixels
• Maximum file size: 3MB
• Recommended file type: JPG or PNG

LinkedIn Shared Image or Link

This size works for LinkedIn posts that share a photo or a link with an image to a blog post or article to your company page’s feed.

LinkedIn shared image or link image guidelines

• Recommended image size for links: 1200×627 pixels, based on mobile scaling
• Recommended file type: JPG or PNG

Sprout Guidelines:

• Same as above, except:
• Maximum number of images per post: 9
• Maximum image size: 5MB
• Supported file types: JPG, PNG, GIF (250 frame limit)

LinkedIn Life Tab – Main Image & Company Photos

The Life tab on LinkedIn company pages lets you provide a more in-depth look at the day to day experience of your company’s employees. Currently, the two types of images you can upload here are the main image, which serves as a hero and highlight to your page, and the horizontal scrolling gallery of other company photos beneath.

LinkedIn Life tab image guidelines

• Recommended size for main image: 1128×376
• Recommended size for company photos: 900×600
• Recommended file type: JPG or PNG
• The Life tab only appears on the mobile app, and not the mobile web version of LinkedIn, so exact display sizes will vary by device. Upload the recommended size for the best experience.

Find more information in the LinkedIn Help Center.

LinkedIn Carousel Ads

A LinkedIn carousel is a slideshow-style post that allows readers to “swipe” across slides and read content. This LinkedIn ad type supports images for users to swipe through. Posts can include up to 10 slides and each image can have a link attached.

LinkedIn Carousel ad guidelines

• Recommend file size: 10MB
• Max image size: 4320×4320 pixels
• Recommended individual image size: 1080×1080
• Recommended individual image aspect ratio: 1:1
• Recommended image type: JPG, PNG, GIF (non-animated only)

Pinterest Image Sizes

Pinterest Profile Picture

When setting up your Pinterest account you have the option to do so using Facebook, Google or email. If you choose Facebook or Google, Pinterest will pull in the profile image that you have set there.

If you’re using email, or would prefer to use a different photo, you can do that too: just upload a square photograph (the larger the better) and Pinterest will resize it to fit. Like other social sites your profile picture on Pinterest should be something closely tied to you or your brand.

Pinterest profile picture image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 165×165 pixels
• Maximum file size: 10MB
• Recommended image type: JPG and PNG

Pinterest Pin Sizes

When adding a pin to your board, it’s important to remember that Pinterest puts a limit on the width of the image but not the length. This gives you the opportunity to add a photo that’s square or one that will scale to be even taller. Just remember to make sure you’re creating large images because they add more value, not just because you can.

Pinterest Pin sizes image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 735×1102 pixels
• Recommended ratio: 2:3
• Recommended file size: 20MB max
• Recommended file type: JPG, PNG, GIF
• Note: Larger are resized to display at a width of 238 pixels with scaled height in feeds.

Sprout Guidelines:

• Same as above, except:
• Maximum number of images per post: 1
• Maximum image size: 10MB
• Supported file types: JPG, PNG, GIF

Text Guidelines

• Title character count: 100 characters max
• Textbox character count: 250 characters max

Pinterest Board Display

Creating boards is one of the most important things that you can do on Pinterest. Not only is it important to choose a photo that is enticing to your audience, it’s important to choose one that’s relevant to that particular board.

Pinterest Board display image guidelines

• Final display: 222×150 pixels (large thumbnail)
• Final display: 55×55 pixels (smaller thumbnail)

Find more information in the Pinterest Help Center.

YouTube Image Sizes

YouTube has more than 2.5 billion unique users every month and is available on hundreds of millions of devices. Millions of brands have already realized that YouTube is a great opportunity to reach their fan-base.

YouTube Channel Profile Image

YouTube allows you to select different profile image borders, but the dimensions stay the same. Ensure your YouTube has a profile image set up before you select your border.

YouTube Channel profile image guidelines

• Recommended image size: 800×800 pixels
• Minimum image size: 98×98 pixels
• Maximum file size: 4MB
• Recommended image files: PNG or GIF (no animations)

YouTube Channel Cover Photo

Spice up your YouTube channel with some “channel art.” When users click through your YouTube videos to your channel, some appealing images could entice them to stay on your page longer and watch more of your videos.

YouTube Channel cover photo image guidelines

• Recommended file size: 2560×1440 pixels
• Minimum file size: 2048×1152 pixels
• Safe area for mobile and web (without text and logo cropping): 1546×423 pixels
• Maximum file size: 6MB
• Recommended image files: PNG or GIF

Across Different Devices

There are a lot of different platforms and devices that users can stream YouTube on so it’s important that you review your creative across devices and confirm that the most important parts of your image, such as text or logos, are displaying legibly in the “safe zone” noted above.

Find more information in the YouTube Help Center.

YouTube Video Uploads

Uploading your content to YouTube is the one of the most important parts of establishing your presence on the site. Videos can tell viewers something about you as a person, or it could show off something that your business might offer.

YouTube video guidelines

• Videos must maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio. Smaller videos such as 4:3 will be pillarboxed to fit.
• YouTube Shorts must maintain a 9:16 aspect ratio and 1920×1080 pixels.

For more on the specifics of YouTube video optimization, or to size video on any other social network, check out our complete guide to social media video specs.

Google My Business Image Sizes

Google My Business has become an essential platform for businesses with local, brick-and-mortar presences to gain visibility and conduct their review management strategy.

Types of Images for Google My Business

• Logo: Your recognizable logo image. May not be available for all types of businesses–see Google guidelines for more detail.
• Cover photo: A photo of your business that will typically be the first one shown. Choose a photo that gives the best overall representation of your place of business for this photo.
• Business photo: You can use your other business photos to highlight different elements of your business or offices and help show off what local visiting customers should look for when they stop by.

For all three types of images, Google’s official guidelines recommend the below specs for the best appearance on the platform.

Google My Business image guidelines

• Recommended resolution: 720×720 pixels
• Minimum resolution: 250×250 pixels
• File size maximum: 5 MB
• Image file type: JPG or PNG

The post Always up-to-date guide to social media image sizes appeared first on Sprout Social.

Staying relevant and capturing your audience’s attention is a constant challenge for marketers. And now that brands rely on video content more than ever, it’s critical to use the correct social media video specs and advertising video sizes.

To simplify marketers’ efforts, we created a complete guide of every single social media video spec and advertising video dimension.

Before we start, here are some additional resources that keep the information in one place:

• Easily reference our social media video specs in our always up-to-date Google Doc.
• Check out our social media image sizes guide for help on static images.
• Want to get better results with video? Download our social media video content workbook.
• Find more information about Sprout-supported files and sizes in our Help Center.

Social Media Video Specs & Ad Sizes By Network

We’ve gathered data on each social network’s specific video sizes and specs. Simply click the links below to jump to your desired network:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Twitter
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Snapchat

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Facebook Video Specs

Facebook video is consumed at higher rates each year, so it’s no wonder why so many marketers search for the correct Facebook video specs.

There are simply so many types of videos you can share on Facebook and the platform updates its design frequently. Each video format has different dimensions and specs, which can make it confusing to know whether or not you’re uploading the correct format for organic or paid posts. Follow the specs below to optimize your posts.

In-Feed Shared Post Video (Landscape & Portrait)

The most common type of video on Facebook comes from shared posts. This type of video lives in your Facebook Feed, and can be shared by brands or your friends. While it’s not as easy to get organic reach on Facebook, it’s still a viable way to share video.

You can choose between two video orientations: Landscape and Portrait. Here’s a look at the video specs for both.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1280×720, 720×1280
• Minimum width: 1200 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 16:9, 9:16
• Max file size: 10GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV
• Video length: 1 second to 240 minutes
• Bitrate: 256kbps
• Frame rate: 30fps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 3GB max in Sprout
• Video length: 45 minutes max, if uploading in Sprout
• Supported file types: MP4, MOV, AVI

Facebook Reels

The convenience of cross-posting your Instagram Reels to Facebook expands the reach of your videos. This format appears organically in feeds but often gets priority on Facebook feeds.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: No file size limit
• Recommended video formats: MP4
• Video length: 3 seconds to 90 seconds
• Frame rate: 24fps – 60fps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Video length: 60 seconds max
• Supported file types: MP4, MOV, AVI
• Frame rate: 30fps recommended in Sprout

Facebook Stories

Similar to Instagram Stories, you can post Facebook Stories to extend the reach of your posts. Users who may not follow you on Instagram will be able to view and interact with your Stories.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080p
• Minimum width: 500 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 9:16 and 4:5 to 1.91:1
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4 or MOV
• Video length: 1 second to 60 seconds

Facebook Video Ad Specs

There are more than 10 million advertisers now on Facebook and having the right specs for your ads can be tricky. Each type of Facebook video ad is different, so let’s break down the specs for each type of video you can produce.

In-Feed Video Ads

These Facebook video ads are the sponsored equivalent of in-feed posts, and they follow similar guidelines to in-feed video posts.

Video guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080 minimum
• Minimum width: 120 pixels
• Minimum height: 120 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 1:1 (for desktop or mobile) or 4:5 (for mobile only)
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or GIF
• Video length: 1 seconds to 240 minutes
• Frame rate: 30fps

Character limits

• Primary text: 125 characters
• Headline: 27 characters
• Description: 27 characters

Carousel Video Ads

Facebook Carousel Video ads allow brands to showcase multiple videos (or images) and a landing page link within a user’s Facebook feed. It has grown in popularity because its unique scrolling feature allows users to see more content before clicking. In fact, Digiday estimated Carousel Ads to be 10x more effective than standard social media ads.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080 minimum
• Aspect ratio: 1:1
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or GIF
• Video length: 1 seconds to 240 minutes
• Frame rate: 30fps

Character limits

• Primary text: 125 characters
• Headline: 32 characters
• Description: 18 characters
• Landing Page URL: Required

Collection Video Ads (Mobile)

The Facebook Collection ads showcase multiple images and a main video above it. This is perfect for displaying multiple products (or various colors of a single product) plus a video. The ad type has been popular so far with retailers and clothing companies as an instant storefront or lookbook.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080 minimum
• Aspect ratio: 1:1
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or GIF
• Video length: 1 seconds to 240 minutes
• Frame rate: 30fps

Character Limits

• Primary text: 125 characters
• Headline max: 40 characters
• Landing Page URL: Required

Instant Experience Video Ads

Facebook Instant Experience ads open up a full-screen experience after the first click, which can be further customized with a variety of interactive features. This can include multiple video experiences, including features to auto-play on loop.

Video Guidelines

• Minimum width: 720 pixels
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV
• Video length: Up to 2 minutes
• Frame rate: 30fps

Slideshow Video Ad

Facebook’s Slideshow videos were built for advertisers wanting to reach audiences with slower internet connections. Instead of a regular video, slideshows are just that–a slideshow of images or video in an ad display.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 1:1
• Recommended video formats: MP4 or MPV
• Slideshow duration length: 15 seconds

Facebook Stories Ads

Facebook added the Stories feature – photo or short video posts that are only available for 24 hours. In addition to user-generated organic posts, Stories ads are available to run between sets of posted Stories. While most users will be sharing immediate and organic updates from their phone’s camera, the guidelines for this format are similar for both paid and organic ad posts.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080
• Minimum width: 500 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MPV and GIF
• Video length: 1 second to 2 minutes
• Frame rate: 30fps

Character Limits

• Primary text: 125 characters
• Headline: 40 characters

For more information on the video specs for Facebook, visit the Facebook Help Center.

Instagram Video Specs

Instagram launched video capabilities in 2013 and quickly saw enough success to start advertising on the platform in 2015. Since then, video only continues to grow as an engaging social format. Needless to say, Instagram videos are absolutely worth the investment.

Carousel Video

Since 2015, Instagram crafted its video formats to allow three different styles: landscape, square and vertical. However, like the app, Instagram and how video is presented has evolve. Gone are the days of IGTV and Instagram Video. Video can be natively included as a post or carousel post, or they can be uploaded as Reels, but more on Reels later.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080, 1080×1350
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV
• Video length: 3 seconds to 60 minutes
• Frame rate: 23-60 fps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 100MB in Sprout
• Video length: 60 seconds max

Instagram Reels

Introduced in 2020, Instagram Reels are another option for your video strategy on Instagram. These short-form, easily digestible videos are becoming the preferred type of content in Instagram feeds.

Fortunately for social content creators looking to easily generate a lot of content for Instagram, most of the video specs for Instagram Reels are fairly similar to other formats on the platform.

As Instagram has started to add separate tabs for different content types, thumbnails will be cropped differently on each view. If the viewer is on the first tab that has all content types, the thumbnail will be cropped to the traditional square post size of 1:1–center your subjects and plan to avoid undesirable vertical cropping.

Video Guidelines:

• Resolution: 720p minimum
• Frame rate: 30 fps minimum
• Aspect ratio: 1.91:1 and 9:16 recommended
• Max file size: 4GB max
• Recommended video formats: MP4 or MOV
• Video length: 3 seconds to 15 minutes
  • Recording in-app is limited to 90 seconds; users can upload videos up to 15 minutes

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 1GB in Sprout
• Max bitrate: 5 Mbps
• Video length: 60 seconds max

Cover Photo Size:

• Size: 420p x 654p
• Aspect ratio: 1:1.55

Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are short-form videos that display for 24-hours on your profile. Followers and users can access your Stories directly from your profile; followers have the luxury of accessing your Stories directly from their feed, where Stories for accounts they follow display directly at the top of their screen.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080
• Minimum width: 500 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or GIF
• Video length: 1 second to 90 seconds
• Frame rate: 23-60 fps

Character Limits

• Primary text: 125 characters

Consider leaving roughly 250 pixels of the top of the video free from text to avoid covering them with the profile icon.

Instagram Video Ad Specs

Instagram’s advertising revenue has significantly increased over the last year. In fact, Instagram reportedly earned $43.2 billion in ad revenue in 2022. The push for Instagram advertising is real and marketers have to be ready to take advantage with engaging videos.

Carousel Video Ad

Much like Facebook’s Carousel Ads, Instagram offers a similar feature. Carousel ads allow users to see more of a product or feature than a single image or video. With Instagram, your carousel video ads can have 2-10 cards with a full-width call to action below the ad.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080
• Aspect ratio: 1:1
• Max file size: 4GB (video) 30MB (image)
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or GIF
• Video length: 1 second to 2 minutes
• Number of Carousel cards: 2 (minimum) to 10 (maximum)
• Frame rate: 23-60 fps

Instagram Stories Ads

It didn’t take long for Instagram Stories to feature ads within users’ story feeds. Brands can seamlessly integrate their video content between other Instagram users’ Stories.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1080
• Minimum width: 500 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 4GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or GIF
• Video length: 1 second to 60 minutes
• Frame rate: 23-60 fps

Character Limits

• Primary text: 125 characters

Consider leaving roughly 250 pixels of the top of the video free from text to avoid covering them with the profile icon

If you’re looking for further information including images, check out our complete guide to all the Instagram ad sizes.

For more information on the video specs for Instagram, visit the Facebook Help Center.

Find more information about Sprout-supported files and sizes in our Help Center.

TikTok Video Specs

TikTok has quickly gained attention in the social space. Fortunately, TikTok’s focus on easy to create and share videos means it’s not hard to start producing video content for the platform, and there are plenty of trends to inspire TikTok content creation.

TikTok In-Feed Videos

TikTok videos are all about the ease of creation, editing and sharing, so it makes sense that specs are more or less oriented around typical mobile phone dimensions. One key trait to keep in mind if you’re trying to repurpose video content across platforms is that videos uploaded from another file source, rather than recorded on the app, can be longer than 60 seconds.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1920
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 72MB (Android users) and 278.6MB (iOS users)
• Recommended video formats: MP4 or MOV
• Video length: Up to 3 minutes recorded in-app or 10 minutes when uploaded from another source
• Frame rate: 23-60fps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 1GB max in Sprout
• Video length: 10 minutes max, if uploading in Sprout
• Supported file types: MP4, MOV, WEBM

TikTok Feed Ads

TikTok ads are a rapidly evolving opportunity for brands. The in-feed option for paid TikTok content is fairly similar to the formatting for existing organic content. To fine-tune paid content for the best performance, be sure to consult TikTok’s business center for the latest tips.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 540×960, 640×640 or 960×540
• Aspect ratio: 9:16, 1:1 or 16:9
• Max file size: Up to 500MB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3PG or AVI
• Video length: 5 seconds to 60 seconds
• Bitrate: 516 kbps minimum
• Frame rate: 23-60fps

Character Limits

• Ad description: 1-100 Latin alphabet letters and 1-50 Asian characters

Twitter Video Specs

X (formerly Twitter) is a popular space to share and interact with different social media videos. For marketers, it’s all about keeping a user’s attention with enthralling and click-worthy video content. In the sports and entertainment industry, Twitter is often the go-to for sharing video content, so it’s critical to learn the correct Twitter video specs.

Twitter Landscape & Portrait Videos

Twitter provides two formats of in-feed video content to share with your followers: landscape and portrait. These specific formats are only available for uploading video directly to Twitter, rather than sharing YouTube or other links.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1280×720 (landscape), 720×1280 (portrait), 720×720 (square)
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 (landscape or portrait), 1:1 (square)
• Max file size: 512MB*
• Video length: 0.5 seconds to 140 seconds*
• Frame rate: 30fps or 60fps

*Twitter Pro Media users can upload files up to 1GB and videos up to 10 minutes.

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 512MB max in Sprout
• Video length: 140 seconds max, if uploading in Sprout
• Supported file types: MP4, MOV

Character Limits

• Maximum count: 280 characters.

Twitter Videos Ad Specs

Looking to promote your video through paid ads on Twitter? Luckily, you can use the same exact formats from Twitter organic videos. Stick to the same specs for both organic and paid video to ensure maximum visibility.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1280×720 (landscape), 720×1280 (portrait), 720×720 (square)
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 (landscape or portrait), 1:1 (square)
• Max file size: 512MB
• Video length: 0.5 seconds to 140 seconds
• Frame rate: 30fps or 60fps

Character Limits

• Maximum count: 280 characters.

For more information on the video specs for Twitter, visit the Twitter Help Center.

YouTube Video Specs

As the second-largest search engine behind Google, YouTube is an essential network for video content. For marketers, YouTube is a great space to promote, educate and share video content around your brand.

As YouTube continues to grow as a destination for video content, it hosts everything from short-form promotional videos to full-length movies and TV. This means users are streaming content on all sorts of devices, which could have different levels of zoom or overscan.

While there’s no hard and fast rules from the platform on how to approach the video editing concept of “title safe” areas where text like titles and subtitles aren’t cut off, you do want to avoid placing these types of visual elements right at the edges of your video area. Read on for more specifics on each format available on YouTube.

Video Player (Standard YouTube Video)

While YouTube allows users to upload various types of media formats and use plenty of different dimensions, organically, there’s truly only one format for the video player. Organic videos should all follow a 16:9 ratio, but can be uploaded 4:3. However, the smaller ratio will automatically pillarbox the sides to still make it fit in the player.

YouTube has seven recommended dimensions and ratios for standard YouTube videos:

Video Guidelines for Non-Verified Accounts

• Resolution:
  • 4320p (8k): 7680×4320
  • 2160p (4K): 3840×2160
  • 1440p (2k): 2560×1440
  • 1080p (HD): 1920×1080
  • 720p (HD): 1280×720
  • 480p (SD): 854×480
  • 360p (SD): 640×360
  • 240p (SD): 426×240
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 default
• Max file size: 5GB max in Sprout
• Recommended video formats: MOV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4, MP4, MPG, AVI, WMV, MPEGPS, FLV, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm, HEVC (h265)
• Video length: Up to 15 minutes
• Frame rate: 24, 25 or 30fps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 5GB max in Sprout
• Video length: 15 minutes max, if uploading in Sprout
• Supported file types: MP4, MOV

Video Guidelines for Verified Accounts

• Resolution:
  • 4320p (8k): 7680×4320
  • 2160p (4K): 3840×2160
  • 1440p (2k): 2560×1440
  • 1080p (HD): 1920×1080
  • 720p (HD): 1280×720
  • 480p (SD): 854×480
  • 360p (SD): 640×360
  • 240p (SD): 426×240
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 default
• Max file size: 256GB or 12 hours, whichever is less
• Recommended video formats: MOV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4, MP4, MPG, AVI, WMV, MPEGPS, FLV, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm, HEVC (h265)
• Video length: Up to 12 hours, dependent on file size
• Frame rate: 24, 25 or 30fps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 128GB max in Sprout
• Video length: 12 hours max, if uploading in Sprout
• Supported file types: MP4, MOV

YouTube Shorts

Introduced late 2020, YouTube Shorts have recently made its debut as another short-form video feature. These videos are a new way to watch, create and discover short-form content. Because people are watching more short-form videos globally, using Shorts is a new way to reach wider audiences to entertain or educate.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution:
  • 4320p (8k): 4320×7680
  • 2160p (4K): 2160×3840
  • 1440p (2k): 1440×2560
  • 1080p (HD): 1080×1920
  • 720p (HD): 720×1280
  • 480p (SD): 480×854
  • 360p (SD): 360×640
  • 240p (SD): 240×426
• Aspect ratio: 9:16 or 1:1
• Recommended video formats: MOV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4, MP4, MPG, AVI, WMV, MPEGPS, FLV, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm, HEVC (h265)
• Video length: Up to 60 seconds

For more information on the video specs for YouTube, visit the Google Help Center.

YouTube Video Ad Specs

Standard YouTube videos are pretty straightforward, but there are a few video ad formats to learn if you want to advertise on the network. According to data from Google, brands advertising on YouTube with Discovery ads see incremental conversions.

Skippable, Non-Skippable, Mid-Roll, Bumper Video, In-Feed Display Ads

We’ve put these five YouTube video ads specs together because in the end, they all play through the standard YouTube video player. That means all of these ad types follow the same dimensions as the non-ad videos, but only differ in video length. Let’s look at each ad type:

• Skippable Video Ad: This YouTube ad type is played before, during or after the content and becomes skippable after 5 seconds. This ad format is the only one allowing advertisers to monetize views from any viewing device.
• Non-Skippable Video Ad: This YouTube ad type is played before the content and users must watch the full 15 seconds maximum ad (can also be added during or after video).
• Mid-roll Video Ad: This YouTube ad type is played mid-view (like TV commercials) and is only available for videos 8 minutes or longer. Ads are added either manually or automatically. Mid-rolls can be skippable, but users must watch 30 seconds or the entire ad (whichever is shorter).
• Bumper Video Ads: This YouTube ad type is played before the content. This short 6-second max video cannot be skipped and is usually optimized for mobile views.
• Display Ads: These ads are shown in users’ search queries and sometimes appear in the right video column when watching a video. These ads are static, which means they don’t automatically play. However, once the video is clicked, the type of content displayed can simply follow the standard video player guidelines.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (horizontal), 1080 x 1920 (vertical), 1080 x 1080 (square)
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 (horizontal), 9:16 (vertical), 1:1 (square)
• Max file size: 256GB
• Recommended video formats: MPG
• Video length:
  • Skippable Video Ad: No maximum, but recommended 15 – 20 seconds for awareness, 2 – 3 minutes for consideration, and 15 – 20 seconds for action.
  • Non-Skippable Video Ad: 15 or 20 seconds, depending on marketing
  • Mid-roll Video Ad: 30 seconds minimum
  • Bumper Video Ad: 6 seconds maximum
  • In-Feed (Display) Video Ad: 15-20 seconds for awareness, 2-3 minutes for consideration

For more information on the video specs for YouTube, visit the Google Help Center.

LinkedIn Video Specs

With 66% of consumers finding short-form video the most engaging type of in-feed social content, LinkedIn adopted the use of video on the platform. If you’re looking to incorporate video into your LinkedIn marketing strategy, then it’s important to do it with the right specs. While some technical requirements may match other networks, there are some specs that are specific to LinkedIn.

LinkedIn In-Feed Video

While before the only video format you were able to upload was a shared video, LinkedIn has expanded its capabilities to upload your own videos into the platform.

LinkedIn video sizes

• Resolution: 256×144 (min) and 4096×2304 (max)
• Aspect ratio: 1:2.4, 2.4:1
• Max file size: 5GB
• Recommended video formats: AAC, ASF, FLV, MP3, MP4, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, MKV, WebM, H264/AVC, Vorbis, VP8, VP9, WMV2, WMV3
• Video length: Up to 10 minutes
• Frame rate: 60fps
• Bitrate: Up to 30mbps

Sprout Guidelines

• Same as above, except:
• Max file size: 5GB max in Sprout for Company and Personal Pages
• Video length: 10 minutes max, if uploading in Sprout
• Supported file types: ASF, AVI, MP4, FLV, MKV, WEBM, Quicktime

For more information on the video specs for LinkedIn, visit the LinkedIn Help Center.

LinkedIn Video Ads

As of 2018, LinkedIn now offers video ads. The requirements are a little bit different than in-feed video, so be sure to consider them when developing ads for your paid campaign.

Video Guidelines

• Recommended dimensions and resolutions:
  • Vertical (4:5): Min 360 x 450 pixels, Max 1536 x 1920 pixels
  • Vertical (9:16): Min 360 x 640 pixels, Max 1080 x 1920 pixels
  • Landscape (16:9): Min 640 x 360 pixels, Max 1920 x 1080 pixels
  • Square (1:1): Min 360 x 360 pixels, Max 1920 x 1920 pixels
• Aspect ratio:
  • Vertical: 4:5, 9:16
  • Landscape: 16:9
  • Square: 1:1
• Max file size: 200MB
• Recommended video formats: MP4
• Video length: 3 seconds to 30 minutes
• Frame rate: 30fps

Character Limits

• Ad name: 255 characters
• Headline: 70 characters recommended; 200 characters maximum
• Introductory text: 150 characters recommended; 600 characters maximum

For more information on the video specs for LinkedIn ads, visit LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Help.

Pinterest Promoted Video Specs

Pinterest allows video upload for business accounts only, so they have specs designed for brands to get the most out of the highly visual and inspirational lifestyle content frequently shared on the platform.

Shared Video Pins and Standard Width Video Ads

In addition to ads, Pinterest Business Accounts can upload organic video content. There are two formats: standard and max width video. Below are the dimensions for standard width video ads and standard Pins.

Video Guidelines

• Aspect ratio: 1:1, 2:3, 4:5, 9:16
• Max file size: 2GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or M4V
• Video length: 4 seconds to 15 minutes

Character Limits

• Title: Up to 100 characters
• Description: Up to 500 characters

Max Width Video Ads

Pinterest allows you to publish standard width and maximum width video ads. Maximum width videos expand across mobile users’ entire screens. These specs apply only to maximum width video ads; standard video ad specs can be found above. Note that maximum width video ads are only paid ads.

Video Guidelines

• Aspect ratio: 1:1
• Max file size: 2GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4, MOV or M4V
• Video length: 4 seconds to 15 minutes

Character Limits

• Title: Up to 100 characters
• Description: Up to 500 characters

For more information on the video specs for Pinterest ads, visit Pinterest Business Help.

Snapchat Video Specs

Snapchat is still an active network for younger generations to share video content. Whether it’s through FOMO-inducing filters, Snapchat is a hotbed for video sharing.

Single Videos and Single Video Ad

This video format is the most common across the channel and is the main way users communicate back and forth through the app. However, your business can post videos to its story so others can see what your business is up to. Just follow these specs:

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1920
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 1GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4 or MOV
• Video length: 3 seconds to 180 seconds

Character Limits

• Brand: 25 characters
• Headline: 34 characters

Long-Form Story Video Ad

Snapchat currently offers one main video format for ads, which is known as the Story Ad. However, the Snapchat Story Video Ad is what users see in between viewing users’ Stories.

Video Guidelines

• Resolution: 1080×1920
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Max file size: 1GB
• Recommended video formats: MP4 or MOV
• Video length: 3 seconds to 180 seconds

Character Limits

• Brand: 25 characters
• Headline: 34 characters

For more information on the video specs for Snapchat, visit the Snapchat Ads Help Center.

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The post Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Video Specs [Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat] appeared first on Sprout Social.

With the help of our Data Science team, we analyzed nearly 2 billion social media engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok and X. And even more, we’re able to provide an analysis of when the best time to post on Facebook is.

As the third most visited website worldwide after Google and YouTube, and boasting nearly 3 billion monthly active users, there’s no denying the power of Facebook. Because of the large engagement opportunity, it’s important to understand how posting on Facebook at the right times will benefit your social media content strategy.

Learn how to identify your best times to post on Facebook with a free trial of Sprout Social and test our ViralPost® feature.

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Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded globally (not by Central Time), meaning you should be able to publish with the times provided in any timezone and see positive engagement results. Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times. We recommend testing with your own accounts to find the most optimal send times.

When is the best time to post on Facebook?

• Mondays from 9 a.m. to noon
• Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Fridays from 9 to 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook: Mondays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook: Sundays

It’s true: Facebook is still the most used platform by marketers worldwide at 89%, and by monthly active users at 3.05 billion (yes, billion). The impact Facebook has on our social media use as consumers and marketers is still ever present. Compared to last year, high engagement periods on Facebook are still within mid-mornings during weekdays and matching general business hours.

Optimal send times for Facebook are Mondays through Fridays starting mostly at 9 a.m. until early afternoon, generally 2 p.m. What does this mean for marketers? Most users are taking a quick break in their routines for Facebook, making it the best time to schedule posts for target audiences to interact with.

With a solid Facebook marketing strategy, businesses connect with the right audiences with their content, whether it’s keeping audiences informed of products or sharing access to exclusive deals. Remember, engagement is a combination of how often you post on social media and what content types you post.

What are the best days and times to post on Facebook?

We know the best time to post on Facebook overall, but what about for each day of the week?

If you’re looking for the best day and time to post on Facebook, read the analysis below.

Best times to post on Facebook on Mondays

The best time to post on Facebook on Mondays is from 9 a.m. to noon. While there’s decent engagement from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., the optimal send and engagement times are those few hours before lunch.

Best times to post on Facebook on Tuesdays

The best time to post on Facebook on Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and again at 5 p.m., even though there’s notable engagement throughout the entire business day.

Best times to post on Facebook on Wednesdays

The best times to post on Facebook on Wednesdays are from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and again at 5 p.m., making   this one of the most active days for publishing on the app.

Best times to post on Facebook on Thursdays

Similar to Wednesdays, the best times to post on Facebook on Thursdays are from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and again at 5 p.m.

Best times to post on Facebook on Fridays

The best times to post on Facebook on Fridays are from 9 and 11 a.m., showing that users are transitioning into the weekend mindset. Although, the entire workday still sees user engagement on the app.

Best times to post on Facebook on Saturdays

The best time to post on Facebook on Saturdays is between 8 and 11 a.m., in relation to the rest of the day. Generally speaking, we’ve noticed that Saturdays have less engagement during the reset of the week across most social platforms. Even with Facebook, there’s a significant decrease during the weekends than during weekdays.

Best times to post on Facebook on Sundays

In relation to the day itself, the best time to post on Facebook on Sundays is 9 to 11 a.m. Similar to Saturdays, we’ve noticed Sundays have less engagement throughout the day across most, if not all, social platforms.

Best times to post on Facebook for hospitals & healthcare

• Best times to post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare:
  • Most weekdays between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m., but especially:
    • Tuesdays from 5 to 7 p.m.
    • Wednesdays at 5 p.m.
    • Thursdays at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare: Sundays

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers use social media for more than navigating healthcare crises. Social media is used by hospitals and healthcare providers to educate the public, help patients feel more comfortable with healthcare visits and doctors’ appointments, promote their programs for aspiring physicians and establish themselves as pillars in the community.

The best time to post on Facebook for healthcare and hospitals is more concentrated than last year. Most weekdays see solid engagement around 9 a.m. on weekdays. Yet, peak posting times on Facebook for hospitals are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 5 p.m.

Hospital and healthcare social media resources

• A healthcare team’s guide to HIPAA compliance on social media
• The power of social listening for healthcare organizations
• How to realize the ROI of social media in healthcare
• Supporting HIPAA Compliance on social: a cheat sheet

Best times to post on Facebook for restaurants

• Best times to post on Facebook for Restaurants:
  • Mondays at 11 a.m.
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Fridays at 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Restaurants: Most weekdays, especially Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Restaurants: Sundays

Online orders and delivery service apps saw an increase in use over the last few years, innovating the way restaurants interact with their audiences. And restaurants saw nearly 2x more engagements on Facebook than last year’s analysis.

Those in the food and beverage restaurant industry see consistent engagement between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. almost every single day, especially weekdays. The best times to post for restaurants on Facebook though are just before or around lunchtime: Mondays at 11 a.m., Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Fridays at 11 a.m.

Different networks offer a unique way for businesses to connect with their customers. Offering unique promotions and updates suited for each social platform will keep your restaurant in mind for potential customers.

Restaurant social media resources

• Franchise Marketing Guide: Social Media Best Practices for Franchisors and Franchisees
• Social Spotlight: How Tim Hortons puts people first in its social strategy
• How Classic Culinary Brand America’s Test Kitchen Connects With New Consumers

Best times to post on Facebook for schools & education

• Best times to post on Facebook for Schools & Education:
  • Mondays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Fidays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.
  • Sundays at 9 a.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Schools & Education:
  • All weekdays, especially Wednesdays through Friday
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Schools & Education:
  • Sundays

Universities, higher education institutions and schools saw a significant increase in high engagement times on Facebook compared to last year’s analysis. Keep in mind that some schools manage multiple social profiles (per college, athletics, etc.) to meet these needs and effectively target distinct audiences at the right time. 

High opportunities for engagement for schools reflect a traditional workweek. Mondays through Fridays from either 9 or 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. are the best times to post on Facebook for schools and education institutions. Don’t discredit the weekend either: Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., and Sundays at 9 a.m. saw significant engagement for this industry.

From highlighting student life to sharing school updates, a social media strategy for schools needs to fulfill various purposes: from engaging with students past, present and future, to keeping a pulse on brand health.

Schools and education social media resources

• 15 ways to use social media for education
• University branding: How to build your school’s brand on social media
• Higher ed playbook: Using social to unite your university

Best times to post on Facebook for travel & hospitality

• Best times to post on Facebook for Travel & Hospitality:
  • Mondays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m.
  • Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Travel & Hospitality: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Travel & Hospitality: Fridays

Travel and hospitality industries saw a concentrated shift for engagement on Facebook. Compared to the year prior, hospitality businesses pivoted their strategies as the post-pandemic spike in travel continues, and they saw a return on their efforts throughout most of the day.

The best times to post on Facebook for travel and hospitality brands are most every day: Mondays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Tuesdays through Thursdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekends also see some significant engagement on Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m. and Sundays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

In general, on Facebook, there is significant engagement midday nearly every day of the week for travel and hospitality, as people are preparing for their weekend destinations.

Travel and hospitality social media resources

• Social media and hospitality: How 3 brands are serving 5-star experiences
• Sprout Social helps keep NJ TRANSIT’s social strategy on track
• How Loews Hotels & Co succeeds at scale with Sprout Social’s all-in-one platform
• How to set up a travel social media marketing strategy
• How to manage multiple social media accounts

How to find your own best times to post on social media

Social marketers can plan content more effectively when they’re armed with data. And as platforms evolve, how brands and consumers use social will evolve with them, or vice versa. Staying aware of new content formats and trends might help you reach your audience in unexpected ways, or even find new segments and personas you weren’t focusing on before.

How to find your best time to post on Facebook with Insights

While you may be ready to jump in and post at these provided peak engagement times as part of your strategy, consider pairing this data with your own Facebook data analysis. You may discover that your specific target audience is active at different times.

To find your best times to post with Facebook Insights, follow these steps:

1. On either mobile or desktop, log into your Facebook Page account (not personal profile).
2. In the top right corner, click on your profile picture (you may see the three horizontal lines on mobile) and select Professional dashboard.
3. To find all posts published within a specific time frame, select:
   1. Content (on desktop).
   2. Insights (on mobile).
4. To find your Facebook posts with the highest engagement on desktop:
   1. Adjust the time span filter from the last 90, 60, 28 or 7 days.
   2. Adjust the sorting filter by Engagement
   3. Your most engaged post will appear in descending order.
5. To find your Facebook posts with the highest engagement on mobile:
   1. Select See all next to Performance then Engagement
   2. Scroll to Recent Content and select See all.
   3. Similar to desktop, you can filter the date range and by Engagement.
6. With this list, check your top engaged posts and find trends with the day, time and content types (e.g., text only, image, video).

How to find your best time to post on Facebook with Sprout Social

A social media management tool like Sprout Social can help you drill into your analytics and develop tailored findings for your brand accounts across all networks, holistically and individually. Gain competitive insights by comparing your performance to your competitors, to find new opportunities for engagement.

With features like post tagging and cross-network reporting, you can separate different factors like post author or types of content, and drill down into how your posting time influenced your social success.

Sprout’s patented ViralPost® technology uses the same data we’ve used to look at all our customer accounts to determine the best time to post tailored for your account. ViralPost® algorithmically determines the results for our Optimal Send Times feature, a publishing option available in all plans. Our proprietary  machine learning feature isn’t new, but we’re constantly learning and improving our product to help brands surface insights faster. Our goal is to help people who use our product work more effectively.

With Optimal Send Times, the specific times offered are based on when your audience engages the most using your publishing history. ViralPost® also continually updates and refines to save you time from doing the repeated analysis and allowing you more time to craft great content.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social or request a personalized demo and try it for yourself.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

If you’re looking for more of our findings from this year’s study of our customer data, see what we learned about the best times to post across eight industries on these networks:

• Best times to post on Social Media 2024
• Best times to post on Instagram 2024
• Best times to post on LinkedIn 2024
• Best times to post on TikTok 2024
• Best times to post on Twitter 2024

The post Best times to post on Facebook 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

A Facebook blue check mark indicates to your audience that your Page is legitimate and trustworthy. This makes it a must for public figures, brands and companies that are well-known and susceptible to being replicated or parodied.

In this post, you’ll discover some essential steps on how to get verified by Facebook. We also walk you through a few additional details to give you a thorough understanding of how Facebook verification works.

Let’s get started.

What is Facebook verification?

Facebook verification involves getting your Page verified by Facebook. The main intention is to show that it genuinely represents you. A verified Facebook Business Page or account has a blue checkmark appearing next to the name. This puts a clear distinction between the real Page and the Pages run by fans or imposters.

Source: BarkBox on Facebook

Businesses and public figures may often see people creating Pages and profiles similar to theirs. This may either be to imitate them or to build a fan community. Even if there’s no malicious intent behind those Pages and profiles, there’s still a huge risk of other Facebook users mistaking them for the real thing.

In addition, Facebook prioritizes verified profiles and Pages in its search results. So Facebook verification ensures that your Page prominently shows up at the top of relevant searches. This could further improve your reach. See how the official verified Page for Workday gets top priority when you search for the company name on Facebook.

Source: Facebook

Who can get verified on Facebook?

In theory, anyone can get verified on Facebook using any of the two options:

• By subscribing to Meta Verified
• By applying for a verified badge

That’s provided they meet the strict eligibility criteria Meta has in place to verify Facebook Pages and profiles.

In both cases, you’ll need to follow the company’s terms of service and the Facebook Community Standards. Besides this, Facebook will consider your verified badge application if your account is:

• Authentic: It should represent a real person, entity or business.
• Unique: It should be the unique presence of the person, entity or business it represents. Facebook only verifies one account per business or person. The only exception is with language-specific accounts. And note that it doesn’t verify accounts for general interests. For example, it won’t verify a Page dedicated to healthy food. But it will verify a Page representing a registered publication that’s dedicated to healthy food.
• Complete: It should be active and have all the necessary details, such as an “About” section and a profile photo. In addition, it should have at least one post.
• Notable: The person, entity or business it represents should be well-known and get plenty of searches. Facebook is more likely to approve your application if it features in multiple news sources and publications.

The above requirements are only the bare minimum and don’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll get verified. To improve your chances of getting verified, make sure that your account looks highly credible. Start by publishing highly informative and engaging posts instead of sticking to the minimum requirement of one post.

The eligibility requirements for a Meta Verified subscription are more lenient. But you need to pay for any of the Meta Verified plans starting at $14.99 per month. To qualify for it, you must:

• Be at least 18 years old
• Live in a region where Meta Verified is available
• Have full control over a business portfolio on the Meta Business Suite
• Not max out the permitted number of changes in your business portfolio within the specified timeframe.

Why should you get verified on Facebook?

There are a number of reasons that getting verified is a good idea—let’s cover the bases.

Boosts credibility for your brand

Getting verified shows that you’re a legitimate, credible brand. The process isn’t easy (as you’ll see shortly) and many people/brands have tried to get verified and failed. Even if you pay for a Meta Verified subscription, you still need to meet certain eligibility criteria and provide a government ID.

So Facebook users know if they see that blue checkmark, it’s for real.

Protects against imposter accounts

Some people create fake accounts; others create fan accounts. Getting verified helps separate your Facebook Page from the rest. This assures customers that they’re following or reaching out to the real deal and not an imposter.

Facebook prioritizes verified profiles and Pages

The Facebook algorithm gives priority to verified Pages and public figure profiles. Having that blue check means you’ll show up at the top of search results. This helps boost eyes on your brand’s Facebook Page.

8 steps for how to get verified on Facebook

While most of the process for getting verified is simple, some parts are more complicated than others. If you’re opting for Meta Verified, you can easily sign up through the Meta Verified for Business page. Note that you’ll need to provide a government ID during the verification process.

If you’re applying for a verified badge, the process requires a few additional steps. Let’s show you how to get your Facebook verification.

Step 1: Open the verification request form

Start the verification process by logging into Facebook and making sure you have admin permission to the Facebook Page you’re trying to get verified.

From there, you can head to Facebook’s verification request form. This is where you’ll complete all of the following steps.

(Note: the link to the Facebook verification request form will appear broken unless you’re logged into Facebook with admin permissions to a Facebook page.)

Source: Facebook

Step 2: Choose your verification type

You have the option to verify your personal profile if you are a public figure. Or, as long as you’re logged into your Facebook account, you can select from a dropdown menu which business Page you’d like to verify. Each business Page you manage will appear, making it easy to complete this process for each of your businesses or clients.

Source: Facebook

Step 3: Confirm authenticity

The next step is proving that your Facebook Page is authentic. Remember, verification proves to your audience that it’s authentic. So it’s important that Facebook looks for credible documentation in order to approve verification.

The documentation options that you can upload a copy of include:

• Driver’s license
• Passport
• National identification card
• Tax filing
• Recent utility bill
• Articles of incorporation

Source: Facebook

Click the Choose files button and upload the relevant document.

Step 4: Confirm notability

This next step is called “confirming notability,” but essentially, you’re selecting a category for your business Page or profile. This is especially important when verifying profiles. Facebook wants to ensure that your profile or Page is something that people are actually interested in or searching for.

Categories to choose from include:

• News/Media
• Sports
• Government & Politics
• Music
• Fashion
• Entertainment
• Digital Creator/Blogger/Influencer
• Gamer
• Business/Brand/Organization
• Other

Source: Facebook

Step 5: Add your country

The next step is to add the country where you or your business is most well-known. Even if you have a global company, you’ll want to choose the country or region where you have the largest audience. If you’re unsure, you can easily discover this by looking at your website’s Google Analytics or your Facebook analytics.

Source: Facebook

Step 6: Add your audience and also known as

This step is completely optional. But the more information you provide, the easier it is for Facebook’s team to confirm your verification. We recommend inputting basic information about your audience demographics. If you have no other “AKA” names for your business, you can of course leave that section blank.

Source: Facebook

Step 7: Add 5 articles that show your Page or profile is in the public interest

This step is also optional, but take our word for it: do not skip this step. This is one of the best ways to help prove your case. Include some sort of proof that people are interested in, following or talking about your brand. It could be anything from popular social media accounts to articles that talk about your business or Wikipedia profiles. This helps you make a much more compelling argument that your Page should get the Facebook blue check mark.

Source: Facebook

Step 8: Submit the form

Hit the “Send” button, and voila! You’ve submitted your application for Facebook verification. The only thing left to do now is wait.

What happens if Facebook rejects my application?

Keep in mind that meeting the basic verification criteria doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get verified. Facebook might still reject your application without specifying a reason. When this happens, you’ll have the option to reapply for verification after 30 days. But make sure you put in some extra effort to improve your chances of getting verified this time around.

Here are the possible next steps in case Facebook rejects your application:

• Reach out to Facebook support and try to get more information about why your application was rejected. In case you can get this info, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to get verified the next time you apply.
• Create high-quality content and post regularly while ramping up your Facebook marketing efforts. If necessary, use Facebook automation to keep up with your posting schedule.
• If you have brand accounts on other social networks, make sure you boost your presence there as well. This will also help you improve your chances of getting verified on those platforms.

Top 4 tips for getting verified on Facebook (and staying verified)

Struggling to get verified? We’ve got four top tips to help you out. And, once you’re verified, you’ll want to continue these best practices to make sure you’re able to stay verified.

1. Keep your business information up-to-date

We mentioned that one of the factors for Facebook verification is having a complete Facebook profile. But you also need to make sure you keep up with any changes. If you get a new website, change store locations, adjust store hours, add new product lines, etc., you need to update those things on your Facebook Page.

2. Be strategic with your posting schedule

If you haven’t posted any new content on your Facebook Page in months, you’ve given the platform no incentive to offer you verification status. Make sure you’re staying active on Facebook and regularly posting new content to engage your followers.

But keep in mind that simply posting regularly won’t result in higher engagements, according to the latest Facebook stats.

Instead, it’s all about timing. You need to send out your Facebook posts at a time when your audience is active. This improves the chances that they’ll see and engage with your posts.

The best times to post on Facebook start from 9 a.m. during the weekdays. But this varies from Page to Page. Check your content performance to see when your audience is most engaged. Then schedule your posts to go out at those times.

Third-party Facebook tools like Sprout Social even come with optimal send time suggestions. Sprout’s ViralPost® technology helps automate the entire process. It automatically finds the best times to post for your brand and publishes your posts at those times.

3. Engage with the community

If you have an engaged Facebook audience, it proves to the platform that you’re a notable brand and people want to follow you. This increases your chances of getting verified.

Ramp up your Facebook engagement efforts to build an engaged community. Respond to comments, share content that your audience enjoys and hold live broadcasts to interact with them in real-time.

4. Stick to community guidelines

Just because you’ve been verified doesn’t mean you’re going to stay verified. If you’re consistently violating community guidelines, the platform can rescind your verification.

At the bare minimum, make sure you’re always compliant (which isn’t difficult to do). Besides this, strategically marketing your Page will also help you to stay verified. Don’t forget to protect your account with two-factor authentication. This will prevent unauthorized access by individuals who could violate the community guidelines.

Get verified on Facebook today

Meeting all the eligibility criteria is only the first step. Want to know the best secret on how to get your Facebook verification? It’s all about stepping up your game. Make sure you’re marketing effectively on the platform and growing your presence organically.

Use Sprout’s marketing tools to drive growth on the platform. Sign up for a free trial to see how the platform helps you boost your chances at getting verified by Facebook.

The post How to get verified on Facebook: Your step-by-step guide appeared first on Sprout Social.