Videos are dominating social media. Especially Facebook.

Videos are the most engaging and powerful way to get your audience's attention. Videos have a 135% greater organic reach than photos and get shared 1200% more than articles.

Those are impressive stats to start off with, but by following a few tips, you can maximize those numbers and get even more video shares.

Why are video shares important?

First, let's go over exactly why it's important to get as many video shares as possible.When your video gets shared, it reaches more people. And the more people it reaches, the more views, likes and comments your content will get. And the more that happens, the more likely Facebook is to include your content on your followers' and their friends' news feeds, which means even MORE people are sharing your video.It's the wonderful cycle of social media.If you haven't jumped on this bandwagon, now is definitely the time. Here are some tips to make the most of your video content and get even more video shares.

Tell a heartwarming story

Entertaining your audience with a story - especially a heartwarming one - is a great way to grab their attention and keep them watching.The story could be a nostalgic tale about how your company got started, a funny, lighthearted segment about a behind-the-scenes interaction in your office, or something that highlights local people or events (even if they're only indirectly connected to your business).When people feel like you're sharing something special with them, especially when it's in the form of a captivating story, they'll stay engaged, and want to share your tale with others.

Educate them

Educational or "how-to" videos are extremely popular because they appeal directly to people's quest for answers and information. In fact, "how-to" searches on YouTube have grown 70% year over year.Not only do people want to educate themselves by quickly finding answers online, but they also want to feel like experts themselves by sharing those answers with their friends. In other words, if they think your video is helpful and they think their friends will too, they're going to share it.Are there issues or frequently asked questions within your industry that you can help people with? Consider creating a series of "how-to" videos to address those issues.

Challenge them

Challenge videos are a growing trend, especially with millennials.Remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014? It might seem ancient in social media years, but it was one of the biggest and most viral social media challenges of all time, raising more than $15 million in donations in less than a month. It's now an annual fundraiser for the ALS Association.In this example, millions of people shared their own individual videos, but it still offers a fantastic example of the amazing things that can happen when you challenge your audience to do something.So how do you use a similar tactic to increase your own video shares?Put some time into figuring out exactly what kind of challenge you want to get people to participate in. How many days should it last? Can you create a new video for each day of the challenge? Can you build social media sharing into the challenge to encourage people to share your videos?Most of all - have fun! Beyond just garnering more views and shares, challenge videos can be loads of fun and very rewarding.

Keep it short - but not too short

You want your video to be long enough to get all your information across clearly, but short enough to keep your audience's attention. So how long is that?You should definitely keep it under two minutes, but it seems that between 30 and 60 seconds is the ideal length.People's attention spans are at an all-time low, so if you post a video that's longer than two minutes, your audience most likely won't make it to the end.If you want people to watch the whole video - and then share it - keeping it in that 30-60 second sweet spot is the way to go.

Use Facebook Live

Sure, you can post prerecorded videos, but have you considered streaming your videos live? Live content is an exciting way to interact with your audience and keep them engaged.Facebook offers a live video streaming feature built right in, which lets you broadcast in real-time. While you're streaming, you can talk directly to your audience and see who's watching and their comments.Because you can't cut or edit with a live video, it's a more authentic and engaging way to connect with your viewers.When you're done, your video is automatically saved to your timeline so you and others can - you guessed it - share it.

Create a Facebook video ad

While "organic" or natural shares are a great way to make your video go viral, you can also boost your reach with a paid Facebook video ad.The benefits of a paid video ad are that you can target a very specific audience by interests, behaviors, age, gender and location. By selecting the "video views" feature, Facebook increases your reach by automatically optimizing your video to show it to people most likely to view it on Facebook.Video ads also offer metrics so you know exactly how your video is performed.You can create a Facebook video ad campaign on any budget.

Embed videos in your blog posts

Facebook offers an embed feature for all its videos, which allows you to easily insert a video into your blog post, bringing more traffic to both your blog and your Facebook video.Posting a video to your blog means that people who follow your blog but don't follow you on Facebook will be able to view the video. And because the video is linked back directly to Facebook, your blog readers can quickly and easily like the video, post a comment, or share the video with their own friends.

Time for sharing

Now that you have quite a few helpful tips on how to get more video shares on Facebook, it's time to create an awesome video, post it, and watch it go viral.Contact us today to get started.