Want 50,000 Video Views? How to Be Facebook Famous

The following is a guest post by Dennis Yu from BlitzMetrics.

You’re here for one reason, and one reason only—you want to learn how to be Facebook famous. Well, you have to know the Facebook audience.

What resonates with Gen Z is video—live video from your phone, unscripted, non-commercial. The kind of stuff that "old" people just don't know and don’t want to know how to do—kind of like using Snapchat.

How to be Facebook famous: examples from real life

#1 Brandon Farbstein

Brandon Farbstein is a 17 year old professional speaker, giving talks across the nation on anti-bullying.
Here is his TEDx talk, which has racked up almost 45,000 views:

133,000 people saw the video organically, while 28,000 people saw it because we boosted it.
This video had only 7,000 views two weeks ago, but $100 got us additional paid and organic reach, largely because the content is solid.

In other words, Facebook is an amplifier—it makes good things better. The thousands of likes, shares, and comments caused the video to show up in the feeds of those who engaged.

#2 Daniel Slade

Here is Daniel Slade, a 19 year old marketing student at West Virginia University, making his one minute video from his public figure page.

That's a business page, not his user profile, since you can't boost a post from a profile.

He got 1,500 views on his video for only $3. Users stayed for only 7 seconds—about average on Facebook—which says that half found his message interesting enough to watch for longer.

It's his first attempt at video, so we'd expect that with some practice, he'd get the average watch time up to 20 seconds.

The pros are able to get 30+ seconds average watch times on their videos.

#3 Mark Lack

Here is Mark Lack, a 25 year old sales coach, who is averaging 56 seconds on his interview with Tai Lopez:

Of course, having interviews with Daymond John, Tai Lopez, and Richard Branson helps a bit.
But you don't need a fancy studio or professional videographer to get decent results.

These are normal people, just like you, who are making videos that share their story-- not selling their product.
And it's working because people buy your WHY, not your WHAT-- they like to buy, but don't want to be sold to.

#4 Isaac Irvine

Isaac Irvine works at GoDaddy, helping employees become public figures.

This is his WHY video:

11,000 views—not bad. 8 second average watch time—could be better, perhaps with a different background.

For those who are wondering if these are a bunch of fake, robot views, consider that Facebook is the most sophisticated targeting platform in the world.

We can target down to exactly the people that work at GoDaddy, Forbes, and WordCamp, like in Isaac's case.

And this video happened to get him a speaking slot at WordCamp Atlanta—showing that great content and great targeting is key.

We've seen people use the "dollar a day" technique to get jobs, complain to travel companies, and play pranks on friends.

If you're an entrepreneur, you MUST make and promote video.

I'm one of those who would rather not be on camera-- I don't like how I look or sound, I'm too busy with other stuff, I don't want to self-promote.

The list goes on.

But if you can see this as you SHARING your knowledge—that your experience can help others who are struggling with something you've overcome, then you have an obligation to share.

And if you're self-conscious about trying to look like the next Tony Robbins—that you're not wanting to draw attention to yourself or be a motivational speaker, know that:

• You have young adults that will gladly help you do this
• You have friends that want to interview you on your passions and expertise
• You need only spend one minute and one dollar a day to promote your brand—so the time and money excuse is out the window

A professional colleague of mine wrote a post last week saying how she'll never hire teenagers.

She is a social media guru who incites the typical millennial slam—they're entitled, lazy, inexperienced, immature, etc. But when you arm them with a process and clear direction, they do wonders, like the examples you see above.

If you're a young adult, consider the opportunity for you to make video for yourself and to help others make videos. Help business owners who don't understand the power of social media, and drive real business results. Show them that if they give you GCT (goals, content, targeting), you can do the rest.

If you're a business owner, this is your opportunity to get help on stuff you're too busy to do.

You're not looking for a young adult to advise you on business strategy, close large corporate clients, or stuff that isn't a good starting point.

Have young adults do task-specific marketing tasks, armed with the GCT that you provide, so they can drive traffic and conversions via social.

Our entire business the last 10 years has been based upon the belief that this is possible, even for the most sophisticated of companies. And so far, it's proving true, with help from Facebook and Google in making the process to boost personal brands easier.

It's not that you, whether business owner or young adult, are trying to figure out how to be Facebook "famous"—I used that title to attract your attention. Rather, it's the understanding that consumers today are too smart for "advertising"—they want to be entertained and educated. And there is no better way to do that than via video.

You already close deals and build relationships face-to-face, so why not replicate what you already know and do in Facebook?