My First Try At Creating A Video Ad For Fb

Hi David. I enjoy the pics, but would like to see some movement, and maybe a bit of music. Nice first effort, though.

Hi Murray

Going to work on movement next.

Never any music though.

I agree that it needs music.

I agree with Murray and a little more polish and maybe a few cool transitions and/or fades etc. can't hurt. I don't do much video but I did create a bunch of videos to coincide with successful image and graphics pack launch I did five or six years ago and I will place a few random examples below to illustrate. Fair warning, some of the fast ones may trigger seizures. If the vids aren't clear click on the gear and set the video to HD. This style may not be for everyone but it's what I was using back then. Some folks don't like music but it can sometimes enhance the mood depending on the subjects and tracks. Personally, I am not a fan of the blue background.

Don

This was not an invitation for you to do a video dump.

10-4 🤢🤥

I personally hate ads with any kind of audio online and most of the people I've spoken with over the years feel the same.

I'm usually playing music through iTunes when I'm not doing heavy photoshop or lightroom work and hate having to go looking for the mute button every time a video autoplays on some website.

Other people surf the net at work and don't want music suddenly playing to call attention to themselves

And, I don't want any potential buyers to be put off by a music choice that has nothing to do with my images.

David, competition to capture an audience is very high, you have to do something to differentiate yourself from the pack. Remember peoples attention spans are extremely short especially online. You only have a few seconds to capture there attention and that will require all the senses, visual and auditory.

I agree that you need to add movement and special effects and sounds.

Here is one of my own favorite videos, The Title is also very important: "When Aliens Promote Your Art" https://youtu.be/oNbHPwcf74I

LOL, I see my example videos were censored so someone must have made a stink. So much for illustrating my points.

I assume example links are still allowed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMSdzuhhT4E&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJqFsKAtEDk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgs67pU6NtU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmm07M0cQTI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On8aktpGiNw

Click the gear and then HD if they don't seem clear for you. Good luck with your video production.

Mario

This a short slideshow ad, not an actual 2+ minute video.

It's already different than one static image.

Don

Let me make this clear without violating board rules.

Go away.

To be fair, David said...

Thoughts, comments, suggestions, questions?

Not

links videos, or let's see your examples

and, it IS his thread, not yours

David, I like it. It also didn't interfere with my TV programme I am watching...

Thank you Abbie

Excuse me --> he asked for thoughts, comments, and suggestions. I made a few and illustrated my comments and suggestions with example vids I have created in the past. I was not aware this was against any rules.

"Go away."

Wow...that's almost rude. 😢

Yeah just some movement of the slides - panning or zooming - would be a little more attention grabbing, but I agree about no music. First thing I do when I run across an ad with music or sound of any kind is close it out. The photographs definitely stand on their own without annoying or disruptive sounds.

Drop it now, Don, thanks

For some reason, I can't see the video. Based on the comments of others, I will say this...

A lot of people seem to like movements like panning and whatnot in a slideshow, I do not. I like my still images to be still as they were intended. If I'm tying to market still images, I think it makes sense to show them in their intended light.

I'm in the camp that finds music, or otherwise noisy ads annoying. I add music to slideshows that I created to showcase my images on youtube, but if I were creating an ad I'd likely go music free.

I will try another browser to see if I can get the video to load.

Ah...got it to load in Chrome.

My original comments stand.

I like the focus on the lighthouse collection. I'm curious to know how it works out for you David. Please let us know.

The Ken Burns style of editing (panning, zooming) brings life to still photos. The unfortunate side of it is that more time has to be spent on each pic, netting less total pics in the video.

Music has always been a loaded question with me. In this thread people are focusing on interruptions to their environment. I always focus on another thought: what is my favorite type of music? What type of music do I hate? If you cannot answer that for each person who views the video, you stand a chance of them clicking off if you choose wrongly.

Mario's video was a good example of that. I could not click it off fast enough. The sound track (was that supposed to be music) grated my nerves and pushed me far away.

It is sorta' dead without sound. David, in lieu of music, consider sound effects that follow the theme - seagulls, waves breaking, etc.

Dan,

I think quiet sound effects are a really good idea. I may keep that in mind, next time I'm creating a slideshow.

I believe that most ad soundtracks, even musical ones are poorly chosen and too loud. I, too, race to find them and click them off.

However, when it comes to art, I believe that the music creates an environment for the images. When I produce a video/slideshow, I think of it as illustrating the music, rather than adding sound to pictures. Here's an example, which was also my first attempt at a slideshow of my images:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfYh6J46nMk

Murray

Your slide show is 4 minutes long.

No one is sitting through 4 minutes on Facebook.

This is supposed to be a step up from a single image static ad.

David, I have often clicked on ads which lasted several minutes. I suppose it has to do with how compelling the ad is, or how interested I am in their subject.

To be fair, my slideshows aren't really intended as ads, but as pieces of visual art.

My intent here was to illustrate how music can work in concert with the visual imagery.

I picked lighthouses because there are a lot of lighthouse groups on FB.

Results are mixed so far.

I shared the ad from my FB business page with the lighthouse groups where I had posted links to individual images before.

Likes and shares on FB are way up, by and order of magnitude.

Visitors to my AW are way down.

Previously they had to click on the AW link to see the full image.

There a link in the description of the video and a link in the comment, plus the url is in the ad and my visitor count rate hasn't budged.

In the past, I'd get 30 - 60 visits from each post.

Still haven't sold a single lighthouse image though.

"Still haven't sold a single lighthouse image though."

Then why do you bother? Lighthouse pictures are so iconic that there are zillions of them out there. It could be that people interested in them have too many to choose from already. It's a saturated market.

I've not photographed many lighthouses for that reason. Of those I've shot, only one image has sold (three times), but never on FAA.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/lighthouse-lightning-murray-bloom.html?newartwork=true

why just lighthouses?

I dont like many advertisements with music because so much of it is bad or too loud. A voice over would be nice - people can hear your voice and all the magical, mystical things you have to say. The video looks good, but I would slow it down a bit. It's a good subject, people love lighthouses.

Why bother?

Well, I wouldn't go out and photograph a lighthouse just to try to sell here.

Of the things that I have up for sale, lighthouses are the only subjects that have a big following and a large number of FB groups devoted to them.

The hope is that some of those lighthouse fans get to my AW and look around to see what else I have.

I have a number of photos shot in San Francisco that I'll probably use for the next ad, but aside from my FB page and profile I'm at a loss as to where to place it. There are 2 types of San Francisco FB groups. Photo sharing groups which don't allow advertising, and are really copyright violation groups because 90% of the photos shared are grabbed off of google image search. The others are for sale groups and I've had ads removed from those because they only allow items that can be picked up locally.

You make it sound like FB is the wrong venue. Apparently, their Group rules are anti-commerce, which strikes me as a hostile environment for a seller.

The individual group owners set the rules for the group.

I may set up my own groups with rules that allow me, and others, to advertise art, without allowing a lot of junk posts.

Have to figure out how to word it and how to get enough non sellers to participate.

That sounds like a good plan. Are there any FB strategies that help create a viral or 'snowball' effect?

No music needed for an ad imo. It's not a Youtube video.

The ad won't run for me at work, probably because of our firewall, so can't really comment on the ad directly.

Well, you can pay to promote or boost anything on FB, including groups, but I'm looking for ways to do things for free.

My few tries at paying for ads and posts on FB have resulted in a lot of traffic but no sales.

FB is getting a lot of revenue from advertising, and a lot of big corporations are now using it.

They must think that it's worthwhile, unless it's just a case of being fearful that not being there will hurt their marketing.

While I was up in New Hampshire I rented a 4ft x 6ft 5 shelf bookcase in an antique co-op for $60 a month. My space wasn't in the best location, upstairs and in the back, but I still managed to sell about $120 a month worth of prints, which after expenses was pretty much break even. They were priced a little higher than they would pay here before shipping.

That was just from customers browsing in the store.

So, I know that there are buyers out there.

Honestly it's all about getting enough eyeballs on the work.