1. Prioritize Short-Form Video

With the absolute takeover of TikTok and the success of Reels on Instagram, Facebook is joining ranks and prioritizing short-form video.

This applies to organic and paid ads. Users are just more likely to engage with videos.

Here are some other reasons to use video in your paid ads: 

• Users spend 5 times longer looking at video ads compared to static image ads.
• 71% of consumers find Facebook video ads relevant or highly relevant.
• Facebook video ads have a low CPC, only at $1.86.
• Facebook video ads have the potential to reach over 2.1 billion people.

By now, we all know that TikTok is the current darling of social media.

In fact, the short-form video app has been so successful that every other network has adopted some version of TikTok in hopes of competing.

On Instagram, it’s Reels, while on YouTube, it’s Shorts… you get the idea.

When you’re running video ads on Facebook, follow these best practices: 

• Capture attention in the first 3 seconds to prevent the scroll.
• Introduce your business or brand in the first 5 seconds.

2. Create Native Ads

The next Facebook ad trends for 2022 is that you don’t want to take users off of Facebook!

Users prefer ads that don’t feel like an ad. They’ll still be labeled “sponsored”, and you can sell to them, but the content should look and feel like organic content they’re consuming from their favorite pages.

TikTok has been a case study in this.

Native ads are so successful that TikTok’s recommendations to businesses advertising on the platform are to make “TikToks not ads”.

This trend is crossing over to other platforms and will be here to stay for a while.

Here’s how you can make native ads:

• Spend time on the platform liking the page and content your ideal customer would like.

Familiarize yourself with the aesthetic and written style of the content.

• Analyze how your product and brand fit within this aesthetic.

It shouldn’t feel forced. It’s okay to use templates for design (like from Canva) so long as you customize them.

• Think outside the social network.

You can buy sponsored articles on news outlets, blogs, and other websites.

• Use influencers.

Don’t stress about getting a huge influencer. Go for micro-influencers with a dedicated following. Let them make the ad for you.

This helps with social proof too.

3. Use Emojis in Copy & Design

If you’re not sure what emoji to use, this website has real-time stats for emoji use. It can be easy to stare at so just – watch yourself.

Each business and audience will have different emoji preferences.

You’ll want to consider that before you dive into writing novels using only emojis.

We recommend A/B testing your copy, one version using no emojis, the other using emojis. This way, you’re making an educated choice.

Emoji Use Best Practices

While we do encourage emoji use, you should know that there are some best practices to follow.

We’re in the “rules are made to be broken” kind of advertising crowd, but you gotta know them to break them, right?

• Don’t overuse emojis.

Can you replace all of your text with emojis? Probably. And it makes for a fun movie title guessing game… but should you?

Probably not. Overstuffing copy with emojis can come across as spammy to some audiences, and perfectly normal to others.

You’ll need to research this and test it for your audiences.

• There are inappropriate emojis.

Yes, if you can believe it, there are certain emojis that are more appropriate for some businesses than others.

Certain emojis don’t mean what you think they mean, that’s all we’ll say.

It’s good to just double-check how your planned emoji is being used by the internet today, just to avoid any unhappy accidents.

• Include emojis in your brand strategy.

When creating the branding for your business you probably thought about:

• fonts,
• colors,
• mood boards, and
• aesthetics.

But did you consider branded emojis?

Pick from existing emojis or get some custom created for you. Either way, choosing some on-brand emojis you can use in copy is a good idea.

4. Stories & Reels Ads

Moving on to the next one on our list of Facebook ad trends are short video ads.

Jumping on the short video train, Facebook is putting emphasis on Stories and Reels.

You can run ads to Stories on Facebook and Instagram via the Facebook Ads Manager.

You can currently only run ads to Instagram Reels, but Facebook recently announced that FB Reels ads are coming soon.

Users on Facebook and Instagram are using Stories and Reels, so it’s important to work them into your organic content and your paid ads.

If these ads work well for your business, that may be a cue to join TikTok and see if you can find a new audience on a new platform with similar content.

5. Go for Concise Copy and Short Headlines

Our appetite for content is not decreasing.

If anything, it’s increasing. But so is the amount of content available for us to consume.

On Facebook alone, 350 million photos are uploaded daily. 500 million people watch videos every single day.

The average user spends 33 minutes a day on the platform.

We have attention spans. Just not for uninteresting or irrelevant content.

Make sure you capture attention quickly – in the first 3 seconds of the video – and focus on only the most important message for your goal.

Your ideal customers will then get to choose to spend more time on your in-depth content like:

• long-form videos,
• blog posts or articles, and
• your email content.

If you want a Facebook advertising agency to help you set up, create, and maintain great ads, let’s chat!