How to Upload a Video on Facebook + Key Tips to Keep in Mind

Learn How To Upload A Video On Facebook!

There are so many statistics out there that prove how effective using videos c an be for small business owners.

For instance, 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos.

And 68% of consumers prefer watching videos to learn about new products or services…

…as compared to articles, infographics, eBooks, and presentations.

And we’ve seen it firsthand for our clients, like how we got over 24,000 video views for this pedal tour sightseeing service which led to 92 actual purchases.

Or how we used a video in this eCommerce client’s ad campaign to drive over $10,000 in revenue.

But for you to see these kinds of results on Facebook, you can’t just use any video. It needs to be native and optimized among other things. 

So in today’s post, we’re going to show you how to upload a video on Facebook.

And at the end, we’re sharing a couple of key tips you need to keep in mind.

Let’s get started!

Steps On How To Upload A Video On Facebook

Step 1: Go to your Facebook business page on desktop, and there are a few ways you can upload one from here under the Home tab.

Step 2: The first is to click Photos / Video and select the file you want to upload. 

Step 3: From there it will open up the “Create post” box and prompt you to add a caption.

You can then click video options to add a video title as well as tags. 

Now you can see we’re already getting a suggestion from Facebook at the top…

…to publish in Facebook Creator Studio instead to get access to advanced features, but we’ll talk more on that in a minute. 

Step 4: For now, when we scroll down we see the dropdown to add captions. 

These are important because one study of U.S. consumers found that “92% view videos with the sound off on mobile.”

And that “80% of consumers are more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available.”

Because they carry such weight, Facebook has started automatically generating captions for each video.

As you can see it already had that option toggled when we clicked the “Add captions” dropdown.

This is the best option for adding captions because it lets Facebook do most of the work.

And then, you are able to check the captions and edit any for accuracy as needed.

You can even take that a step further with the option below to make captions unavailable to viewers until you review them.

Step 5: Beneath that, you see the option to auto-generate subtitles.

Now you might be thinking, “Wait a minute! What’s the difference between captions and subtitles??”

While they both display text on-screen to help viewers who are watching with the sound off to understand the video…

…captions are displayed solely in the language being spoken in the video. 

Whereas subtitles translate the language to the preferred language of the viewer.

And in the case of Facebook videos, subtitles cannot be edited.

But so depending on the demographics of your target audience, it is probably a good idea to auto-generate both captions and subtitles.

Now the last way to add captions is to manually add them via a .srt file, but we would not recommend this method.

Step 6: The next section on how to upload a video on Facebook is “Change Thumbnail.”

This is where you can choose Facebook’s suggested thumbnail from your video, upload your own. or choose from your video.

We would recommend uploading your own, and we have a tutorial on how to make a thumbnail, so be sure to read it next.

But creating your own thumbnail means you get to choose enticing imagery and text that will make people want to watch your video. 

Step 7: And then the last section is optimization.

This gives you the option to choose smart cropping to adjust your video’s appearance on different devices.

Step 8: Once you’ve got all these options set the way you want them, click the blue Save button.

Step 9: Back on the main “Create post” screen, you can click the calendar in the bottom right if you want to schedule this video to publish later.

And, you can click the 3 dots if you want to publish other things with your video in one collective post like pictures, a check-in, etc.

Step 10: Once you’ve got everything set the way you want it, you can click the blue button to schedule or instantly publish your post.

Alternative Way In Uploading Facebook Videos

Step 1: Another way you can do this same process is by going to the Videos tab on your business page.

Step 2: Clicking the blue “Upload video” button, you can follow the same prompts from there.

Step 3: Now from here, we’re going to click the “Visit Creator Studio” button to show you the method Facebook was suggesting earlier. 

On the Creator Studio home page, you can click “Upload video”, and right away we’re getting more options than we did on our business page. 

We can add a single video, multiple videos, or post a video across multiple pages.

Step 4: We’re going to click “Single video,” and choose our file. 

This will prompt the “Upload video” box.

And if you’re new to this screen, Facebook will give you tons of blue box prompts that can help guide you if you need it. 

So the first cool thing about uploading Facebook videos this way is you can test titles to discover your audience’s preference. 

You can put one title in, and then click the plus (+) sign to put an alternative title for your video in…

…and Facebook will see which title gets the most 1 minute views in a 30-minute test.

But note that you cannot use this feature for a video set to premiere or backdate. 

Step 5: From there, you can type in your copy for the post, and add relevant tags to help your video get discovered.

This is something we talk more about in our Facebook video views post, which you can read next.

Step 6: Beyond that, you can click “Edit video” and trim your video if you need to make some last-minute trims to your video before publishing.

Step 7: Then on the right-hand side, you can click through:

• Optimizations
• Thumbnail
• Captions
• Subtitles

Then you’ll go through all of the options we just went over together earlier. 

Step 8: The next section is one that was not available before, and that’s the Polls tab.

You can create a poll for your video to engage viewers and find out what they think.

And you can control when the poll appears on your video.

Step 9: Under Tracking, you can add custom labels to “help you search for your video. These labels are only visible to Page admins.”

Or, “if your video has a unique code in another content management system, you can add it” under Universal ID.

Step 10: And then under 360 Director Tools, you can enable 360 mode…

…if you want viewers to be able to have control of the viewing direction like a panorama. 

Step 11: That wraps up all of the options under create post, so now let’s click over to Publishing options. 

You can choose to publish your video now, premiere it, schedule it, backdate it, or save it as a draft to work on later.

You can then choose where your post will appear.

And if you want to add a button to your videos to raise money for a nonprofit or a fundraiser, you can do that under Raise Money.

You can add it to a playlist or series. You can make the video available on other pages.

And lastly, you can turn off reactions, comments, and shares under Moderation. 

Step 12: Once you’ve got everything the way you want it, you can hit the blue Publish button.

So that’s how you upload a video on Facebook!

Now before we wrap up, we do want to share a couple of things to remember when uploading your Facebook videos.

But before we do that, just a quick reminder that our new social media ads training course is out now.

We recommend you see it if you really want to improve your social media advertising skills.

Key Tips To Keep In Mind With Facebook Videos

So the first thing you need to remember is video optimization is key.

You can create an amazing video your audience will love, but if you publish it without optimizing it, your audience may not see it. 

Optimization includes tags, your title, your thumbnail, and more.

So if you haven’t seen our 12 steps to get more Facebook video views yet, we would highly recommend you read that next to maximize your exposure.

And if you’re looking for ways in optimizing Facebook ads, we have a great post for that.

And then the last thing to remember is when it comes to Facebook, always upload the video directly to Facebook.

You don’t want to just link to your YouTube video or something.

That’s because Facebook wants to keep people on its platform for as long as possible and will favor videos that do that in the algorithm. 

If your video links out and sends viewers to another platform, you’re not likely to get as much favor from Facebook. 

And so those are the steps on how to upload a video on Facebook!

If you’re looking for people to help you promote your business on Facebook, work with our Facebook marketing company today!

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