Written by ContentPowered.com
Different people learn in different ways. Personally, I find it easy to read and correlated the written word to what I’m seeing on a screen as I work at my own pace. Other people I know, though, find it more effective to keep a YouTube video on standby, pausing every few minutes to follow along. If you’re a visual learner and can find your own benefit from video tutorials, you’ve come to the right place. No, I haven’t made any tutorials for you; I’ve simply compiled some of the best video tutorials out there.
In this case, we’re focusing on Facebook advertising. Facebook ads can be a horrendously complex system, and there’s a lot going on. So much so that entire businesses like AdEspresso and entire blogs like Jon Loomer’s can be based almost entirely around the topic. The fifteen videos I’ve selected below might not all be comprehensive, but they cover various individual aspects or overviews of Facebook marketing in a way that should help newcomers while still giving a few little inside tips to more experienced marketers.
1. Facebook Advertising Tutorial (15:17)
This is one of hundreds of videos on all kinds of business topics from Simplilearn. None of them have received a ton of popularity, but they’re all actually pretty good overviews of their topics. This one, produced by the president of SugarSpun Marketing, is a great drill-down into Facebook targeting options.
If I had one gripe about this video, it’s that it’s not actually a live demo. The screenshots in the video are actual shots of what Facebook’s individual settings look like, but you might not recognize them out of context. They also layer on their own branding and additional bullet points and graphics that won’t actually be there in Facebook’s system. It’s good as a presentation, but not quite as good as a tutorial.
2. 216 Walkthrough of Facebook’s Power Editor (28:57)
This video from Venture Digital is slightly out of date, but that’s fine; check the next video for why. As for this one specifically, it’s a reasonably comprehensive walkthrough of how to navigate and use one of the best free tools available for Facebook marketing, which is the Power Editor extension for Google Chrome. You can read more about Power Editor here, but the video does a good job of explaining what it is, how to use it, and why you would want to use it in the first place.
Now, you don’t HAVE to use Power Editor when you’re making ads on Facebook. Almost every feature is available through the usual ad manager. You simply have better access to some features, as well as access to some beta features when Facebook tests them.
If you’re wondering why I put this in a list of videos for beginners, well, I believe everyone should use Power Editor as soon as possible. Once you understand the basics of Facebook marketing, you understand just how valuable it can be to have deeper access to all of the features. Frankly, getting used to Power Editor first means it’s less of a shift later on down the road.
3. 2017 Facebook Power Editor Walkthrough (20:28)
This video is the one I mentioned in the intro to the above video description. It’s not a full tutorial of Power Editor, but it’s a good overview of what all had changed between the 2016 video and now. If you were trying to follow along with the previous video, you’d recognize some changes and features that didn’t previously exist, and you might have had trouble finding certain features.
In case you’re reading this article a year or so in the future, I would venture to guess that Venture Digital is keeping this series of videos up to date. Check their channel video listing to see what the most up to date power editor video is, and you should be able to catch up with any and all changes to the extension.
4. How to Use Facebook’s Audience Insights Tool (22:27)
Miles Beckler, a Facebook marketing pro, produced this video to help you use Facebook’s tools to essentially steal the traffic and followers from your competitors. He does assume that you already know what your company is doing and what your competitors are, as well as the fact that you have your sales funnel set up and you’re ready to run ads. You don’t have to be a pro with Facebook ads, but you do need to have some basic knowledge about marketing in general and have your funnel set up. Essentially, you’re abusing the information Facebook provides when you’re setting up targeting to gather demographic information you can use to target your own advertising later.
5. Why your Facebook Ads Keep Getting Rejected (15:24)
This video doesn’t have any fancy editing, no fancy graphics, no screen sharing; it’s basically just a webcam feed of the creator. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact it means it can be used just as well as a podcast, listened to rather than watched with your full attention.
The topic, as you can guess from the title of the video, is on the common reasons why Facebook tends to reject advertisements. If you’ve tried to set up a few ads and found them rejected, this can be a good watch to see if you’re tripping over any of the common causes. You can also read a more in-depth version of this topic here.
6. Fantastic Facebook Advertising Tutorial (2:15:11)
Jerry Banfield is a marketer and educator in the online marketing niche. This particular video is free – he sells a lot of courses and consultation – and is a surprisingly charismatic character.
As you might have noticed, this is a very long video. That’s because he takes you from nothing to a completed, running ad. By “nothing” here I mean no landing page, no ad campaign set up, no video produced. The only thing he assumed you have is a product to sell, which in his case is a course. He does a pretty detailed walkthrough and set up process for this, including means to track where his conversions are coming from.
If you’re worried about being able to follow along, since he is a little energetic, it’s fine. That’s the beauty of a video tutorial; you can refer back to it at any time.
7. From Facebook Ads Beginner to EXPERT in One Video (1:13:25)
Rather than being a tutorial that you can follow step by step, this lengthy video from ThatLifestyleNinja is a top-level overview of pretty much all of the concepts of Facebook advertising. He talks about the difference between ad campaigns, sets, and ads, he talks about audiences, the Facebook pixel, retargeting, and more.
Of course, in some ways it’s also a step by step tutorial as well. This is probably one of the better videos you can follow to learn pretty much everything about Facebook ads. He even uses some outside tools like Google Trends for some innovative sources of data. On top of that, he takes the approach of a teacher, asking you questions at some moments to help you think critically about the issues he encounters.
8. Step-by-Step Facebook Ads Setup the Beginner Friendly Way (47:00)
Fred Lam provides this video as a direct tutorial for setting up ads as if you’re a beginner. He’s very much not a beginner – his ad account has spent over a million bucks – so he comes at the topic from a perspective of authority.
If you’re an intermediate user of Facebook ads, you’re probably a bit too advanced for this video. For example, he skips over advanced interest targeting and some of the other targeting options, in favor of simpler information like location targeting. He has some good tips for intermediate or even advanced users, but for the most part this is very much a beginner’s tutorial.
9. Facebook Contest Rules (1:19)
This is a very short, simple video from Coal Creative, made as one part roughly in the middle of their 30 days of social media series. It’s focused on Facebook contests, with a few quick hints about how you can and can’t run a Facebook contest on the site. If you’ve read through the general Facebook guidelines it’s probably common knowledge, but if not, you might want to give it a look. There’s more depth to the issue than this video acknowledges, but it does bring up a good point. Give it a watch; it’ll take longer to read my explanation.
10. 6 Simple Facebook Contests You Can Set Up in 5 Minutes (4:05)
This is another short video about contests, though it’s not quite as short as the previous one. It gives you a quick overview of the different kinds of contests you can run on Facebook, and why you would want to run them. It’s a good, quick overview of the different kinds of contests you might want to run. It doesn’t tell you how to set them up, though; for that, you’ll need a different video tutorial. Unfortuantely, I haven’t found a good one. If you know of one, let me know in the comments.
11. Facebook Ads Tutorial 2017 (24:17)
This video from RankYa goes through exactly how to create a Facebook ad, aimed at beginner marketers who have a site but are just started with Facebook ads. Of particular importance is a description and example of exactly how to add the Facebook tracking pixel to your website. This is essential for tracking information about your ads directly; without it, you barely get any worthwhile information. The presenter doesn’t shy away from the more advanced targeting options, so feel free to pause and let your eyes un-glaze every now and then if it gets to be too much.
12. Facebook Advertising Strategy – Optimize Ads for 2017 (29:54)
This video involves whiteboard notes, but it’s another one that’s more like a podcast than an actual tutorial. Rather than give you instructions on how to do anything in particular, Matt Ganzak gives you a rundown of how Facebook ads are slated to change and evolve throughout the coming year. He goes over some of the trends and what to watch out for, strategies that are on their way out, and strategies that are on their way in that you can jump on right away. Overall, it’s a pretty informative supplement to the other videos already in this list, but doesn’t necessarily give a beginner much information on its own.
13. 7 Facebook Ad Tips for Success 2017 (17:34)
Daragh Walsh presents this video as a good overview for newcomer marketers who want to succeed with Facebook ads. It is, again, not a tutorial, but rather an advice column in audio form. Don’t worry too much about the video visuals itself, either; it could work equally well as a podcast.
14. The Perfect Facebook Advertising Strategy (1:00:16)
This video was created by Entrepreneur, and thus is pretty high quality with some experienced business owners presenting their information. It was initially a Facebook Live broadcast, though it doesn’t rely on the lingering Facebook chat or any audience interaction. Instead, it’s a good discussion of all of the techniques you can use to reach success with Facebook marketing over the course of a campaign.
15. How to Create a Facebook Ad 2017 From Start to Finish (21:13)
Not to be confused with any of the other similarly named videos on this list, this video from MegaGangChucks is a pretty good overview and tutorial of creating an ad. It doesn’t go as in-depth as some of the other videos on this list, but it also doesn’t gloss over anything. It’s overall a good beginner tutorial. That said, if you’ve watched the other basic tutorials, you’re probably not going to learn anything unique from this one. Just pick the one with the narrator that has the least grating voice, in my opinion.