Facebook Video: Insight From a Facebook Watch Success Story

Wondering how creators succeed with video on Facebook Watch? Curious how it compares to other social media video?

To explore what marketers can learn from a successful Facebook Watch creator, I interview Rachel Farnsworth.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Rachel Farnsworth, a Facebook video expert. She's the founder of the Stay At Home Chef and author of the book, Slow Cooker Cooking. Her Facebook Watch show, Recipes, has more than 4 million subscribers.

Rachel explains how her experience with Facebook Watch compares to videos on her Facebook page and YouTube channel.

You'll also discover tips for measuring Facebook video performance and running ads on Facebook Watch.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Video Success With Facebook Watch
Rachel's Story
In 2008, when Rachel became a stay-at-home mom, she started a blog. She didn't love being a stay-at-home mom. She was bored and yearned for connection. On her blog, she shared recipes for friends and family because she loves cooking. In 2012, after she had her last child, she started trying to make money from her blog. At that point, her goal was to cover the grocery bill.

Rachel's husband, who's a software engineer, suggested she make video part of her business because he believed video was the future of the internet. Although Rachel didn't watch a lot of online video at the time, she decided to try making some videos and putting them on YouTube.

Rachel says her first videos were terrible. She didn't edit them, so viewers saw her turn on the camera and walk around in front of it. Everything was in real time. She quickly realized her videos weren't good, deleted those initial attempts, and began practicing offline. She experimented with new styles that showed only the food and not her face, but at that point, she still wasn't proud of her work.

In 2016, BuzzFeed launched Tasty, which performed well and helped Rachel see the possibilities in what she was already doing. She started honing her craft with her own style and improved the quality of her videos. She also started a video business, making original videos for the Facebook pages of other online creators.

Making videos for other Facebook pages was a tremendous learning experience. In 6 months, Rachel made about 1,000 top-down, hands-only cooking videos. After working with about 100 different pages on Facebook, she developed a keen sense for what succeeds on Facebook and what doesn't.

With an understanding of how to create videos and what works on Facebook, Rachel returned to creating her own videos in October 2016. In less than 3 months, she went from 52,000 to 1 million followers. For these videos, she chose content from her blog that would translate well to video. Her first video, a 60-second homemade rolls recipe, is still among her most viewed videos.

When Facebook announced Watch in June 2017, Rachel learned everything she could about it. She talked to everyone she knew who might be connected to Facebook Watch about their experiences with it. When Facebook came to Salt Lake City, where Rachel lives, they invited top YouTube creators in the area, who suggested Facebook invite Rachel, too.

At that time, Rachel's YouTube channel had about 150,000 subscribers, so it was a legitimate YouTube channel but not a major component of her business. After meeting with Facebook, Rachel pursued a Watch page by sending emails and following Facebook employees on LinkedIn. She says she pushed the limit to break into Facebook Watch.

Rachel launched her Facebook Watch page, Recipes, on February 26, 2018. Because Watch is a search-based platform,