How to Make and Post a Facebook Cover Video

Facebook allows business accounts to add video cover images to Facebook pages, helping to catch eyes and engage viewers the moment they land on your page. We first noticed (and loved it!) on Buffer’s Facebook page. We’ve also been excited to see several of our customers use Animoto videos for their Facebook cover videos, including Carey Vines Photography.

Want to make a cover video for your Facebook page? We’ll show you how to see if you have access to the feature, how to make your video, and how to post it to your Facebook page. To follow along, sign up for Animoto for free.

Do you have access to Facebook cover videos?

To find out if you’ve got access to add your own Facebook cover video, head over to your business's Facebook page, hover over the cover image and click on the Edit button. The drop down menu should have the option to “Choose From Videos” if you do have the ability.

Tips for making your Facebook cover video

One of the biggest questions we’ve heard about this new feature is, how do you export a video wide enough to fit in the Facebook cover image spot? The answer is, you don’t have to! You can upload a regular landscape video and drag and drop to crop it to the correct size. You’ll just have to keep a couple of things in mind when creating your video:

• Your video must be between 20 and 90 seconds long in order to upload it.
• Your video resolution must be 1080p in order to upload and use it as a Facebook cover.
• Part of the height of your video will be cropped out, so make sure to keep any important photos or text centralized so it won’t get cut out. In Animoto, click and drag text to center it and use the enter or return key to shift text down, if necessary.
• Cover videos are only available for Pages and not personal profiles at this time.

Here’s the video that photographer Kim Winey created for her Facebook page. As you can see, Kim kept all of the text vertically centered, as well as the faces of the people in her photographs. As a result, nothing important was hidden once she uploaded it to her page.

Looking to make your Facebook cover video in Animoto? Try using one of our video templates. Adjust the text and image placement as needed.

Adding a cover video to your Facebook page

Once your video is created, it’s time to add it. Download it to your desktop and head over to your Facebook page. The feature is not currently available via Facebook’s mobile app, so you’ll need to be logged in through your web browser on your computer.

To start, you'll need to upload your video to your Facebook. You can do this by sharing it in a post, or navigating to your video library and selecting "Upload Video".

Return to your main Facebook page, click on Edit, and select “Choose From Videos” in the dropdown menu. Then, select the video you'd like as your cover.

Once your video is uploaded, you’ll want to reposition it so that the part you intended to be at the center sits in the center. You can drag and drop to accomplish this. When you’re done, click Next.

Before you publish, choose a thumbnail! You can click on the arrows on the right and the left to choose from a selection of frames from your video. Once you’ve selected a cover image, click Publish and you’re good to go!

Are you using Animoto for your Facebook cover video? We’d love to see it! Join the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community on Facebook and share your videos.