In my efforts to let people know about my books, I have been posting on social media, Facebook and Instagram in particular.
If you use these platforms, you know that you can view them in two forms: on your desktop/laptop in a browser, or on a tablet/phone using apps.
Since these screens have different aspect ratios, it is necessary to create everything at least twice (more if you’re doing TikTok or other platforms).
Facebook posts (what you see in your feed) are horizontal, with a 4:5 ratio. Here’s an example of one I made that was a 1:1 ratio but still looks ok at 4:5:
However, very recently there has been a change: if you add a video to a Facebook post (4:5) , it automatically changes it to a reel if it’s short. A reel is vertical (9:16), and you see them in TikTok (9:16) and Instagram (3:4). Facebook is desperately trying to catch up with TikTok, thus the change.
So yeah, I want to have video. My short video ads get 100x more views than posts with still images.
Trouble is, the video in Facebook still also appears as a regular post in the feed, where Facebook adapts it so it looks really stupid:
Lovely, isn’t it? And so far I’ve found no way to just post a reel without it appearing in a post.
Now, I like having a cell phone. I do think it’s miraculous to carry a computer around in your pocket. But many of my readers, according to the stats, prefer to scroll Facebook on their desktop/laptop. Why? Because some of us find the phone frustrating for images and information. Very little content fits on the screen and you spend much time scrolling and scrolling. Information comes in little bits, but some of us are readers and we need more than little bits to make sense of things.
Lots of things on one screen? Yes, it’s old-fashioned. Like wanting a newspaper or magazine instead of massaging a cold, hard screen with your finger.
Remember when televisions got bigger back in the 1970s, and we were so excited? Then they got smaller, and we were excited again at the idea they could be portable. Then they got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and now I see homes in my neighborhood where they take up half the wall. We can PVR, scan through the ads, pay more not to see the commercials at all.
So everything heads to the phone to get your eyeballs. If only those eyeballs could have an easier time of it.
