Music has a profound effect on both brand recognition and buyer intention. That’s why advertisers have been relying on audio to enhance the effects of their advertising campaigns for decades.
Music in advertising provokes an emotional reaction and it also brings back memories, especially when people associate the respective piece with a certain important moment in their lives.
If you’re not picking music carefully for your Facebook advertising videos, you’re missing on the opportunity to optimize campaigns and get them to deliver much better results.
The problem with music is that quality, recognizable pieces are almost always copyrighted. Having the funds to pay for the rights solves the problem but many content creators and small businesses lack the budget to make that happen.
Luckily, alternatives exist. Today, we’ll take a look at various opportunities content creators and advertisers can employ to add impactful sound to their social media promo campaigns.
How Music Affects Ad Video Viewers
Our perception is impacted by input we gather through all our senses. That’s the main reason why visuals and music work together to shape up a comprehensive impression.
Audio can accomplish several things, which determines its effectiveness in the world of advertising.
The right music or sound background can:
- Provoke an emotional response: How often do you feel sad or happy when you listen to music? Does it move you? Music activates multiple brain regions, especially the ones involved in processing emotions, and memories. Familiarity with a certain piece of music can also contribute to a powerful emotional response fueled by memories.
- Bring back memories: There are certain music pieces that people associate with good times and fun experiences. Such uplifting, fun, and cheerful pieces can translate this positive response to the perception of a brand or a product. As a result, an audience is more likely to consider the thing being advertised as positive or desirable.
- Enhance the viewing experience: Even the most awesome Facebook ad video is going to be a bit bland in the absence of music that builds tension, creates a rhythm, and enhances the story. Not only does it create positive associations, music is also known to maximize engagement and interactivity, which improves message retention and recall in the long run.
- Improve brand recognition: A catchy jingle is very easy to link to a brand, which in turn improves brand recognition. Music can create powerful associations (in a way that visuals are often incapable of). Whenever that familiar tune is heard somewhere, a person is very likely to remember the ad or the product/service being promoted.
Creating the perfect soundtrack for your ad campaigns isn’t an easy task. Still, you need to focus on audio, as much as you’re paying attention to visuals. Your Facebook promotional video is facing some stiff competition. To make it memorable, you have to make sure every single element is outstanding and properly aligned with a brand identity.
Can You Use Copyrighted Music on Facebook Legally
Some of the best music pieces are the hits we all know and adore. Unfortunately, these are going to cost you a fortune if you insist on featuring them in your promotional videos.
Is there any legal way to use copyrighted music without having to dedicate your entire budget (and then some more) to purchasing audio?
Facebook guidelines prohibit the use of copyrighted music for commercial or non-personal uses. If you feature such a piece in one of your promo videos without owning the right, your content is probably going to get flagged and muted.
Facebook, however, does have a licensed music catalog you can use to bring some audio to your promotional clips. While the number of options is limited, this is the type of music you can employ worry-free.
Check the Facebook sound library before moving on to another approach. There’s some chance you’ll find what you’re looking for there, which will free you from having to source music in an alternative way.
Best Royalty-Free Sources of Music for Facebook Videos
The next thing you can do is use royalty-free music in your video. Royalty-free music is often considered less catchy and a bit more generic than copyrighted pieces. Depending on the platforms you use to procure music, however, you may come across some hidden gems that really elevate your campaigns.
A few excellent places to get started include:
- CapCut: The video editing software has an extensive library of both copyrighted and royalty-free music. You can search for sound through keywords, a genre, or the name of the piece you’d like to add to your video.
- YouTube audio library: The extensive free audio library is originally created for videos you upload on YouTube but you can get audio for the content to be published on any other channel. A huge selection of free sound effects is also available.
- Soundstripe: While Soundstripe is a subrciption-based audio library, it gives you access to extensive royalty-free music and sound effect catalogs. Even if you don’t want to get a subrcription, you can choose a single licensing payment (which isn’t ridiculously high) to get the rights for usage when you like a particular piece of audio.
- Epidemic Sound: This platform gives you free access to royalty-free music that can be used on any social or digital platform. You can browse music by genre, popularity, or keywords. Currently, the Epidemic Sound library contains more than 50,000 royalty-free pieces of music and over 200,000 sound effects.
- The Free Music Archive: FMA aims to create a bridge between independent music artists and content creators. FMA has a free version for personal use and a pro version for commercial content creation. When you opt for pro, you’ll see the licensing price for each song or piece of audio content you decide to use. Luckily, the pricing policy here is more than reasonable and you get access to authentic, original indie pieces that can easily add personality to your Facebook campaigns.
Using AI to Generate Your Own Audio: Good or Bad Idea?
When talking about music for your videos and Facebook ad campaigns, we have to mention the new opportunity that’s changing the digital content landscape. Content creators are employing artificial intelligence for various tasks, including audio creation.
While AI music can often be generated for free, is its quality good enough? Does it sound generic or is it capable of provoking the same emotional response as a piece created by a composer or an actual artist?
The answers to these important questions depend on various things.
Firstly, your experience and understanding of good music is very important. The quality of the output you get is heavily dependent on the quality of the input. AI cannot create a masterpiece on its own. The right prompts and having a very clear vision about what you want will both matter when attempting to get the kind of outcome that will increase the value and effectiveness of your ads.
The good thing is that audio generated with AI is considered royalty-free. Hence, if you are looking for a low-cost way to optimize your promotional clips, that tool may come in handy.
AI music generators are becoming better by the day. They “learn” from each task being completed and they also get upgrades in the form of innovative functionalities and tools.
Still, there is a lot that AI music generators still cannot accomplish.
For a start, picking the right tool is very important. An AI music generator is only as good as the library of data that backs its operation. If a massive archive or quality sound is used to power the tool, the outcomes will also have a good sound. Take some time to do research, employ demo versions, and identify the AI music generator that has the best potential to deliver quality.
A few other noteworthy limitations you have to be aware of include lack of emotional depth and nuance, very limited understanding of context (if any at all), and generic sound that would add nothing to the overall appeal of your campaigns.
Is this a good opportunity to experiment with? Absolutely! Will it produce groundbreaking outcomes? Such results are very unlikely but for a simple Facebook ad campaign, AI music can work fairly well.
Final Verdict
Impactful promotional videos need good music to engage the audience and maximize brand recall.
As you’re getting started, you’ll probably struggle with audio sourcing.
In time, you’ll build your library and you’ll familiarize yourself with the sources that give access to the best pieces.
Don’t underestimate the importance of audio, especially if promotional video production is something you’re interested in doing consistently. Paying attention to each detail matters, especially in a world defined by stiff competition and tons of content that audiences are exposed to on a daily basis.
One final piece of advice we have for you is to get professional assistance.
Post-production is a very important process. It polishes your clips and it takes them to the next level. If you don’t know how to choose music and make it work harmoniously with your footage, a video editing professional will make that happen.
At Wutini, we make unlimited video editing solutions readily available. Contact us to detail your needs and find out more about what we have to offer.
