YouTube and Facebook: for companies of any size, using them to get publicity, engage with customers, and build the brand is an essential. But they serve different purposes, so companies will need to create a unique approach for each.

At the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, a panel of experts convened to discuss how to create a Facebook strategy and how to inspire viewers to take action.

Speaking for the media and entertainment world, Mara Winokur, senior vice president of digital for pay TV channel Starz ^[1] told how her company uses Facebook to build fan interest.

“We use Facebook primarily for marketing, and I don’t mean marketing just the Starz brand, but marketing our individual shows like “Spartacus,” “Magic City,” “Boss,” etc. But, of course, we would love to make money off it,” said Winokur. “I think our goals are really how do we keep somebody interested in a show, given that we are a subscription channel. How do we get someone new interested in our shows so that we can get them to get the subscription. But also, how do we keep them in our show between season. “Spartacus” is a good example — “Sopranos” is a key example, pre-Facebook — where you can have a year or more between seasons and you want to keep someone involved. How do you do that? We have a digital marketing team that is purely digital marketing, so when the show airs they’ll be tweeting, they’ll be on Facebook, they’ll have commentary from the key stars. But what my team does is works with them and with the channel as a whole to develop things like, for example, Facebook “Spartacus” social media games.”

Next up, Erin Gargan, social media consultant for SoCal Socialite ^[2], explained the nuances of Facebook marketing.

“Facebook is more of a PR vehicle than an advertising vehicle,” said Gargan. “You have to be careful when you’re inserting your brand messaging into social conversations, because ultimately people are not on Facebook to buy stuff from you. They’re on Facebook to look at their kids’ pictures, to check their newsfeed, and to stalk their ex-boyfriends. Maybe that’s just me.”

Videos and photos posted to Facebook get the highest engagement rates, Gargan found. When editing videos, she advised brands to take a tip from the TED conferences and skip the introduction, going directly to the meat of the video. (Read our story for more tips from TED ^[3].)

Watch the full video, below, for more help on Facebook video marketing.