How a Small Newsroom Used Facebook Groups to Drive Millions of Video Views

Millions of fans have watched the true crime Facebook Watch docu-series “Buried With Love,” which unpacks the story of an Ohio high school cheerleader charged with murder after police found a newborn baby buried in her backyard. Produced by Law & Crime, the show’s first season has 8.7 million 1-minute video views to date thanks in large part to the small publisher leaning into an organic strategy amplified through Facebook Groups.

With limited resources, and just eight weeks, Law & Crime’s organic reach strategy drove viewership and Facebook Page followers, helped grow its Facebook Group following 12x and contributed to increased referral traffic. “Storytelling is the backbone of why this was successful,” said Rachel Stockman, president and editor-in-chief of the Law & Crime Network. “You can do the social strategy, but if you don’t have the goods, it doesn’t matter.”

Below, the Law & Crime team explained how other newsrooms can incorporate Facebook Groups in their organic video strategy.

Active Facebook Groups with 2,000 members or more were possible collaborators. Before Law & Crime even chose a story to produce as a video series, social media strategist Nicholas Hernandez, now director of sales at Abrams Media, unearthed hundreds of true crime Facebook Groups to see what kind of stories resonate most with true crime audiences. He considered joining only active Groups with at least 2,000 members. “5,000 or more, even better,” he said. If a Group’s preview page showed many members but a low number of daily posts, he determined the Group stagnant and not worth investing in. Ultimately, he selected and joined about 40 highly engaged Groups where Law & Crime later posted “Buried with Love” promos.

Group admins who approved and responded quickly to posts were ideal collaborators. “We had to make sure we weren’t posting in Groups where it took 10 hours to get approved — or if a post sharing a new episode was approved in five minutes or five hours,” Hernandez said. Knowing “who’s who” among Group admins is also important, he added, “because if you upset one admin it can have implications on other Groups you work with [if they manage other Groups].”

The last 10-30 posts in each Group’s feed helped Law & Crime choose a story to tell. Hernandez noticed posts with the highest engagement told the stories of mothers who committed crimes against their own children. This observation helped Law & Crime select the “Buried With Love” story from its archive of true crime news coverage for the video series.

On-screen text hooks viewers in the first minute. “Buried with Love” season one had eight episodes, each under 10 minutes and released once a week. Each episode’s one-minute cold open summarizes the story, teases what’s next and assumes the viewer hasn’t watched previous episodes. “For season two, we put more text on screen because I want to assume viewers don’t have their audio on,” said showrunner and executive producer Whitney Ellis. “We also make sure the music elevates the story.”

Cliffhangers end each episode in suspense. Memorable cliffhangers in “Buried with Love” include a scene in which the high school girl calls her mom from a police interrogation room and asks, “Am I going to go to jail?” Or when another character took a lie detector test — and viewers had to wait until the next episode to learn the result. “You always want to end something on a question or a new twist to the story and leave people wanting more,” Ellis said.

Raw thumbnails transport viewers to the scene. One example is the thumbnail for episode 3, which shows an interrogation room. “That episode has more than 3.9 million 1-minute views to date and I think the thumbnail really plays into it,” Ellis said. “Our Facebook viewers seem to connect with original archive interrogation or body cam footage — images that make the viewer feel like they're really there.”

Group members knew Law & Crime well before the season premiere. To exhibit authentic behavior and start building a relationship with each Group’s members, Hernandez posted daily and joined conversations weeks before the show’s premiere from both the Law & Crime account and his personal account. When it was time to post the “Buried With Love” trailer and begin promoting the show, active members were already familiar with Law & Crime.

Law & Crime saw off-platform benefits as “Buried With Love” continued to have strong organic reach even after a promotional period ended. “It’s had a really big effect on our referral traffic and we realized how powerful it can be for us as a publisher to create an audience,” Stockman said. “We have a lot more engaged viewers on our Facebook Page when we post stories, and we’re getting referral traffic viewers on video.”

Season two, which began airing in May, is a continuation of the “Buried With Love” storyline and also has high viewership; so far, season 2 has over 5.4M 1-minute views total to date.

Hernandez emphasized the benefits of using Facebook Groups to deepen Law & Crime’s relationship with viewers. “It gave us the ability to develop a community for our most active readers and fans and to talk about topics that aren’t as easily covered on a Facebook Page,” he said. “It gives them a focal point to break news to their own communities, re-engage with one another, and we create that niche community for them.”