Top Facebook Updates That You Can’t Afford to Miss
we’ve got some pretty exciting news to share with you – especially the ones we heard at Facebook’s F8 conference held in April.
So here they are – the top Facebook updates in May 2017:
Read on!
During the 2-day conference, Facebook introduced some seriously exciting new products and shared their future plans with thousands of eager listeners.
A lot of emphasis was placed on the development of VR and AI products, including the launch of a new Camera Effects platform and a VR app named Facebook Spaces.
In case you completely missed out on the conference, we’re going to cover some if the most important announcements right away.
By tracking the right Facebook ad metrics, you’ll be able to optimize your campaigns and improve both your ads’ click-through rates and acquisition costs.
Now, advertisers can track the Facebook Page interactions, such as post reactions and shares in the omnichannel analytics for websites, applications, services, and bots.
For example, an e-commerce business can measure if people who comment on an item featured in their Page post go on to view that item on their website or purchase it in their app.
But there’s more to it: Facebook also introduced a new AI-powered Automated Insights tool that’s especially beneficial to larger advertisers who need to segment their target audiences.
If you’re marketing a product that’s sold in physical stores, the new multi-channel analytics can help you better realize the ROI of your campaigns.
Learn more about the Facebook Analytics multi-channel tracking here.
As a Facebook advertiser, you can rest assured – the social media platform’s not going anywhere.
As reported by The Verge, the social media platform brought in just over $8 billion in revenue, a jump of 49 percent since the first quarter of 2016.
Moreover, the number of Facebook’s monthly active users has grown by 17% compared to the first quarter of 2016. And so has Instagram’s: the company just announced that it hit the milestone of 700 million monthly active users.
This is good news for anyone looking to reach a large audience of potential customers via paid social media advertising.
The new games feature, named Instant Games, is available on Messenger and Facebook News Feed for both mobile and web.
According to Facebook, the new games experience allows people to easily discover, share, and play games without having to install new apps.
The gaming platform also lets game makers create turn-based plays, to integrate leaderboards and tournaments.
Right now, there are 50 different titles to play, from Pac-Man to 8 Ball Pool.
As reported by TechCrunch: For now, there are no ads or in-game purchases available, so neither Facebook nor developers are making money on the Instant Games platform just yet.
What this means for advertisers:
The Messenger games could also provide awesome branding opportunities for advertisers. In fact, there are already some branded games like The LEGO Batman Movie’s Bat Climb on the platform.
In a blog update published on May 10, Facebook’s representatives told that:
“Starting today, we’re rolling out an update so people see fewer posts and ads in News Feed that link to these low-quality web page experiences. Similar to the work we’re already doing to stop misinformation, this update will help reduce the economic incentives of financially-motivated spammers.”
Facebook analyzed hundreds of thousands of web pages linked to from Facebook to identify those that contain little substantive content and have a large number of disruptive, shocking or malicious ads.
What this means for advertisers:
The changes will roll out gradually over the upcoming months.
If you’re promoting high-quality landing pages with nothing spammy, you may even see a small increase in traffic as you can potentially be competing with fewer advertisers for your audience’s attention.
For example, if a person visits an eCommerce website, they could be retargeted with a multi-product ad of the exact products they looked at.
With the latest update, you can highlight up to 20 images from a catalog to represent a single item across the carousel ad format used with Dynamic Ads.
This means that you can advertise a single item such as a piece of clothing, recipe, hotel or destination with multiple images, making your remarketing ads even more efficient.
Want to learn more? See our guide to Dynamic Product Ads
If you don’t have a large product catalog and aren’t using the Dynamic Ads, you might still be interested in our guide to the best Facebook (remarketing) audiences.
You can now setup up to three questions for people requesting to join their Group to answer.
As reported by TechCrunch, this lets admins screen potential members to ensure they’re the right fit for the group and will add constructively to the discussion, not just spam or troll the Group.
The answers and questions will only be seen by admins and moderators (don’t worry, no answers will be posted to the group).
If you’re managing a branded Facebook community, this could also be a good opportunity to ask about your audience’s interests and expectations, so that you can have even better discussions in the future.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing – it means you can now go and apply your new knowledge to your Facebook ad campaigns.
Just in case, here’s a quick overview of the top Facebook news in May 2017:
And in case you missed the top news in April, scroll down to read about them!
Facebook is making your predicted ad results more transparent with Delivery Insights and Estimated Daily Results.
The redesigned Delivery Insights dashboard now features an updated interface that provides in-depth auction metrics and helps to interpret the fluctuations in your campaign performance.
The new auction overlap tool will help you interpret whether overlapping audiences between ad sets might be affecting your spend and audience saturation.i
In addition to that, Facebook also updated their ad results prediction, giving advertisers a better overview of future campaign results. When setting up campaign budgets, you can now see a table with predicted ad delivery and reach.
If you’re still not 100% convinced that Facebook believes in live video and Messenger Day, read this:
You can now tap on the camera icon on the top left corner of your Facebook mobile app or swipe right from News Feed to try out Facebook’s new in-app camera.
The Facebook in-app camera is packed with dozens of effects like masks, frames and interactive filters that you can apply to your photos and videos – to make them more fun.
But Facebook has even bigger plans for their new camera.
According to Connor Hayes, Product Manager:
“Over the coming months, we plan to introduce new ways for the Facebook community to create their own frames and effects that can be used on any photo or video created with the new Facebook camera. Our goal is for the camera to be a home to hundreds of dynamic and fun effects that give you new ways to connect with friends, family, and your community.”
We’re excited to see how smart brands can use the new features to their advantage!
On March 23, Drew Moxon, Product Manager, Messenger, wrote on Facebook’s blog that they’ve added two new features that improve group conversations to make them more fun and useful.
The new feature is called Messenger Reactions.
Message Reactions let people react to individual messages with specific emotions – love, smile, wow, sad, angry, yes, and no.
This lets people to quickly show acknowledgment or express how they feel about a particular message.
You’ll be able to see how people have reacted to a message in the lower corner of the message. If you don’t currently have the Messenger open, you’ll receive a notification that lets you know who (and how) reacted to your messages.
There’s another new feature in Facebook Messenger – Mentions.
To mention someone, type the “@” symbol or start typing the first letters of a person’s name you want to notify. Next, select them from the list.
When you’re mentioned, instead of simply seeing that someone responded in the conversation, you’ll receive a special notification telling you were called out specifically.
In fact, Facebook’s so in 😍 with emojis that this year, they want to award advertisers whose ads have stirred emotions.
On March 27, Facebook introduced a temporary live location sharing feature inside Messenger, letting friends and family track your movements an hour at a time.
This could be handy when you’re late to a meetup, letting your friends know you’re on your way.
On March 22, Facebook announced in a blog post that live video can now be broadcasted to news feeds from desktop and laptop computers.
Previously, the Live Video was only available through Facebook’s mobile app.
As Facebook pointed out itself, a stable camera setup can be beneficial to many types of Facebook Live broadcasts — from Q&As to vlogs to tutorials. If you’re collaborating with bloggers, this knowledge might come in handy.
Moreover, the new live streaming capacities could be used to organize webinars right on Facebook – you can also incorporate on-screen graphics, titles, and overlays.
For additional webinar tips, see this guide: How to Max Out Your Next Webinar with Facebook Ads
Facebook will soon let users raise money on behalf of themselves and
others, as a way to help cover the cost of events like medical bills,
tuition, and crises.
In a press release, the social media network said that, at first, it only allows fundraisers across six aspects: education expenses, medical bills, pets’ medical bills, crisis and disaster relief, personal emergencies, and assistance for families after a death.
The personal fundraisers feature will roll out over the next few weeks to users in the US, only for those age 18 and up.
As reported by The Verge,
Facebook’s been making changes to the comments section on the Facebook
mobile app, swapping the flat line-by-line format with Messenger-like
chat bubbles.
Replies also look similar to Messenger, with individual bubbles underneath the original comment.
Not everyone was happy about this update, especially some people reporting about this on Twitter.
Facebook told The Verge it’s testing the new layout with a “small percentage” of users, so if you’re not really into the new design, don’t worry —the format isn’t necessarily permanent.
However, it’s another sign of Facebook changing its platform into a more emotions-focused one.
In case you missed our past months’ Facebook news broadcast, keep reading to find out what important updates were introduced in the past year (month by month).
Among other fascinating updates, Facebook introduced another answer to Snapchat stories and ensured us that video as a medium is growing at a rapid pace.
Here’s big news for anyone loving Snapchat or Instagram Stories.
After several months of testing, Messenger Day, Facebook Messenger’s answer to Snapchat Stories, was rolled out to users worldwide.
Messenger Day has the same features as Snapchat Stories, including stickers and filters, and posts disappearing after 24h.
Stan Chudnovsky, Head of Product for Messenger wrote in a blog post:
“Billions of photos and videos have been sent capturing all those heartfelt, funny and serious messages that make the Messenger community so powerful. We love seeing how much fun people are having with Messenger’s new visual tools, especially our most popular art and effects like floating hearts and recently, Mardi Gras frames.”
2. Snap a photo or video of what’s around you.
3. Add art and effects by tapping the smiley face icon in the top right and then tap to add to your photo or video.
You can also add text over your images by tapping the “Aa” icon. To overlay a drawing, tap the squiggly line in the top right corner.
4. Once you’ve completed editing, tap the arrow in the bottom right corner. You can add directly to your day, save it to your phone’s camera roll, and/or you can choose to send it to a specific person or group of people.
You can customize how you share by tapping the “more” icon and then choosing “Everyone Except” or “Custom.”
All your photos or videos will be viewable for 24 hours.
You can also include a Messenger Day post in conversations. Simply tap that text, and you’ll be asked to confirm whether you’d like to add it to your day.
While there’s no Like counter, Messenger lets you instantly reply privately to a Day with custom or pre-filled messages like “haha”, “Wow”, a heart, or a “100” emoji that will appear in your chat thread with that person.
To advertisers, this could mean new ad placements in the future.
Facebook’s VP of messaging David Marcus told TechCrunch that Messenger Day will “probably” insert advertisements between posts to become one of Messenger’s first revenue streams.
On March 4, a TechCrunch reader sent the publisher a tip that Facebook Messenger is showing some users a Reactions option.
In addition to the dislike, heart-eyes, lol, wow, sad, and angry emoji, users can also select between a thumbs-up or thumbs-down Reaction.
As AdWeek put it: The new thumbs-down emoji is the closest Facebook has come to adding a dislike button.
Facebook confirmed the new feature to TechCrunch, saying:
“We’re always testing ways to make Messenger more fun and engaging. This is a small test where we enable people to share an emoji that best represents their feelings on a message.”
This means that the Messenger Reactions aren’t yet rolled out to all users, but they soon might be.
The primary use case for the new Messenger Reactions is likely group chats, where more popular messages could be noted quicker with the help of emotional or thumbs-up emojis.
The love Reaction has been by far the most popular, accounting for more than one-half of total Reactions.
At the end of February, Facebook introduced and expanded three types
of video ads for both the social network and publishers’ websites.
Here’s a quick explanation about each update and what it means for Facebook advertisers.
Advertisers can upload their ads and bids to Facebook in advance so that algorithms can run an auction and deliver Facebook users most relevant ads.
Here’s what Facebook’s video Ad Breaks look like:
To read more about Audience Network in-stream video ads, see this guide.
Here’s how it works:
When a broadcaster chooses to take an ad break, people watching the video will see an in-stream ad of up to 15 seconds. The broadcaster will earn a share of the resulting ad revenue.
The social media network started to test the Ad Breaks feature in
on-demand video, allowing publishers to insert short ad breaks into
videos they upload, or into existing videos in their Facebook libraries.
This would mean more monetization opportunities for publishers and more Facebook video ad placements for advertisers.
You can read more about each update here.
Facebook mobile users will soon hear audio fading in as they scroll
through videos in their News Feed. As people keep on scrolling and view
the whole video, the sound will get a bit louder on the phone until they
scroll past the clip.
According to Facebook:
“After testing sound on in News Feed and hearing positive feedback, we’re slowly bringing it to more people. With this update, sound fades in and out as you scroll through videos in News Feed, bringing those videos to life.”
A Facebook rep confirmed to AdWeek that the sound-on feature applies to “video ads and branded content videos in addition to regular organic videos.”
This means that mobile Facebook audiences will see your ads with sound, making it easier to catch your audience’s attention. There will also be less need for subtitled video ads.
On March 8, Facebook launched Facebook 360, a Samsung Gear VR app
powered by Oculus, for the 360 video and photo content posted on the
social media platform.
With more than one million 360 videos posted to the site alongside more than 25 million 360 photos, Facebook 360 will have plenty of content to show.
Facebook 360 will feature four feeds:
Brent Ayrey, Product Director, and Christopher Wong, Software Engineer, wrote in a blog post:
“Today, we’re making 360 photos and videos even more immersive and easier to discover with the launch of the Facebook 360 app for Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus. The app is an exciting new way to explore Facebook 360 photos and videos.”
To download the Facebook 360 app for Gear VR, open the Oculus app on your Gear VR-compatible Samsung device and search for Facebook 360, or visit the Oculus site to get started.
Facebook’s advanced measurement platform Atlas used to be available to only large advertisers.
Now, the social media network is planning to bring additional measurement capabilities to the Facebook Business Manager.
Product Marketing Director for Measurement Scott Shapiro said Facebook will be launching a new area of the Facebook Business Manager called Advanced Measurement, where it will be making Atlas capabilities available in a self-serve way.
In the future, the advanced reporting capacity will be available to tens of thousands of marketers using Facebook’s ad tools.
As reported by TechCrunch: The Advanced Measurement is currently in testing phase. Facebook plans to refine the interface and introduce more data as the new tool rolls out sometime during this year.
If you like to support your national sports team or are in love with
your country, here’s cool news: you can now add a small flag icon to
your Facebook profile picture.
Previously, Facebook has allowed users to use customized profile picture frames to express support for sports teams, causes, and movements.
Now, there are nearly 200 country flag frames in the list. You can see all the options and change your profile picture frame here.
Publishers can now place ads manually within Facebook Instant Articles or choose between three options for automatic placement: ads every 250, 350 or 500 words. – read more from Facebook’s blog post
February’s also been a busy news month for Facebook, bringing us fascinating updates on Facebook Stories, video ads, and even GIFs.
As always, we’ve been digging for the latest Facebook news and we have investigated every promising lead.
As a result, just one click away, you’ll find a list of the Top Facebook updates in February 2017:
As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook had another strong quarter in Q4 2016, earning $8.81 billion in revenue. This represents a 53% jump from the same time last year.
During the past year, Facebook’s daily active users number rose 18% to 1.23 billion people. This means that you can potentially reach 18% more people on Facebook!
According to Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg:
“Facebook now has 4 million paying brands, along with another 500,000 on Instagram.”
Here are three more interesting Facebook stats to know:
Read more: Facebook Video Ads: The Secret Weapon You’re Too Afraid To Use
Affinitiv digital marketing specialist Chris Ruberg shared the screenshot below, displaying a pop-up atop the part of Facebook’s Ads Manager where brands would create video ads.
You can either create GIFs yourself or use sites like GIPHY to find fun content.
You can also create a Facebook boosted post with an animated GIF:
Facebook’s suggestions for the best results:
Moreover, Facebook’s been working with their third-party verification partners so that they, in turn, can bring better insights to marketers.
Now, you can see new in-view and duration metrics for your Video Ads, including:
Important! When creating video ads, don’t forget to add captions. According to Facebook, captioned video ads increase video view time by an average of 12%. Another study of Facebook video ads discovered that 41% of videos were almost meaningless without sound.
Facebook also announced that it would introduce new buying options later this year across Facebook, Instagram and Facebook Audience Network:
Zhang wrote:
“Businesses have long been telling us that they are very excited about the potential of the Messenger platform to reach their customers and help them to drive sales, build brand awareness and increase customer satisfaction.”
The test is carried out in Australia and Thailand, and we’re excited to hear about the results.
This new ad placement could help brands to target the right users with the right promotions at the right time.
On January 31, Facebook announced that the goal with News Feed is to show people the stories that are most relevant to them.
These two updates will help to better rank posts in peoples’ feeds:
Research scientists Akos Lada and James Li and engineering manager
Shilin Ding described Facebook’s efforts to identify authentic content
for News Feed:
“With this update, we’re adding new universal signals to determine whether a post might be authentic. To do this, we categorized pages to identify whether or not they were posting spam or trying to game News Feed by doing things like asking for likes, comments or shares.”
For example, if page posts are often being hidden by people reading them, it’s a signal that it might not be relevant or authentic.
Moreover, if there is a lot of engagement from many people on Facebook about a topic, or if a post is getting a lot of engagement, Facebook’s algorithm will quickly understand that the topic might be temporarily more important.
The best formula to get your posts in front of your target audience is to post stories that are relevant to your audience.
According to AdWeek, in order to make the Trending section more relevant, Facebook is changing how it identifies trending topics. While topics were highlighted in the past based on what users were engaging with on the platform, Facebook will now factor in the number of publishers posting about a given topic, combined with the user engagement.
The Stories from a users’ friends will appear on top of Facebook News Feed.
The company told TechCrunch:
“Facebook has long been the place to share with friends and family, but the way that people share is changing in significant ways. The way people share today is different to five or even two years ago — it’s much more visual, with more photos and videos than ever before. We want to make it fast and fun for people to share creative and expressive photos and videos with whoever they want, whenever they want.”
Facebook Live already lets people use the filters to sync up special effects over their faces, but has not allowed brands to participate. Soon, there might be an option to boost your branded Facebook campaigns with a special selfie mask.
Keep reading to find out what updates were introduced by Facebook in January 2017.
For this first month of the year, there are quite a few exciting updates that you don’t want to miss. Are you ready to dig in? Here’s a quick overview of the most important Facebook news in January 2017:
While Facebook reached 1 billion users on its social network already some time ago, it now has more than 1 billion people viewing its advertising network. (That’s a huge potential audience waiting to be reached!)
According to Facebook, the advertisers who opt-in to the Audience Network can reach 16% more people on average than they could by advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
If you haven’t used the Audience Network ad placement for reaching your audience, why not try it now. On average, advertisers have seen a 12% increase in conversions for website campaigns and a 17% increase in installs for mobile app campaigns when extending their Facebook ads to Audience Network.
Keep your eye on the results to evaluate whether to continue advertising in the Audience Network in the future.
On January 11, Facebook announced that it’s starting to let brands advertise in its 24-hour video stories section. As reported by AdWeek, around 30 brands are already trying the new full-screen ads. That includes Capital One, Asos, Nike, Buick and Airbnb.
One of the main advantages of Instagram ads over Snapchat is the ad technology and audience targeting. Snapchat’s ad platform is still developing while Instagram’s is built on top of Facebook.
Read more: Timeline Showing Instagram and Snapchat’s 2016 War Over the Best Features
The ads in Instagram Stories will be sold on the platform’s auction-style, automated system that charges cost-per-thousand-impressions rates. As it’s a brand new feature, Facebook’s still working on finding out the best practices, e.g. how many times to show an ad to users.
The Instagram Stories platform is steadily growing. On January 11, Instagram announced that the Stories feature is now used 150 million people every day. This represents a 50-million-user increase in just three months.
Read more: 26 Instagram Ad Best Practices That Will Make You an Outstanding Marketer
As reported by Recode, Facebook is going to start showing ads in the middle of its videos and sharing the money with publishers.
The mid-roll ad format means that ads will be inserted into video clips after people have watched them for at least 20 seconds. Unlike other video platforms, Facebook doesn’t allow to add pre-video ads to publishers’ content. The videos that contain ads also need to be at least 90 seconds long.
In 2016, Facebook users were watching videos for 100 million hours per day. Mid-roll ads would mean that you could buy ads inside unbranded video content that’s relevant to your target audience.
Facebook is adding more and more options to target more and more people likely to be interested in your offer. When using Facebook dynamic ads, advertisers can now reach people who are highly likely to be interested in a specific product.
For example, a company could target people who have been looking for blue t-shirts across multiple retailers. Also, people who like Facebook posts and pages about t-shirts could be served an ad about a blue t-shirt. The person doesn’t need to visit your website, simply show interest in a product similar to yours.
According to Facebook:
“Now, if someone has been browsing for furniture across multiple websites, Facebook may infer that this person is interested in buying a couch, and they may be a good candidate to serve a dynamic ad for furniture.”
After you’ve created a campaign, Facebook’s algorithms start to work their magic, looking at traffic patterns on retailers’ mobile sites and apps to automatically serve a targeted promotion to relevant users.
At the end of December, Facebook launched a new feature – Live Audio. The feature lets users listen to broadcast voice recordings, encouraging people to publish more audio-only content.
For Android users, audio will also play if a user leaves the Facebook app to use another app or locks their phone.
On January 11, Facebook announced Facebook Journalism Project, a collaboration with publishers and journalists to improve the quality of online news.
According to Fidji Simo, product manager in Facebook:
“We will be collaborating with news organizations to develop products, learning from journalists about ways we can be a better partner, and working with publishers and educators on how we can equip people with the knowledge they need to be informed readers in the digital age.”
Lately, Facebook has taken steps to reduce the spread of news hoaxes, including ways for people to report them more easily, to disrupt the financial incentives for spammers, and to work with third-party fact-checking organizations.
Facebook is even launching a series of e-courses for journalists to discover content and engage with readers on Facebook and Instagram.
If you like the story, you can choose to share a post, save it for later, open it in Safari or post it to other channels like Twitter or email.
Here’s a quick recap of all the Facebook news in January 2017:
It means that you might have already missed out on some great Facebook advertising opportunities. On the other hand, you’ve still got the remaining 60% to sell to.
With the freezing weather and Christmas lights shining all over the city, Facebook seems to have slowed down on their new product releases and feature updates.
However, we’ve got some fascinating news all lined up for you to discover and apply to your ad campaigns.
Every small improvement to your Facebook ads could result in a significant increase in sales.
With Facebook’s soon-to-be-released multi-product News Feed ads, you’ll be able to display a second ad page with more products. According to Facebook, this approach drives more visual discovery by letting retailers use as many as 50 products to target users.
When clicked again, the ad leads to the retailer’s website where people can actually buy the products.
If you’re into Instagram advertising, there’s also a cool new feature to test out on the image sharing platform.
Facebook has partnered with a dozen retailers to test out tagging products in photos. Marketers are able to tag a product and add a price to prompt users to buy more products. This new feature will turn Instagram pages into well-designed lookbooks, making it the go-to platform for window browsing and shopping branded items.
The two-page multi-product ad feature isn’t yet universally rolled out, being still in the testing phase. We’re super excited to see where this leads and how creative marketers can get with these new types of ads.
Did you know that there’s an app for managing your Facebook Page?
With Facebook’s Pages Manager app for iOS and Android, you can create and manage a Facebook Page (or multiple Pages) anywhere.
Here’s how the Pages Manager app works:
On top of that, Facebook just released a new feature called universal inbox. The new feature helps to manage the communications across Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger via the Facebook Pages app.
Now, there’s a one-stop shop to notice every time someone posts comments, reviews, or feedback through one of your three branded Facebook accounts.
Universal inbox will let marketers more easily take note of comments, reviews and direct messages being authored by consumers. Page managers can use their cursor to tap a user’s profile and see his or her publicly available information, potentially giving businesses more insights on how to interact with potential customers.
You can use the Pages Manager app to respond to your customers through the universal inbox instead of having to log into each individual service.
For example, when purchasing an event ad, the brands were given a choice of which groups could see the ad—African American, Asian American or Hispanic.
Now, Facebook is working hard to make its ad-buying practices more transparent.
According to Erin Egan, VP & Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook, there will be two primary changes:
Many of these fake news sites used to enjoy a large share of social media traffic, and use their popularity to earn high advertising income.
In November, Facebook amended its Audience Network policy to state that it will not display ads on websites or mobile apps that hold fake news. (The same day, Google also made a similar move.)
What this means, according to a Facebook spokesperson’s comment to The Wall Street Journal, is that Facebook’s teams will monitor publishers to ensure compliance with the objective news. The fake news sites will no longer be part of Facebook’s ad network.
But it wasn’t only the spending that increased: ads’ click-through rates also increased. The average CTR increased by 11% on Black Friday and by 10% on Thanksgiving compared to 2015.
Here’s another cool fact: according to Adobe, purchases on mobile devices skyrocketed 33% on Black Friday to $1.2 million.
Want to get more out of your holiday campaigns? We created a list of some best practices to follow RIGHT NOW:
Alright. It’s time to conclude the December Facebook news and get started with our holiday campaigns (if you haven’t already).
In case you missed the past episodes of our Facebook newscast, here are the most important past month’s updates.
One thing’s for sure: Facebook now has 1.79 billion monthly users, and the growth won’t stop there.
On November 2, Facebook released its third-quarter earnings report,
and the results exceeded even the Wall Street’s expectations. The
report showed a year-over-year increase in revenue by 56 percent, up
from $4.5 billion during the third-quarter of 2015.
Another thing we learned is that Facebook as a key advertising channel is going to be around for a long time.
Another thing we learned is that Facebook as a key advertising channel is going to be around for a long time. The social media platform’s user base has grown to 1.79 billion monthly users, a 16% growth compared to September 2016.
Facebook now has 24% of the World’s population as its monthly active users!
“We had another good quarter,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re making progress putting video first across our apps and executing our 10-year technology roadmap.”
As reported by AdWeek, Facebook’s advertising revenue skyrocketed to $6.82 billion, up 59 percent from the third quarter of 2015.
You might have noticed that in the Facebook Ads Manager, there’s no longer the possibility to choose between mobile or desktop News Feed targeting.
There’s a reason for that: Mobile platform’s growing fast. Mobile advertising now represents around 84 percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue, up from 78 percent in the third-quarter of 2015.
Facebook chief financial officer David Wehner:
“It was notably higher growth than in recent quarters. Price per ad was up 6 percent, while total impressions were up 50 percent, thanks to ads both in the Facebook News Feed and on Instagram.”
Facebook’s advertising branch is stronger than ever, making it a core marketing channel to embrace in 2017.
By the way, we just released a case study on Twitter Lead Cards vs. Facebook Lead Ads. Read about the 336% difference in the performance here.
Facebook Live has been around for a while, and you can rest assured that the company has big plans for it.
From November 7 to November 11, tech’s brightest minds flew together to Lisbon to attend the 50 000 participant conference Web Summit. You know who else went there? Facebook’s C-suite.
In a chat with Kurt Wagner from Recode, Facebook’s CMO Gary Briggs discussed the new promotional campaign for Facebook Live released about two weeks prior to the talk.
Launching a multi-stage ad campaign to introduce a new feature is unusual for the company. But up to now, many users still aren’t sure what Facebook Live stands for or are intimidated by live broadcasting.
According to AdWeek, Facebook’s the ad campaign features videos recorded by real Facebook users, all shot using Facebook Live on a phone, to capture the fun and spontaneity of the format.
“It’s still relatively young for us, but it’s been a hit,” said Rebecca Van Dyck, VP-marketing at Facebook. Since Facebook Live was released to a wide audience in April 2016, the number of people broadcasting live at any minute has quadrupled.
The platform has recorded broadcasts from all seven continents, and even from outer space!
Just as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in the recent earnings announcement: “Marketing shifts take time.”
Live video is a highly competitive marketplace with players such as Snapchat and Prisma showing the way.
Facebook has set out to build an AI that lets you transfer the style of your videos in real-time. This means that you can apply different styles to your video while recording it, not after. If you’re unsure what it means,
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg demoed the style transfer feature in October, shortly after which Facebook launched its first Live video filters.
We had a chance to see a demo at the Web Summit, and we have to admit: this stuff is impressive!
As reported by Digital Trends: Instead of waiting for the image to be processed on huge computer servers in data centers, Facebook claims it has developed a world’s first deep-learning platform on mobile that puts the cutting-edge technology in the palm of a user’s hand.
Last month, Facebook’s chief product officer Chris CoxCox said that according to their predictions, video will generate 70% of traffic across Facebook’s properties — Instagram, WhatsApp, and its core social network — in the next five years.
Recent stats show that, globally, Facebook users spend an
average of 20+ minutes per day on the social network. In the United
States, that time frame stretches to as much as 40 minutes per day.
As people spend a big chunk of their lives on Facebook, there’s the opportunity to improve their shopping experience with helpful call-to-actions.
Up until now, the all-to-action buttons that brands could use on their posts and pages were quite limited.
Now, Facebook is partnering with multiple service providers to help businesses to offer a seamless experience for booking an appointment, buying a dinner or purchasing tickets.
Which means that you can now add new types of call-to-actions to your Facebook posts.
Here are the available partner integrations:
When it comes to movie tickets, a user can store them as QR codes in his or her Facebook account. A scheduled visit to a salon can be saved in the events section of the Facebook mobile app.
Even if you’re not working with Facebook’s integrated partners, you can still drive orders, appointment bookings and customer inquiries directly from your Page through Messenger.
With the new “Get Quote” and “Request Time” call-to-action buttons, when a person takes an action on your Page, such as asking when they can schedule an appointment, a Messenger thread is automatically created between your business and that person.
According to Facebook, here are the available non-partner CTA options:
If you’d like to learn how to add an integrated services CTA on Facebook, here’s a top-notch guide by Jon Loomer.
Whether traveling to a new place, looking for a hair salon, or searching for the perfect place to eat, people already turn to their friends, family, and local Groups on Facebook for advice.
Facebook will be releasing a new tool to ask and manage the local recommendations from friends and family.
Here’s how the local recommendations work:
When writing a Facebook post and looking for advice on local places or services, you’ll have the option to turn on Recommendations. As you turn on this feature, your friends can comment on your post with suggestions, and you’ll see all of them mapped out and saved in a single place.
You can also navigate to your Recommendations bookmark on Facebook (desktop only) to ask a question or help your friends who have requested for recommendations.
To help your business be discovered, complete your Page’s About section so that it can easily be found when someone makes a recommendation.
In case you thought that TV’s so 20th century, think again. Facebook
is moving another step closer to getting its hands on TV ad budgets. And
if Facebook believes in the future of TV, well, so should you.
Don’t get us wrong. The TV we’re talking about isn’t the huge black box taking up 20% of your living room. Instead, Facebook will start delivering video ads on apps that run on set-top boxes like Apple TV and Roku through the company’s ad network, as reported by Recode.
The project’s still in its early stage, and there are many details still left to work out, e.g. ad formats and ad length.
Here’s how the new video ads would work on Apple TV and the like:
Facebook will use its Audience Network ad network to deliver ads to “over the top” video apps, just like it does to other publishers’ apps and websites.
This could be a huge game-changer in the ad targeting in video apps.
Using IP addresses, Facebook will be able to tell that the Apple TV is used by the same person — or at least the same family — that logs into Facebook accounts at the same place, and could use this data to deliver relevant ads.
Facebook’s not yet selling ad spots to marketers yet as the project’s still in the testing phase. But keep your eyes and ears wide open to be the first to know (or just follow AdEspresso Twitter account for the latest news).
Brands can now buy News Feed ads that directly link to one-to-one conversations in Messenger, making conversations easier.
During a talk at the Web Summit tech conference, Facebook VP of messaging David Marcus said that advertisers are now for the first time able to target users before bringing them into a one-on-one conversation that has a strong identity.
One of the first brands to test out the new ad options is Burberry who has built its own chatbot designed for holiday shopping. The bot combines brand storytelling with an automated gift recommendation engine, making it a helpful assistant.
Burberry’s customers can also chat with a human on the other end of the conversation if they have questions.
But Burberry isn’t the only one benefitting from Messenger chatbots. EBay’s also testing a shopping assistant called ShopBot on the Facebook platform.
The holiday season’s already arrived (You can already order holiday specials in Starbucks).
Last month, Facebook released an announcement saying that 40% of all purchases during the festive season will occur on a mobile device, which means that it’s a great time to reach mobile customers.
We also compiled a list of 55 inspiring holiday ad examples to get you in the right mood.
This year, you’ve got plenty of opportunities to get creative on Facebook: Live video, Messenger bots, new Facebook pages call-to-actions – looks like Facebook made us all an early Christmas present.
Remember to set up your ad campaigns at least 24 hours before the planned delivery as it takes Facebook some time to optimize your ads.
Alright. It’s time to conclude the November Facebook news and get started with our holiday campaigns.
In case you missed the past episodes of the Facebook newscast, here are the most important past month’s updates:
Which means that you only have less than three months to meet all the benchmarks you’ve set out to conquer in 2016.
What about increasing your number of leads by 30% in the upcoming months? Or running a retargeting campaign with a 200% higher-than-usual conversion rate?
Here’s good news for you: Facebook is constantly introducing new updates to help you deliver ever more incredible ad campaigns to an increasingly targeted audience.
Tune in for a quick overview of all the Facebook updates and news in October 2016, and learn the latest tips and tricks to boost your advertising ROI.
Up next, we’ll share six exciting updates and news you need to know now, including Facebook’s new collaboration tool and a small scandal about miscalculated ad metrics. Let’s start with this last one.
At the end of September, in a post on its “Advertiser Help Center,” Facebook disclosed that its metric regarding the average time users spent watching videos was artificially inflated. The problem lied in the fact that the metric was only factoring in video views of more than three seconds.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the video metrics likely overestimated the average time spent watching videos by 60% to 80%.
David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations, wrote:
“About a month ago, we found an error in the way we calculate one of the video metrics on our dashboard – average duration of video viewed. The metric should have reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by the total number of people who played the video. But it didn’t – it reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by only the number of ‘views’ of a video (that is, when the video was watched for three or more seconds).”
To see the metrics for your video, go to the Posts tab within your Page Insights. Scroll down to the ‘All Posts Published’ to see all the posts you have published on your Page. Clicking on the post title for your video (marked with a video camera icon) will take you to your video metrics for each post.
Clicking on ‘Post’ sign will lead you to the metrics about your video’s total 28-day engagement. Here you can see data for likes, comments, and shares on both your original post and re-shares. Moreover, you’ll get a quick overview of positive and negative video feedback.
The dynamic ads for retail are ads designed to help merchants only serve Facebook ads of products that are available in a specific store location.
According to Maz Sharafi, Director of Monetization at Facebook:
“We are basically plugging into the bricks-and-mortar inventory and showcasing products that are available at a location close to the person seeing the ad.”
The ads are currently priced on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) rate. The new feature is still in the testing phase and will become widely available to all companies in the upcoming weeks.
Facebook’s dynamic ads let you display ads based on the target audience’s shown interests.
With the latest update, the dynamic ads for retail now give people the information about the following points:
Since its launch in February 2016, over 150 years have been spent viewing content in Canvas on Facebook.
According to Facebook:
“Adding 360 video to Canvas will give advertisers a unique way to engage people on mobile and encourage them to interact with content.”
For those who haven’t created a Facebook Canvas before, the templates could be a real godsend.
If you’d like to see more Canvas ads examples, visit the Canvas Ads public Facebook group.
Read more: A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Canvas
What about managing your work on Facebook as well?
On October 10, Facebook publicly introduced its new collaboration platform Workplace, previously referred to as Facebook At Work.
Isn’t that exciting?!
According to Facebook:
“We’ve brought the best of Facebook to the workplace — whether it’s basic infrastructure such as News Feed, or the ability to create and share in Groups or via chat, or useful features such as Live, Reactions, Search and Trending posts. This means you can chat with a colleague across the world in real time, host a virtual brainstorm in a Group, or follow along with your CEO’s presentation on Facebook Live.”
The pricing of Workplace is cheaper than that of other collaboration tools such as Slack or Salesforce Chatter. You’ll pay $3 for each active user (up to 1k users), and $2/active user (1,001 – 10k monthly active users).
Workplace
provides popular Facebook features such as Groups, Reactions, chat,
search, trending posts, video, and live video, each with a Workplace
twist.
Imagine holding a group chat to discuss important matters, collaborating in multi-company groups, or viewing a live announcement from your CEO. Facebook says over 1,000 companies already use Workplace and 100,000 groups have already been created from its pilot program. We’ll surely see more companies hopping on board.
As reported by TechCrunch, some of the early customers that Facebook has signed up have included 36,000 employees at the carrier Telenor, and 100,000 employees at the Royal Bank of Scotland, and today Facebook’s announcing more such as Danone (100,000 employees), Starbucks (238,000 employees) and Booking.com (13,000).
We’re curious to see where all of this leads. The new Workplace product could also mean new fascinating ways for marketers to engage with enterprise audience.
The new measurement tools will help to keep track of both online and offline return on investment.
With over 90% of consumer purchases still happening offline, marketers still have a need to connect digital adverts to in-store sales. That’s why Facebook partnered with companies including Nielsen Catalina Solutions, Oracle Data Cloud, Visual IQ and Neustar MarketShare.
The third party measurement tools are based on the “people-based measurement” approach to giving brands more accurate results.
Facebook’s partnership with Nielsen Catalina will allow advertisers to see how a campaign affects offline purchases by connecting Nielsen Catalina’s purchasing data from retailers with ads data from Facebook and Instagram. The partnership with Oracle Data Cloud will let Oracle-owned Datalogix tap into Facebook’s Lift API to test how likely people are to buy products if they have or haven’t seen an ad.
According to Adweek:
“Mobile app developers will be able to get their own focused measurement tool. Facebook’s Mobile Measurement Partners—companies like Adways Inc., AppsFlyer, Apsalar, and CyberZ—will let app advertisers see which ads people viewed that didn’t lead to clicks. That way, if someone downloads the app later, an ad that is viewed but not clicked doesn’t get all the credit.”
On October 3, the company announced the launch of Marketplace, a destination for people to find and buy items directly through Facebook’s mobile app.
According to Facebook, around a fourth of everyone on the platform—or about 450 million of the 1.7 billion users, visit buy-and-sell groups every month. So it only made sense to offer them a better shopping experience.
Marketplace opens with photos of items that nearby people have listed for sale. Users can search for an item based on category, location, and price. They can also browse what’s available in a variety of categories such as Household, Electronics, and Apparel.
When you find something interesting, tap on the image to see more details from the seller, including a product description, the name and profile photo of the seller, and their general location. You can also save the item to later quickly find it.
If you find something you like, you can send the seller a direct message from Marketplace to tell them you’re interested and make an offer. From that point on, you and the seller can work out the details of the sale.
Right now, Facebook does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace.
How to post something on the Marketplace:
In case you’d like to quickly revisit the October Facebook news and updates, here they are:
Are there some other noteworthy Facebook news and updates you’d like everyone to know about? Let us know in the comments section!
Feel you’re missing something? Then keep on reading, you’ll find a detailed report of what happened on Facebook during the summer!
There are plenty of Facebook news we’d like to share with you in September 2016. Here’s what we’re going to explore:
If you’re new to the advertising world, here’s a quick explanation: Facebook Offers makes it easier for advertisers to share their discounts and promotions. Businesses can create two types of Offers – online and in-store – and they can share Offers in two ways: in an Offers advert or a Page post.
Facebook recently made the mobile offers more handy for the users.
What changed: For the people seeing a Facebook Offer in their mobile News Feed, there’s now a possibility to claim the offers by saving them under new Offers bookmark. This way, the offers won’t get lost and can be found more quickly.
You can choose to enable a barcode or QR code to scan at checkout, making the experience even smoother.
Right now, Facebook Offers support one offer code or barcode for every claimed Offer. But this is about to change very soon. The company’s working on the capability for unique offer codes, so that advertisers could provide unique offer codes to each individual, preventing the Offer from being distributed to people on a larger scale.
You can create Offers with the Offer Page Composer in your Facebook Page or through Facebook’s adverts interfaces. See the guide by Facebook
We all know that a fast page loading speed is a must-have for high
search engine rankings and effortless customer experience. But if this
wasn’t a good enough reason to improve your mobile page loading speed,
here’s another:
On August 31, Facebook announced that it starts preloading ads even before anybody clicks on them. The main benefit of this move is to prevent users from leaving sites before they even finishing loading. According to Google, 29 % of mobile users switch the page if it loads too slowly or is irrelevant to them.
Facebook named the new process prefetching, and it could potentially accelerate the loading process by as much as 20 to 30 percent.
“Our goal is to improve user experience by helping businesses be the best mobile advertisers they can be, so we’re always developing new tools and insights to improve the mobile experience. Today, we’re introducing prefetching – pre-loading mobile content in the Facebook in-app browser before a link is tapped. This can shorten mobile site load time by 29 percent or 8.5 seconds.”
Improving your mobile loading speed should be on top of your to-do list, as it will soon impact whether people will see your Facebook ads or not. We’ll likely be hearing more about the effect of mobile loading speed in the upcoming months.
Now, there are two different options for preventing your ads from running on certain apps or websites:
You’re able to upload up to 10,000 website domains into one block list. Once you’re done, you’ll be able to apply your block lists in ads creation in Ads Manager or Power Editor.
Blocking categories can help you deliver your ads to highly targeted audiences and avoid promoting to uninterested people. This is something to definitely check out in September.
According to the announcement:
“The new metrics help publishers to better understand who’s watching their videos, how audiences are engaging with Live video, and how sharing contributes to video distribution. These updates give publishers actionable data to help them create videos that forge stronger relationships with their viewers and engage new audiences.”
You’ll now be able to break out minutes viewed by age, gender, and top geographic locations. Find the data in the new ‘Audience and Engagement’ card in Video Insights.
September 15, 2016: Ad account owners won’t be able to create conversion tracking pixels anymore. You can still use the already created conversion pixel for your ad campaigns and reporting.
October 15, 2016: Facebook will stop actively supporting the conversion tracking pixel. This means that no new functionalities will be added to the pixel but you can still use the ones you have.
What you should do: It’s time to move on to the new Facebook pixel. You can use the combination of Custom Conversions, Standard Events and Website Custom Audiences to get all the information and metrics you need.
Wondering how on earth they could do that? It wasn’t actually all that hard. Facebook made the ads appear as normal posts with a little “sponsored” label on them. And ad blocking tools seemed to be in trouble recognising these ads.
However, the cat-and-mouse game only started as Adblock Plus found a workaround that once again filtered out Facebook’s ads. The game went on for a couple of rounds, and as one news headline put it:
“Adblock Plus blocks Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook ads.”
Facebook says it is circumventing ad blockers on its desktop page as part of an effort to review and improve its ad policies. Meanwhile, on September 13, Adblock announced it has finally found a way of monetizing its business: it started selling ads. To be exact, this means that Adblock Plus users will be able to select which ads are acceptable and may be shown to them.
For Facebook marketers, there’s no need to worry about right now. Leave it to Facebook and rather use your time to create another A/B test to boost your sales.
According to Adweek, the vertical live videos can boost the cost-per-mile as much as three times. If you’ve previously seen some success with live videos, this is definitely something worth testing.
Moreover, you can now add up to 10 photos to a slideshow ad. The images can be takes from your Facebook Page’s photos, still images from video or Facebook stock images.
What’s even more awesome, is that you can now create slideshows on the go with Android mobile device.
Cool idea for testing: create a slideshow ad of this month’s most popular blog content, and share it with your fans for an end-of-month traffic boost.
Alright, folks. It’s time to wrap up our September Facebook news session. But before you leave…
Summertime… and the living it’s easy… Billie Holiday was singing in 1936. Yeah, but digital marketing wasn’t there back then!
In 2016, for marketers, summertime means that it is even harder than usual to keep up with all the latest news, research, and best practices of Facebook advertising.
And since business never goes on vacation, there’s some news you can’t afford to miss in August 2016.
No worries, we’re here to bring you the latest Facebook updates month after month, so if you missed July edition of Facebook news, including the removal of 20% text rule,
lick here.
Facebook recently updated its app-install ads to permit
developers to target audiences based on who is the most likely to use
their app, not just install and forget about it.
The main reason behind this decision is that people download apps but then forget about them.
According to a study by eMarketer, only 6% of people still use an app 30 days after installing it. This makes the other 94% a complete waste of advertising budget.
The new feature is called App Event Optimization and allows advertisers to select from 14 user actions that might signal how likely a person is to engage in an actions like:
Jehan Damji, a Product Manager at Facebook, said that “not all installs are created equal” and explained that some app advertisers might choose to target a broad audience if it’s a new app, but
others want more specific targeting to boost downloads by people who seem more likely to make mobile purchases.
When picking your bid type, you can choose to have your campaign
optimize for installs by selecting App Installs as your optimization
method.
Right now, advertisers can choose only one action per ad. Still, there’s no limit to the number of ads that can be run. So if you’re interested in targeting different actions, you’ll be able to do it by creating multiple ads. There might be an option to select multiple actions per one ad in the future.
Facebook has also announced two new ways for marketers to advertise their apps: by using
This news comes to us a courtesy of TechCrunch. And we’re super excited to see where it’ll lead, with brands creating live streaming content.
The good news is that soon, you’ll be able to create broadcasts with two people participating from different locations. Hint: think about all the possibilities of broadcasting remote interviews, talk shows, etc.
Brands could have their partners and/or celebrities participating in their Live videos, expanding the creativity in live streaming.
The new feature will go live later this summer, starting with Verified Pages, and will then be rolled out to other users.
While waiting rooms might bring to your mind those long hours filled
with hope waiting at the check-in desk of an airport, we’re talking
about the Facebook Live Video waiting rooms – a place for users to hang out and wait for a broadcast to start.
As a brand, you’ll be able to pre-schedule the time you’re going live so that Facebook can notify users before the stream begins.
The huge benefit: Right now, broadcasters are having a hard time deciding when to start the live stream as they’d like to wait for enough users to opt in. Meanwhile, the early arrivers get bored and opt out before the stream starts.
With this update, brands will be able to have a large audience already waiting, just at the right time.
New to Facebook Live Video but keen to find out more? Check out this guide to Real-time Broadcasting with Facebook Live Video.
The messaging app is gaining around 100 million active users every three months. Facebook also announced that Messenger now supports Instant Articles, making it easier to get your content in front of millions of eyes.
In July, the Messenger bot platform has grown to include over 18,000 bots — up from 11,000 at the end of June. If you’re interested in introducing Messenger bots to your marketing mix, here are 5 inspiring examples.
CAUTION! While chatbots are gaining ground, there are many reasons why you shouldn’t go with the flow (or at least take it with a grain of salt).
This could mean that more users that now prefer private messaging apps will be moving to Messenger.
VML, a global marketing and ad agency found that Instagram-style squared video ads performed a lot better than the regular 16:9 format ads when displayed on Facebook News Feed.
Already back in April, Facebook updated its creative guidelines, recommending that brands start changing their ads from 16:9 aspect ratios to videos with 1:1 ratios in the shape of a square that’s designed for mobile.
Design for no sound – not everyone plays the videos with sound, so show captions, logos, etc.
Frame your visual story – Make sure your video looks great on a small screen as well as on desktop
Play more – keep testing new approaches
Check out this guide to creating highly efficient Facebook video ads
Be it summer or winter, the holiday season or the busiest time of the year, Facebook never sleeps. Over the previous month, the social network announced a fair share of updates that are going to affect the way we communicate with our Facebook audiences.
Before you head to Google in search of the latest updates, consider this: We’ve got it all covered right here!
Facebook will expand the reach of its Audience Network so that the ads will be visible on third-party sites and apps to anyone who has ever visited Facebook, not just registered users.
The practice, known as online interest-based advertising, is already widely popular across the advertising industry.
Combined with the social network’s user insights, marketers can rest assured that their ads reach the most interested audience. It might even help to boost your ads’ average relevance score.
By using the expanded audience network, marketers can reach interested people who they otherwise might have missed.
Important note: Starting today, people have the option to opt out of seeing ads on apps and websites not offered by Facebook.
Before the update, advertisers were struggling to understand how Facebook evaluates the text density in ad images. Marketers used to employ a grid tool to ensure only 5 out of 5×5 squares contain text.
Now, Facebook is looking to eliminate the confusion. It recently announced new rules for text in ad visuals, making clear that it endorses ad images with light or no text.
According to Afsheen Ali, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook:
Now, advertisers are playing by a different set of rules – the amount of text in an ad image is considered either OK, Low, Medium or High.
Facebook provides a clear-cut formula of the new regulations:
As you can see, a large amount of text on the ad image results in lower reach, leading to higher cost-per-acquisition and wasted potential.
You can test your ad’s text density by using Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool.
Moreover, whenever you create an ad in the ad create tool or Power Editor, you’ll get a notice if the amount of text in your ad image might start limiting its distribution.
For example, the following AdEspresso ad is considered to have a low text density.
The following ads with relatively heavy (well over 20%) text usage are appraised to be “OK”.
The good news is that advertisers are allowed to stack up a considerable amount of text before being punished by Facebook’s advertising-robots.
You do not want to upload a text-heavy ad visual as its reach will be either ineffectively low or it won’t be displayed to the target audience at all (unless you qualify for an exception, which is highly unlikely).
So avoid creating text-crowded ads looking like this:
The new image text rule gives advertisers more flexibility to play around with different visuals and engage in further A/B testing.
For more on the new rules, here’s your go-to guide: Facebook Changes the 20% Text Rule
Now, Facebook is adding maps to its Local Awareness Ads and will start reporting estimates of how many store visits those ads drove. Store Visits is a new metric added to Facebook’s Ads Reporting tool.
As you can imagine, knowing the impact of your Facebook campaigns is highly important when running a store.
While people use mobile in 45% of all shopping journeys, the majority of sales still occur in brick-and-mortar businesses. In fact, more than 90% of retail sales take place in-store.
Moreover, the Local Awareness Ads help to bring people to your business in different locations. Mixed with Facebook’s extensive targeting capacity, these ads make it easier for you to pop literally up on people’s maps when they search for local businesses. Use a call-to-action such as “Get Directions” to attract new customers.
There are two main features of the ads with a local awareness objective:
According to Facebook:
Facebook says that advertisers can use store visits reporting to:
Up until now, over 40% of Facebook users got their news from the platform, according to a survey by Pew Research.
But this trend is likely to decline shortly. As one can expect, the number of posts from friends and relatives showing up in people’s news feeds is going to grow at brands’ and publishers’ reach expense. But more on this later.
The decision to reframe the entire News Feed came as a reaction to a recent decline in original sharing
– people started posting less original ideas and increasingly sharing
content published by brands and publishers. This led to our newsfeeds
being populated with articles and op-ed pieces instead of news from our
friends and families.
For regular Facebook users, it means that fewer posts from publishers will show up in their News Feed.
For (brands as) publishers, the algorithm change denotes a continuous downfall of their posts’ reach.
According to research by SocialFlow, publisher reach on Facebook declined 42 percent from January to May.
If you compare it to another chart displaying a mounting trend of posts published on Facebook (the
graph shows posts that went through SocialFlow’s platform), you’ll see that published posts don’t mean a higher reach.
According to Joe Lazaukas at Contently,
brands will soon need to increase their Facebook advertising budgets to
keep their campaigns’ reach on the current level.
With an increasing number of brands competing to show up in our News Feeds, brands are forced to up their bidding game and contribute more resources to each campaign.
According to Facebook’s most recent earning’s report, mobile now accounts for 82 percent of the company’s overall revenue.
Moreover, the number of mobile-only monthly active users is increasing at a rapid rate.
Facebook VP of Monetization Product Marketing Matt Idema explained that Facebook Exchange is primarily a desktop retargeting tool, adding that newer product such as Dynamic Ads for Carousel, video campaigns, and custom audiences have mobile retargeting features not supported by Exchange.
Idema told Adweek that
“the company has already begun moving clients and ad tech partners over to newer products with the goal of being fully migrated by Nov. 1.”
For small publishers and brands, this news won’t make a big difference. So rest assured.
So here they are – the top Facebook updates in May 2017:
- Facebook held the F8 conference
- Facebook advanced its marketing analytics
- There are now 1.94 billion monthly active users on Facebook
- You can now play games in the Messenger app
- Facebook is cleaning up the News Feed
- Facebook Dynamic Ads are now even more powerful
- You can now ask entry questions for Facebook Groups
Read on!
1. Facebook held the F8 conference
The F8 conference was clearly the biggest Facebook news in April.During the 2-day conference, Facebook introduced some seriously exciting new products and shared their future plans with thousands of eager listeners.
A lot of emphasis was placed on the development of VR and AI products, including the launch of a new Camera Effects platform and a VR app named Facebook Spaces.
In case you completely missed out on the conference, we’re going to cover some if the most important announcements right away.
2. Facebook advanced its marketing analytics
Facebook’s ad reporting is already one of the most insightful and accurate paid advertising measurement tools.By tracking the right Facebook ad metrics, you’ll be able to optimize your campaigns and improve both your ads’ click-through rates and acquisition costs.
Now, advertisers can track the Facebook Page interactions, such as post reactions and shares in the omnichannel analytics for websites, applications, services, and bots.
For example, an e-commerce business can measure if people who comment on an item featured in their Page post go on to view that item on their website or purchase it in their app.
But there’s more to it: Facebook also introduced a new AI-powered Automated Insights tool that’s especially beneficial to larger advertisers who need to segment their target audiences.
If you’re marketing a product that’s sold in physical stores, the new multi-channel analytics can help you better realize the ROI of your campaigns.
Learn more about the Facebook Analytics multi-channel tracking here.
3. There are now 1.94 billion monthly active users on Facebook
On May 3, Facebook released its first quarter earnings report.As a Facebook advertiser, you can rest assured – the social media platform’s not going anywhere.
As reported by The Verge, the social media platform brought in just over $8 billion in revenue, a jump of 49 percent since the first quarter of 2016.
Moreover, the number of Facebook’s monthly active users has grown by 17% compared to the first quarter of 2016. And so has Instagram’s: the company just announced that it hit the milestone of 700 million monthly active users.
This is good news for anyone looking to reach a large audience of potential customers via paid social media advertising.
4. You can now play games in the Messenger app
On May 2, Facebook announced that its new Messenger game-playing feature is now available to 1.2 billion people using the app every month.The new games feature, named Instant Games, is available on Messenger and Facebook News Feed for both mobile and web.
According to Facebook, the new games experience allows people to easily discover, share, and play games without having to install new apps.
The gaming platform also lets game makers create turn-based plays, to integrate leaderboards and tournaments.
Right now, there are 50 different titles to play, from Pac-Man to 8 Ball Pool.
As reported by TechCrunch: For now, there are no ads or in-game purchases available, so neither Facebook nor developers are making money on the Instant Games platform just yet.
What this means for advertisers:
The Messenger games could also provide awesome branding opportunities for advertisers. In fact, there are already some branded games like The LEGO Batman Movie’s Bat Climb on the platform.
5. Facebook is cleaning up the News Feed
Due to the recent problem of fake news, Facebook’s taking additional steps to clean up our News Feeds from low-quality ads and posts.In a blog update published on May 10, Facebook’s representatives told that:
“Starting today, we’re rolling out an update so people see fewer posts and ads in News Feed that link to these low-quality web page experiences. Similar to the work we’re already doing to stop misinformation, this update will help reduce the economic incentives of financially-motivated spammers.”
Facebook analyzed hundreds of thousands of web pages linked to from Facebook to identify those that contain little substantive content and have a large number of disruptive, shocking or malicious ads.
What this means for advertisers:
The changes will roll out gradually over the upcoming months.
If you’re promoting high-quality landing pages with nothing spammy, you may even see a small increase in traffic as you can potentially be competing with fewer advertisers for your audience’s attention.
6. Facebook Dynamic Ads are now even more powerful
Facebook Dynamic Ads let advertisers create remarketing ads based on the person’s browsing history on a website.For example, if a person visits an eCommerce website, they could be retargeted with a multi-product ad of the exact products they looked at.
With the latest update, you can highlight up to 20 images from a catalog to represent a single item across the carousel ad format used with Dynamic Ads.
This means that you can advertise a single item such as a piece of clothing, recipe, hotel or destination with multiple images, making your remarketing ads even more efficient.
Want to learn more? See our guide to Dynamic Product Ads
If you don’t have a large product catalog and aren’t using the Dynamic Ads, you might still be interested in our guide to the best Facebook (remarketing) audiences.
7. New entry questions for Facebook Groups
If you’re an admin of one or several Facebook groups, the following might be a nice surprise for you!You can now setup up to three questions for people requesting to join their Group to answer.
As reported by TechCrunch, this lets admins screen potential members to ensure they’re the right fit for the group and will add constructively to the discussion, not just spam or troll the Group.
The answers and questions will only be seen by admins and moderators (don’t worry, no answers will be posted to the group).
If you’re managing a branded Facebook community, this could also be a good opportunity to ask about your audience’s interests and expectations, so that you can have even better discussions in the future.
Quick recap
You’ve reached the end of this month’s news broadcast.But that’s not necessarily a bad thing – it means you can now go and apply your new knowledge to your Facebook ad campaigns.
Just in case, here’s a quick overview of the top Facebook news in May 2017:
- Facebook held the F8 conference
- Facebook advanced its marketing analytics
- There are now 1.94 billion monthly active users on Facebook
- You can now play games in the Messenger app
- Facebook is cleaning up the News Feed
- Facebook Dynamic Ads are now even more powerful
- New entry questions for Facebook Groups
And in case you missed the top news in April, scroll down to read about them!
1. Facebook added new insights to ad reports
The reports you see in the Facebook Ads Manager, displaying your campaign results and helping to optimize campaigns, just got an update.Facebook is making your predicted ad results more transparent with Delivery Insights and Estimated Daily Results.
The redesigned Delivery Insights dashboard now features an updated interface that provides in-depth auction metrics and helps to interpret the fluctuations in your campaign performance.
The new auction overlap tool will help you interpret whether overlapping audiences between ad sets might be affecting your spend and audience saturation.i
In addition to that, Facebook also updated their ad results prediction, giving advertisers a better overview of future campaign results. When setting up campaign budgets, you can now see a table with predicted ad delivery and reach.
2. Facebook introduced a new in-app camera
If you’re still not 100% convinced that Facebook believes in live video and Messenger Day, read this:You can now tap on the camera icon on the top left corner of your Facebook mobile app or swipe right from News Feed to try out Facebook’s new in-app camera.
The Facebook in-app camera is packed with dozens of effects like masks, frames and interactive filters that you can apply to your photos and videos – to make them more fun.
What this means for advertisers:
Facebook’s also partnering with brands to create masks for upcoming movies Alien: Covenant, Despicable Me 3, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Power Rangers, Smurfs: The Lost Village and Wonder Woman.But Facebook has even bigger plans for their new camera.
According to Connor Hayes, Product Manager:
“Over the coming months, we plan to introduce new ways for the Facebook community to create their own frames and effects that can be used on any photo or video created with the new Facebook camera. Our goal is for the camera to be a home to hundreds of dynamic and fun effects that give you new ways to connect with friends, family, and your community.”
We’re excited to see how smart brands can use the new features to their advantage!
3. New Message Reactions for Facebook Messenger
On March 23, Drew Moxon, Product Manager, Messenger, wrote on Facebook’s blog that they’ve added two new features that improve group conversations to make them more fun and useful.The new feature is called Messenger Reactions.
Message Reactions let people react to individual messages with specific emotions – love, smile, wow, sad, angry, yes, and no.
This lets people to quickly show acknowledgment or express how they feel about a particular message.
You’ll be able to see how people have reacted to a message in the lower corner of the message. If you don’t currently have the Messenger open, you’ll receive a notification that lets you know who (and how) reacted to your messages.
There’s another new feature in Facebook Messenger – Mentions.
To mention someone, type the “@” symbol or start typing the first letters of a person’s name you want to notify. Next, select them from the list.
When you’re mentioned, instead of simply seeing that someone responded in the conversation, you’ll receive a special notification telling you were called out specifically.
In fact, Facebook’s so in 😍 with emojis that this year, they want to award advertisers whose ads have stirred emotions.
4. Facebook Messenger got a new Live Location feature
On March 27, Facebook introduced a temporary live location sharing feature inside Messenger, letting friends and family track your movements an hour at a time.This could be handy when you’re late to a meetup, letting your friends know you’re on your way.
How the Live Location feature works:
- To share your Live Location in a message on iOS, tap the Location icon or tap the More icon and then select Location. For Android, tap the Location icon or tap the More icon and then select Location.
- You’ll see a map of your current location and the option to tap a blue bar to share your Live Location.
- If you choose to share your Live Location with others, they can see where you are on a map for the next 60 minutes.
- You’ll also see an estimate of how long it would take to get to others’ locations by car. (The ETA is seen by the person with whom the location is shared.)
- You can stop sharing your Live Location at any time by tapping on Stop Sharing.
5. You can now live stream from your computer
On March 22, Facebook announced in a blog post that live video can now be broadcasted to news feeds from desktop and laptop computers.Previously, the Live Video was only available through Facebook’s mobile app.
As Facebook pointed out itself, a stable camera setup can be beneficial to many types of Facebook Live broadcasts — from Q&As to vlogs to tutorials. If you’re collaborating with bloggers, this knowledge might come in handy.
Moreover, the new live streaming capacities could be used to organize webinars right on Facebook – you can also incorporate on-screen graphics, titles, and overlays.
For additional webinar tips, see this guide: How to Max Out Your Next Webinar with Facebook Ads
6. Facebook will launch personal fundraisers
Facebook will soon let users raise money on behalf of themselves and
others, as a way to help cover the cost of events like medical bills,
tuition, and crises.In a press release, the social media network said that, at first, it only allows fundraisers across six aspects: education expenses, medical bills, pets’ medical bills, crisis and disaster relief, personal emergencies, and assistance for families after a death.
The personal fundraisers feature will roll out over the next few weeks to users in the US, only for those age 18 and up.
Extra: Facebook’s testing Messenger-like comments format
As reported by The Verge,
Facebook’s been making changes to the comments section on the Facebook
mobile app, swapping the flat line-by-line format with Messenger-like
chat bubbles.Replies also look similar to Messenger, with individual bubbles underneath the original comment.
Not everyone was happy about this update, especially some people reporting about this on Twitter.
Facebook told The Verge it’s testing the new layout with a “small percentage” of users, so if you’re not really into the new design, don’t worry —the format isn’t necessarily permanent.
However, it’s another sign of Facebook changing its platform into a more emotions-focused one.
Key takeaways:
Ok, let’s have a quick overview of the most important Facebook news in April 2017.- New insights in Facebook Ads Manager – You now get more predictions and insights about your ad campaign’s results.
- Facebook introduced a new in-app camera – New camera filters and frames provide new marketing opportunities for large brands.
- New Message Reactions for Facebook Messenger – Facebook’s messaging app is getting more comprehensive (and messy) with a regular introduction of new features.
- Messenger got a new Live Location feature – You can now share your locations with friends so that they know when you’ll arrive.
- You can now live stream from your computer – This means new possibilities for Q&As and on-Facebook webinars.
- Facebook will launch a personal fundraisers feature – The social media network will help to support important social causes.
In case you missed our past months’ Facebook news broadcast, keep reading to find out what important updates were introduced in the past year (month by month).
Top Facebook Updates That You Can’t Afford to Miss – March 2017 Edition
There’s a fresh wind blowing in March, and it seems to carry the smell of Snapchat and video ads…Among other fascinating updates, Facebook introduced another answer to Snapchat stories and ensured us that video as a medium is growing at a rapid pace.
1. Facebook launched Messenger Day
Here’s big news for anyone loving Snapchat or Instagram Stories.After several months of testing, Messenger Day, Facebook Messenger’s answer to Snapchat Stories, was rolled out to users worldwide.
Messenger Day has the same features as Snapchat Stories, including stickers and filters, and posts disappearing after 24h.
Stan Chudnovsky, Head of Product for Messenger wrote in a blog post:
“Billions of photos and videos have been sent capturing all those heartfelt, funny and serious messages that make the Messenger community so powerful. We love seeing how much fun people are having with Messenger’s new visual tools, especially our most popular art and effects like floating hearts and recently, Mardi Gras frames.”
How Messenger Day works:
1. Open Messenger, and tap the “Add to your day” button at the top of your inbox to get started.2. Snap a photo or video of what’s around you.
3. Add art and effects by tapping the smiley face icon in the top right and then tap to add to your photo or video.
You can also add text over your images by tapping the “Aa” icon. To overlay a drawing, tap the squiggly line in the top right corner.
4. Once you’ve completed editing, tap the arrow in the bottom right corner. You can add directly to your day, save it to your phone’s camera roll, and/or you can choose to send it to a specific person or group of people.
You can customize how you share by tapping the “more” icon and then choosing “Everyone Except” or “Custom.”
All your photos or videos will be viewable for 24 hours.
You can also include a Messenger Day post in conversations. Simply tap that text, and you’ll be asked to confirm whether you’d like to add it to your day.
While there’s no Like counter, Messenger lets you instantly reply privately to a Day with custom or pre-filled messages like “haha”, “Wow”, a heart, or a “100” emoji that will appear in your chat thread with that person.
To advertisers, this could mean new ad placements in the future.
Facebook’s VP of messaging David Marcus told TechCrunch that Messenger Day will “probably” insert advertisements between posts to become one of Messenger’s first revenue streams.
2. Reactions coming to Messenger
On March 4, a TechCrunch reader sent the publisher a tip that Facebook Messenger is showing some users a Reactions option.In addition to the dislike, heart-eyes, lol, wow, sad, and angry emoji, users can also select between a thumbs-up or thumbs-down Reaction.
As AdWeek put it: The new thumbs-down emoji is the closest Facebook has come to adding a dislike button.
Facebook confirmed the new feature to TechCrunch, saying:
“We’re always testing ways to make Messenger more fun and engaging. This is a small test where we enable people to share an emoji that best represents their feelings on a message.”
This means that the Messenger Reactions aren’t yet rolled out to all users, but they soon might be.
The primary use case for the new Messenger Reactions is likely group chats, where more popular messages could be noted quicker with the help of emotional or thumbs-up emojis.
Facebook Reactions are one year old
Since their launch one year ago, Facebook Reactions have been used more than 300 billion times.The love Reaction has been by far the most popular, accounting for more than one-half of total Reactions.
3. Facebook introduced updates to Ad Breaks
At the end of February, Facebook introduced and expanded three types
of video ads for both the social network and publishers’ websites.Here’s a quick explanation about each update and what it means for Facebook advertisers.
1. In-stream video ads on publisher websites can now be created via the Audience Network.
During a testing period, publishers like Univision and Collective Press saw significant benefits of Audience Network in-stream video ads.Advertisers can upload their ads and bids to Facebook in advance so that algorithms can run an auction and deliver Facebook users most relevant ads.
Here’s what Facebook’s video Ad Breaks look like:
To read more about Audience Network in-stream video ads, see this guide.
2. Ad Breaks feature for Facebook Live videos within Facebook’s own app is beta tested on additional profiles and Pages in the U.S.
Over the past few months, a small group of video creators has been testing Ad Breaks to make money from their Facebook Live videos.Here’s how it works:
When a broadcaster chooses to take an ad break, people watching the video will see an in-stream ad of up to 15 seconds. The broadcaster will earn a share of the resulting ad revenue.
3. Facebook is testing Ad Breaks in on-demand video.
The social media network started to test the Ad Breaks feature in
on-demand video, allowing publishers to insert short ad breaks into
videos they upload, or into existing videos in their Facebook libraries.This would mean more monetization opportunities for publishers and more Facebook video ad placements for advertisers.
You can read more about each update here.
4. Facebook autoplay videos will play with sound
Facebook mobile users will soon hear audio fading in as they scroll
through videos in their News Feed. As people keep on scrolling and view
the whole video, the sound will get a bit louder on the phone until they
scroll past the clip.According to Facebook:
“After testing sound on in News Feed and hearing positive feedback, we’re slowly bringing it to more people. With this update, sound fades in and out as you scroll through videos in News Feed, bringing those videos to life.”
A Facebook rep confirmed to AdWeek that the sound-on feature applies to “video ads and branded content videos in addition to regular organic videos.”
This means that mobile Facebook audiences will see your ads with sound, making it easier to catch your audience’s attention. There will also be less need for subtitled video ads.
5. Facebook launched a VR app
On March 8, Facebook launched Facebook 360, a Samsung Gear VR app
powered by Oculus, for the 360 video and photo content posted on the
social media platform.With more than one million 360 videos posted to the site alongside more than 25 million 360 photos, Facebook 360 will have plenty of content to show.
Facebook 360 will feature four feeds:
- The “Explore” tab will give users a bird’s-eye look at the 360 content by selected publishers that is popular across Facebook.
- The “Following” tab will let you check out the photos and videos produced by your friends as well as 360 content from Pages and people you follow.
- The “Saved” tab gives an opportunity to experience 360 content that you’ve saved from the Facebook News Feed.
- The “Timeline” tab lets you check out your own 360 photos and videos all in one place.
Brent Ayrey, Product Director, and Christopher Wong, Software Engineer, wrote in a blog post:
“Today, we’re making 360 photos and videos even more immersive and easier to discover with the launch of the Facebook 360 app for Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus. The app is an exciting new way to explore Facebook 360 photos and videos.”
To download the Facebook 360 app for Gear VR, open the Oculus app on your Gear VR-compatible Samsung device and search for Facebook 360, or visit the Oculus site to get started.
6. Facebook is working on additional ad measurement tools
Facebook’s advanced measurement platform Atlas used to be available to only large advertisers.Now, the social media network is planning to bring additional measurement capabilities to the Facebook Business Manager.
Product Marketing Director for Measurement Scott Shapiro said Facebook will be launching a new area of the Facebook Business Manager called Advanced Measurement, where it will be making Atlas capabilities available in a self-serve way.
In the future, the advanced reporting capacity will be available to tens of thousands of marketers using Facebook’s ad tools.
As reported by TechCrunch: The Advanced Measurement is currently in testing phase. Facebook plans to refine the interface and introduce more data as the new tool rolls out sometime during this year.
7. Facebook users can now add flags to their profile pictures
If you like to support your national sports team or are in love with
your country, here’s cool news: you can now add a small flag icon to
your Facebook profile picture.Previously, Facebook has allowed users to use customized profile picture frames to express support for sports teams, causes, and movements.
Now, there are nearly 200 country flag frames in the list. You can see all the options and change your profile picture frame here.
Smaller news:
Facebook is pushing record labels to let you soundtrack your videos – read more in this article by TechCrunchPublishers can now place ads manually within Facebook Instant Articles or choose between three options for automatic placement: ads every 250, 350 or 500 words. – read more from Facebook’s blog post
Quick recap:
Just in case, here’s a quick overview of all the topics covered in this news broadcast. Use it as a guideline when brainstorming new Facebook marketing ideas.- Facebook launched Messenger Day
- Reactions coming to Messenger
- Facebook introduced updates to Ad Breaks
- Facebook autoplay videos will play with sound
- Facebook launched a VR app
- Facebook is working on additional ad measurement tools
- Facebook users can add national flags to their profile pictures
Top Facebook Updates That You Can’t Afford to Miss – February 2017 Edition
If January was the month of getting your Facebook Ads working on full steam, February’s the month for analyzing and optimizing your ad campaigns to reach new heights.February’s also been a busy news month for Facebook, bringing us fascinating updates on Facebook Stories, video ads, and even GIFs.
As always, we’ve been digging for the latest Facebook news and we have investigated every promising lead.
As a result, just one click away, you’ll find a list of the Top Facebook updates in February 2017:
- Facebook released its Q4 2016 earnings report
- You can now add GIFs to your Facebook ads
- Exciting video reporting updates
- You might soon be able to advertise on Facebook Messenger‘s home screen
- News Feed algorithms got a serious boost & updates in Trending Topics
- Facebook Stories keeps growing and improving
1. Facebook’s Q4 earnings report showed great results
One thing’s for sure: Facebook keeps growing. But is it keeping up with its previous growth rate?As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook had another strong quarter in Q4 2016, earning $8.81 billion in revenue. This represents a 53% jump from the same time last year.
During the past year, Facebook’s daily active users number rose 18% to 1.23 billion people. This means that you can potentially reach 18% more people on Facebook!
Source: TechCrunch
“Facebook now has 4 million paying brands, along with another 500,000 on Instagram.”
Here are three more interesting Facebook stats to know:
- 65 million businesses are using Facebook Pages, and there are now over 5 million business profiles on Instagram.
- 400 million people use Facebook Messenger audio and video calling each month
- The average price per Facebook ad rose 3 percent during the fourth quarter of 2016
2. You can now use GIFs in Facebook ads
We were super excited when reading about this in AdWeek and are looking to try out the new feature: Facebook now allows brands to include animated GIFs in their video ads.Read more: Facebook Video Ads: The Secret Weapon You’re Too Afraid To Use
Affinitiv digital marketing specialist Chris Ruberg shared the screenshot below, displaying a pop-up atop the part of Facebook’s Ads Manager where brands would create video ads.
You can either create GIFs yourself or use sites like GIPHY to find fun content.
You can also create a Facebook boosted post with an animated GIF:
- Add the link to the GIF you want to use to your post.
- Wait for the preview of your GIF to load, and then post it to your Page.
- On your Page, click Boost Post.
Facebook’s suggestions for the best results:
- Choose high-quality images or animations
- Use a link ending with .gif
- Use a GIF with a file size less than 8MB
- Use a GIF with less than 20% text on the image
- Avoid GIFs that flash or are grainy, as your boosted post may not be approved
3. Get more insight into your Video Ads results
Facebook truly believes in the future of Video Ads. The social media network recently announced that it’s adding new video reporting options for a better overview of ad results.Moreover, Facebook’s been working with their third-party verification partners so that they, in turn, can bring better insights to marketers.
Now, you can see new in-view and duration metrics for your Video Ads, including:
- Milliseconds that an ad was on the screen.
- Milliseconds that 50% of the ad was on the screen.
- Milliseconds that 100% of the ad was on the screen.
Important! When creating video ads, don’t forget to add captions. According to Facebook, captioned video ads increase video view time by an average of 12%. Another study of Facebook video ads discovered that 41% of videos were almost meaningless without sound.
Facebook also announced that it would introduce new buying options later this year across Facebook, Instagram and Facebook Audience Network:
- Completed-view buying: Advertisers will only pay for video ads that have been viewed entirely, for any duration up to 10 seconds.
- Two-second buying: Advertisers can buy video ads according to Media Ratings Council criteria, which include two-second views where the video is at least 50% on the screen.
- Sound-on buying: Advertisers will be able to buy ads with an option to only pay when videos play with the sound on. Facebook videos typically show up in the News Feed on mute. Under new criteria, the views will only count when the volume is on.
4. Facebook tests ad placement on Messenger’s home screen
On January 25, Facebook’s product manager Eddie Zhang announced in a blog post that the social network is testing ads on Messenger home screen. Advertisers will be able to place an ad in an area of Messenger below your recent conversations.Zhang wrote:
“Businesses have long been telling us that they are very excited about the potential of the Messenger platform to reach their customers and help them to drive sales, build brand awareness and increase customer satisfaction.”
The test is carried out in Australia and Thailand, and we’re excited to hear about the results.
This new ad placement could help brands to target the right users with the right promotions at the right time.
5. Facebook’s been working on its News Feed algorithm
As reported by AdWeek, Facebook’s been working on improving its News Feed algorithm to bring users more timely and relevant content.On January 31, Facebook announced that the goal with News Feed is to show people the stories that are most relevant to them.
These two updates will help to better rank posts in peoples’ feeds:
- Incorporating new signals to better identify and rank authentic content.
- Better predicting and ranking in real-time, delivering people more relevant posts.
Source: AdWeek
“With this update, we’re adding new universal signals to determine whether a post might be authentic. To do this, we categorized pages to identify whether or not they were posting spam or trying to game News Feed by doing things like asking for likes, comments or shares.”
For example, if page posts are often being hidden by people reading them, it’s a signal that it might not be relevant or authentic.
Moreover, if there is a lot of engagement from many people on Facebook about a topic, or if a post is getting a lot of engagement, Facebook’s algorithm will quickly understand that the topic might be temporarily more important.
What this update means for Facebook marketers:
Facebook anticipates that most Pages won’t see any significant changes to their distribution in News Feed. Some Pages might see a small increase in referral traffic or outbound clicks, and some Pages might see minor decreases.The best formula to get your posts in front of your target audience is to post stories that are relevant to your audience.
Quick update: changes in trending topics:
Along with the News Feed changes, Facebook is also changing the Trending Topics section, removing personalization.According to AdWeek, in order to make the Trending section more relevant, Facebook is changing how it identifies trending topics. While topics were highlighted in the past based on what users were engaging with on the platform, Facebook will now factor in the number of publishers posting about a given topic, combined with the user engagement.
6. Facebook Stories coming to the Facebook app
On January 25, TechCrunch reported that Facebook launched Facebook Stories in Ireland on iOS and Android, and plans to bring it to more countries in the coming months.The Stories from a users’ friends will appear on top of Facebook News Feed.
The company told TechCrunch:
“Facebook has long been the place to share with friends and family, but the way that people share is changing in significant ways. The way people share today is different to five or even two years ago — it’s much more visual, with more photos and videos than ever before. We want to make it fast and fun for people to share creative and expressive photos and videos with whoever they want, whenever they want.”
More on Facebook Stories: Facebook is developing animated selfie masks for brands
According to AdWeek, Facebook’s in talks to let several Hollywood studios promote big-budget movies using new animated masks on the social network.Facebook Live already lets people use the filters to sync up special effects over their faces, but has not allowed brands to participate. Soon, there might be an option to boost your branded Facebook campaigns with a special selfie mask.
Quick recap:
Now that you’ve scanned through the latest Facebook news, here’s a quick overview of everything you’ve just read:- Facebook’s Q4 2016 earnings report showed continuing growth
- You can now add GIFs to your Facebook ads
- Facebook upgraded its video reporting with additional metrics
- Advertisers may soon be able to advertise on Facebook Messenger‘s home screen
- News Feed algorithms got a serious boost & updates in Trending Topics
- Facebook Stories keeps growing and improving, becoming an increasingly important rival to Snapchat
Keep reading to find out what updates were introduced by Facebook in January 2017.
Top Facebook Updates – January 2017 Edition
For this first month of the year, there are quite a few exciting updates that you don’t want to miss. Are you ready to dig in? Here’s a quick overview of the most important Facebook news in January 2017:
- Ads in the Facebook Audience Network reach over 1 billion people
- Facebook might soon launch mid-roll ads in videos
- Advertisers are now able to reach more potential buyers with dynamic ads
- We can all soon advertise between Instagram Stories
- Facebook Journalism Project was launched
- You can now listen to Live Audio content on Facebook
- Coming soon: updated Instant Articles
1. Facebook Audience Network delivers ads to over a billion people
Since its launch in October 2014, the Facebook Audience Network has helped marketers to reach users outside of the social media platform.While Facebook reached 1 billion users on its social network already some time ago, it now has more than 1 billion people viewing its advertising network. (That’s a huge potential audience waiting to be reached!)
According to Facebook, the advertisers who opt-in to the Audience Network can reach 16% more people on average than they could by advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
If you haven’t used the Audience Network ad placement for reaching your audience, why not try it now. On average, advertisers have seen a 12% increase in conversions for website campaigns and a 17% increase in installs for mobile app campaigns when extending their Facebook ads to Audience Network.
How to advertise on the Audience Network:
To show your ads to people in the Facebook Audience Network, select this ad placement when setting up your Facebook ads.Keep your eye on the results to evaluate whether to continue advertising in the Audience Network in the future.
2. You can now advertise in Instagram Stories
Successful Facebook advertising is often intertwined with Instagram. As you might have noticed, Facebook recently launched Instagram Stories which has been hugely popular since its launch.On January 11, Facebook announced that it’s starting to let brands advertise in its 24-hour video stories section. As reported by AdWeek, around 30 brands are already trying the new full-screen ads. That includes Capital One, Asos, Nike, Buick and Airbnb.
One of the main advantages of Instagram ads over Snapchat is the ad technology and audience targeting. Snapchat’s ad platform is still developing while Instagram’s is built on top of Facebook.
Read more: Timeline Showing Instagram and Snapchat’s 2016 War Over the Best Features
The ads in Instagram Stories will be sold on the platform’s auction-style, automated system that charges cost-per-thousand-impressions rates. As it’s a brand new feature, Facebook’s still working on finding out the best practices, e.g. how many times to show an ad to users.
The Instagram Stories platform is steadily growing. On January 11, Instagram announced that the Stories feature is now used 150 million people every day. This represents a 50-million-user increase in just three months.
Read more: 26 Instagram Ad Best Practices That Will Make You an Outstanding Marketer
3. Facebook is testing mid-roll ads
While this news wasn’t confirmed by Facebook when brought up by AdWeek, there’s a good chance we’ll soon have mid-roll ads on Facebook videos.As reported by Recode, Facebook is going to start showing ads in the middle of its videos and sharing the money with publishers.
The mid-roll ad format means that ads will be inserted into video clips after people have watched them for at least 20 seconds. Unlike other video platforms, Facebook doesn’t allow to add pre-video ads to publishers’ content. The videos that contain ads also need to be at least 90 seconds long.
In 2016, Facebook users were watching videos for 100 million hours per day. Mid-roll ads would mean that you could buy ads inside unbranded video content that’s relevant to your target audience.
4. Reach more potential buyers with a new dynamic ads feature
Retargeting is one of the best ways to reach interested buyers with your Facebook campaigns. You can remind the right people at the right time about the right product.Facebook is adding more and more options to target more and more people likely to be interested in your offer. When using Facebook dynamic ads, advertisers can now reach people who are highly likely to be interested in a specific product.
For example, a company could target people who have been looking for blue t-shirts across multiple retailers. Also, people who like Facebook posts and pages about t-shirts could be served an ad about a blue t-shirt. The person doesn’t need to visit your website, simply show interest in a product similar to yours.
According to Facebook:
“Now, if someone has been browsing for furniture across multiple websites, Facebook may infer that this person is interested in buying a couch, and they may be a good candidate to serve a dynamic ad for furniture.”
How the dynamic ads update works:
Similar to dynamic ads, Facebook advertisers first upload a catalog of products that they would like to promote. Next, they select an audience they’d like to target, e.g. men in the UK.After you’ve created a campaign, Facebook’s algorithms start to work their magic, looking at traffic patterns on retailers’ mobile sites and apps to automatically serve a targeted promotion to relevant users.
5. You can now listen to Live Audio content on Facebook
If you’re a fan of podcasts and other audio content, there’s a new way to use it in your Facebook marketing strategy.At the end of December, Facebook launched a new feature – Live Audio. The feature lets users listen to broadcast voice recordings, encouraging people to publish more audio-only content.
Here’s how Facebook Live Audio works:
Facebook Live Audio works similarly to Live Video. Users can go live from the Facebook app by pressing a button. Once a recording starts, Facebook creates a post using a Page cover image. People can see the recording in their news feeds and listen to the audio content.For Android users, audio will also play if a user leaves the Facebook app to use another app or locks their phone.
6. Facebook Journalism Project
After an election year of fake news controversies on social media platforms, Facebook is taking serious steps for improving the news content.On January 11, Facebook announced Facebook Journalism Project, a collaboration with publishers and journalists to improve the quality of online news.
According to Fidji Simo, product manager in Facebook:
“We will be collaborating with news organizations to develop products, learning from journalists about ways we can be a better partner, and working with publishers and educators on how we can equip people with the knowledge they need to be informed readers in the digital age.”
Lately, Facebook has taken steps to reduce the spread of news hoaxes, including ways for people to report them more easily, to disrupt the financial incentives for spammers, and to work with third-party fact-checking organizations.
Facebook is even launching a series of e-courses for journalists to discover content and engage with readers on Facebook and Instagram.
7. Coming soon: updated Instant Articles
If you’re in the publishing business or work with Facebook Instant Articles, here’s what you need to know: Facebook is testing a way for publishers to combine multiple Instant Articles into one post.Here’s how it works:
When a user clicks on an Instant Article from a publisher, they will be able to swipe through multiple unrelated stories instead of just one.If you like the story, you can choose to share a post, save it for later, open it in Safari or post it to other channels like Twitter or email.
Conclusion
Alright, it’s time to wrap up this newscast and head to design some ads for Instagram Stories.Here’s a quick recap of all the Facebook news in January 2017:
- Ads in the Facebook Audience Network reach over 1 billion people
- Facebook might soon launch mid-roll ads in videos
- Advertisers are now able to reach more potential buyers with dynamic ads
- We can all soon advertise between Instagram Stories
- Facebook Journalism Project was launched
- You can now listen to Live Audio content on Facebook
- Coming soon: updated Instant Articles
Facebook Updates You Can’t Miss in December 2016
According to Facebook, 40% of mobile shoppers have already finished their Christmas shopping by November. That’s bad news and good news.It means that you might have already missed out on some great Facebook advertising opportunities. On the other hand, you’ve still got the remaining 60% to sell to.
With the freezing weather and Christmas lights shining all over the city, Facebook seems to have slowed down on their new product releases and feature updates.
However, we’ve got some fascinating news all lined up for you to discover and apply to your ad campaigns.
1. Two-page multi-product News Feed ads
For some brands, the A/W holiday season accounts for over half of their annual sales. If you’re in the eCommerce business, now is your prime time for promoting your products on Facebook.Every small improvement to your Facebook ads could result in a significant increase in sales.
With Facebook’s soon-to-be-released multi-product News Feed ads, you’ll be able to display a second ad page with more products. According to Facebook, this approach drives more visual discovery by letting retailers use as many as 50 products to target users.
Here’s how the new ad format works:
The new ad type pairs the main image or video with related product images underneath. As users click on the ad, a second page with more product will appear.When clicked again, the ad leads to the retailer’s website where people can actually buy the products.
If you’re into Instagram advertising, there’s also a cool new feature to test out on the image sharing platform.
Facebook has partnered with a dozen retailers to test out tagging products in photos. Marketers are able to tag a product and add a price to prompt users to buy more products. This new feature will turn Instagram pages into well-designed lookbooks, making it the go-to platform for window browsing and shopping branded items.
The two-page multi-product ad feature isn’t yet universally rolled out, being still in the testing phase. We’re super excited to see where this leads and how creative marketers can get with these new types of ads.
2. Manage your communications in the Pages Manager app
Did you know that there’s an app for managing your Facebook Page?With Facebook’s Pages Manager app for iOS and Android, you can create and manage a Facebook Page (or multiple Pages) anywhere.
Here’s how the Pages Manager app works:
- Download the app for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play, and:
- Post updates, photos and videos, and respond to comments on your Page
- View and reply to messages
- Get push notifications for Page activity, tips and reminders
- View your Page Insights, and manage your Settings and Page roles
On top of that, Facebook just released a new feature called universal inbox. The new feature helps to manage the communications across Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger via the Facebook Pages app.
Now, there’s a one-stop shop to notice every time someone posts comments, reviews, or feedback through one of your three branded Facebook accounts.
Universal inbox will let marketers more easily take note of comments, reviews and direct messages being authored by consumers. Page managers can use their cursor to tap a user’s profile and see his or her publicly available information, potentially giving businesses more insights on how to interact with potential customers.
You can use the Pages Manager app to respond to your customers through the universal inbox instead of having to log into each individual service.
3. Facebook removes ethnic ad-targeting
Last month, ProPublica published a report shedding light on the ethnic ad-targeting on Facebook. The social media network allowed advertisers to purchase ads that would be served to someone based on their ethnicity.For example, when purchasing an event ad, the brands were given a choice of which groups could see the ad—African American, Asian American or Hispanic.
Now, Facebook is working hard to make its ad-buying practices more transparent.
According to Erin Egan, VP & Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook, there will be two primary changes:
- Facebook will disable the use of ethnic affinity marketing for ads that they identify as offering housing, employment, or credit.
- Offer more clarification and education: Facebook will update their Advertising Policies to be even more explicit.
4. The battle against fake news sites
As you might have heard, there’s been a lot of discussion around the fake news sites lately.Many of these fake news sites used to enjoy a large share of social media traffic, and use their popularity to earn high advertising income.
In November, Facebook amended its Audience Network policy to state that it will not display ads on websites or mobile apps that hold fake news. (The same day, Google also made a similar move.)
What this means, according to a Facebook spokesperson’s comment to The Wall Street Journal, is that Facebook’s teams will monitor publishers to ensure compliance with the objective news. The fake news sites will no longer be part of Facebook’s ad network.
What this means for Facebook advertisers:
Nobody wants their ads to show up on fake news sites, especially well-known and respected brands. By removing the fake news sites from its ad network, Facebook helps to ensure that all your ads will show up on quality sites alongside great articles and content.5. Holiday ads are working magic
According to AdRoll’s data, digital advertisers spent 17.9 percent more on Black Friday and 13.8 percent more on Thanksgiving compared to 2015.But it wasn’t only the spending that increased: ads’ click-through rates also increased. The average CTR increased by 11% on Black Friday and by 10% on Thanksgiving compared to 2015.
Here’s another cool fact: according to Adobe, purchases on mobile devices skyrocketed 33% on Black Friday to $1.2 million.
Want to get more out of your holiday campaigns? We created a list of some best practices to follow RIGHT NOW:
- Start advertising early on – your campaigns should already be running
- Plan a brand awareness campaign to get people interested in your products
- Use Instagram (and Facebook) to inspire people
- Use Mobile ad placement to reach busy shoppers
- Optimize your campaigns throughout the process for lower costs
Alright. It’s time to conclude the December Facebook news and get started with our holiday campaigns (if you haven’t already).
In case you missed the past episodes of our Facebook newscast, here are the most important past month’s updates.
Facebook Updates You Can’t Miss in November 2016
This month, we learned a lot about Facebook’s future as a key marketing channel.One thing’s for sure: Facebook now has 1.79 billion monthly users, and the growth won’t stop there.
1. Facebook’s new earnings report shows steady user and revenue growth
On November 2, Facebook released its third-quarter earnings report,
and the results exceeded even the Wall Street’s expectations. The
report showed a year-over-year increase in revenue by 56 percent, up
from $4.5 billion during the third-quarter of 2015.Another thing we learned is that Facebook as a key advertising channel is going to be around for a long time.
Another thing we learned is that Facebook as a key advertising channel is going to be around for a long time. The social media platform’s user base has grown to 1.79 billion monthly users, a 16% growth compared to September 2016.
Facebook now has 24% of the World’s population as its monthly active users!
“We had another good quarter,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re making progress putting video first across our apps and executing our 10-year technology roadmap.”
As reported by AdWeek, Facebook’s advertising revenue skyrocketed to $6.82 billion, up 59 percent from the third quarter of 2015.
You might have noticed that in the Facebook Ads Manager, there’s no longer the possibility to choose between mobile or desktop News Feed targeting.
There’s a reason for that: Mobile platform’s growing fast. Mobile advertising now represents around 84 percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue, up from 78 percent in the third-quarter of 2015.
Facebook chief financial officer David Wehner:
“It was notably higher growth than in recent quarters. Price per ad was up 6 percent, while total impressions were up 50 percent, thanks to ads both in the Facebook News Feed and on Instagram.”
Facebook’s advertising branch is stronger than ever, making it a core marketing channel to embrace in 2017.
By the way, we just released a case study on Twitter Lead Cards vs. Facebook Lead Ads. Read about the 336% difference in the performance here.
2. Facebook Live is going to be big, and you’ll want to be a part of it
Facebook Live has been around for a while, and you can rest assured that the company has big plans for it.From November 7 to November 11, tech’s brightest minds flew together to Lisbon to attend the 50 000 participant conference Web Summit. You know who else went there? Facebook’s C-suite.
In a chat with Kurt Wagner from Recode, Facebook’s CMO Gary Briggs discussed the new promotional campaign for Facebook Live released about two weeks prior to the talk.
Launching a multi-stage ad campaign to introduce a new feature is unusual for the company. But up to now, many users still aren’t sure what Facebook Live stands for or are intimidated by live broadcasting.
According to AdWeek, Facebook’s the ad campaign features videos recorded by real Facebook users, all shot using Facebook Live on a phone, to capture the fun and spontaneity of the format.
“It’s still relatively young for us, but it’s been a hit,” said Rebecca Van Dyck, VP-marketing at Facebook. Since Facebook Live was released to a wide audience in April 2016, the number of people broadcasting live at any minute has quadrupled.
The platform has recorded broadcasts from all seven continents, and even from outer space!
Just as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in the recent earnings announcement: “Marketing shifts take time.”
3. Facebook releases new powerful Live video filters
Live video is a highly competitive marketplace with players such as Snapchat and Prisma showing the way.Facebook has set out to build an AI that lets you transfer the style of your videos in real-time. This means that you can apply different styles to your video while recording it, not after. If you’re unsure what it means,
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg demoed the style transfer feature in October, shortly after which Facebook launched its first Live video filters.
We had a chance to see a demo at the Web Summit, and we have to admit: this stuff is impressive!
As reported by Digital Trends: Instead of waiting for the image to be processed on huge computer servers in data centers, Facebook claims it has developed a world’s first deep-learning platform on mobile that puts the cutting-edge technology in the palm of a user’s hand.
Last month, Facebook’s chief product officer Chris CoxCox said that according to their predictions, video will generate 70% of traffic across Facebook’s properties — Instagram, WhatsApp, and its core social network — in the next five years.
4. Facebook pages got new call-to-action button options
Recent stats show that, globally, Facebook users spend an
average of 20+ minutes per day on the social network. In the United
States, that time frame stretches to as much as 40 minutes per day.As people spend a big chunk of their lives on Facebook, there’s the opportunity to improve their shopping experience with helpful call-to-actions.
Up until now, the all-to-action buttons that brands could use on their posts and pages were quite limited.
Now, Facebook is partnering with multiple service providers to help businesses to offer a seamless experience for booking an appointment, buying a dinner or purchasing tickets.
Which means that you can now add new types of call-to-actions to your Facebook posts.
Here are the available partner integrations:
- Start Order – Accept orders with delivery.com or Slice.
- Book Now – Book appointments with HomeAdvisor, MyTime, Microsoft Bookings, Front Desk, Porch, and other services.
- Buy Tickets – Sell tickets with Eventbrite or Ticketmaster.
- Get Showtimes – Provide show schedules and sell tickets with Fandango.
When it comes to movie tickets, a user can store them as QR codes in his or her Facebook account. A scheduled visit to a salon can be saved in the events section of the Facebook mobile app.
Even if you’re not working with Facebook’s integrated partners, you can still drive orders, appointment bookings and customer inquiries directly from your Page through Messenger.
With the new “Get Quote” and “Request Time” call-to-action buttons, when a person takes an action on your Page, such as asking when they can schedule an appointment, a Messenger thread is automatically created between your business and that person.
According to Facebook, here are the available non-partner CTA options:
- Get Quote – Give people the option to request a quote for your service.
- Request Time – Coordinate your bookings
- Shop Now – Showcase products and let people make purchases from the Shop section
If you’d like to learn how to add an integrated services CTA on Facebook, here’s a top-notch guide by Jon Loomer.
There’s more! You can now get local recommendations on Facebook
Here’s another cool feature that rolled out with the big Facebook pages update.Whether traveling to a new place, looking for a hair salon, or searching for the perfect place to eat, people already turn to their friends, family, and local Groups on Facebook for advice.
Facebook will be releasing a new tool to ask and manage the local recommendations from friends and family.
Here’s how the local recommendations work:
When writing a Facebook post and looking for advice on local places or services, you’ll have the option to turn on Recommendations. As you turn on this feature, your friends can comment on your post with suggestions, and you’ll see all of them mapped out and saved in a single place.
You can also navigate to your Recommendations bookmark on Facebook (desktop only) to ask a question or help your friends who have requested for recommendations.
To help your business be discovered, complete your Page’s About section so that it can easily be found when someone makes a recommendation.
5. Facebook is expanding its ad network to Apple TV and beyond
In case you thought that TV’s so 20th century, think again. Facebook
is moving another step closer to getting its hands on TV ad budgets. And
if Facebook believes in the future of TV, well, so should you.Don’t get us wrong. The TV we’re talking about isn’t the huge black box taking up 20% of your living room. Instead, Facebook will start delivering video ads on apps that run on set-top boxes like Apple TV and Roku through the company’s ad network, as reported by Recode.
The project’s still in its early stage, and there are many details still left to work out, e.g. ad formats and ad length.
Here’s how the new video ads would work on Apple TV and the like:
Facebook will use its Audience Network ad network to deliver ads to “over the top” video apps, just like it does to other publishers’ apps and websites.
This could be a huge game-changer in the ad targeting in video apps.
Using IP addresses, Facebook will be able to tell that the Apple TV is used by the same person — or at least the same family — that logs into Facebook accounts at the same place, and could use this data to deliver relevant ads.
Facebook’s not yet selling ad spots to marketers yet as the project’s still in the testing phase. But keep your eyes and ears wide open to be the first to know (or just follow AdEspresso Twitter account for the latest news).
6. Brands can now promote their chatbots with Facebook ads
Brands can now buy News Feed ads that directly link to one-to-one conversations in Messenger, making conversations easier.
During a talk at the Web Summit tech conference, Facebook VP of messaging David Marcus said that advertisers are now for the first time able to target users before bringing them into a one-on-one conversation that has a strong identity.
One of the first brands to test out the new ad options is Burberry who has built its own chatbot designed for holiday shopping. The bot combines brand storytelling with an automated gift recommendation engine, making it a helpful assistant.
Burberry’s customers can also chat with a human on the other end of the conversation if they have questions.
But Burberry isn’t the only one benefitting from Messenger chatbots. EBay’s also testing a shopping assistant called ShopBot on the Facebook platform.
7. Start preparing for holidays!
The holiday season’s already arrived (You can already order holiday specials in Starbucks).Last month, Facebook released an announcement saying that 40% of all purchases during the festive season will occur on a mobile device, which means that it’s a great time to reach mobile customers.
We also compiled a list of 55 inspiring holiday ad examples to get you in the right mood.
This year, you’ve got plenty of opportunities to get creative on Facebook: Live video, Messenger bots, new Facebook pages call-to-actions – looks like Facebook made us all an early Christmas present.
Remember to set up your ad campaigns at least 24 hours before the planned delivery as it takes Facebook some time to optimize your ads.
Alright. It’s time to conclude the November Facebook news and get started with our holiday campaigns.
In case you missed the past episodes of the Facebook newscast, here are the most important past month’s updates:
Facebook Updates You Can’t Miss in October 2016
You can feel it in the chilly wind, see it in the falling leaves, and taste it in the smell of pumpkin spice latte – autumn is here.Which means that you only have less than three months to meet all the benchmarks you’ve set out to conquer in 2016.
What about increasing your number of leads by 30% in the upcoming months? Or running a retargeting campaign with a 200% higher-than-usual conversion rate?
Here’s good news for you: Facebook is constantly introducing new updates to help you deliver ever more incredible ad campaigns to an increasingly targeted audience.
Tune in for a quick overview of all the Facebook updates and news in October 2016, and learn the latest tips and tricks to boost your advertising ROI.
Up next, we’ll share six exciting updates and news you need to know now, including Facebook’s new collaboration tool and a small scandal about miscalculated ad metrics. Let’s start with this last one.
1. Miscalculations in video metrics
While this might not be the most positive of October’s news, you still need to know it.At the end of September, in a post on its “Advertiser Help Center,” Facebook disclosed that its metric regarding the average time users spent watching videos was artificially inflated. The problem lied in the fact that the metric was only factoring in video views of more than three seconds.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the video metrics likely overestimated the average time spent watching videos by 60% to 80%.
David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations, wrote:
“About a month ago, we found an error in the way we calculate one of the video metrics on our dashboard – average duration of video viewed. The metric should have reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by the total number of people who played the video. But it didn’t – it reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by only the number of ‘views’ of a video (that is, when the video was watched for three or more seconds).”
Should you worry?
Probably not. According to Facebook, the mistaken metric did not impact billing. Moreover, the company renamed the metric to make it clearer what it measures.How to check your Facebook video metrics:
Metrics are available at the video level from within Page Insights.To see the metrics for your video, go to the Posts tab within your Page Insights. Scroll down to the ‘All Posts Published’ to see all the posts you have published on your Page. Clicking on the post title for your video (marked with a video camera icon) will take you to your video metrics for each post.
Clicking on ‘Post’ sign will lead you to the metrics about your video’s total 28-day engagement. Here you can see data for likes, comments, and shares on both your original post and re-shares. Moreover, you’ll get a quick overview of positive and negative video feedback.
2. Buy ads only if the right products are in stock
On September 20, Facebook announced news about the dynamic ads for retail.The dynamic ads for retail are ads designed to help merchants only serve Facebook ads of products that are available in a specific store location.
According to Maz Sharafi, Director of Monetization at Facebook:
“We are basically plugging into the bricks-and-mortar inventory and showcasing products that are available at a location close to the person seeing the ad.”
The ads are currently priced on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) rate. The new feature is still in the testing phase and will become widely available to all companies in the upcoming weeks.
Facebook’s dynamic ads let you display ads based on the target audience’s shown interests.
With the latest update, the dynamic ads for retail now give people the information about the following points:
- Local availability – shows if the product is available at a shop near the customer, and makes it easy for people to find the store with the store locator feature
- Product summaries – you can add Facebook-hosted product summaries to give potential shoppers the information on the products without leaving the Facebook app
- Different actions – include possible actions that people can take, e.g. contacting the nearest shop, buying online or saving the product for future reference
- Similar products – the ads also display similar products available at the nearest shop
3. You can now add 360-degree video to Facebook Canvas
Facebook believes in excellent ad experience. And that’s why they’re constantly working on improving the Canvas, a product for delivering full-screen mobile ads on Facebook.Since its launch in February 2016, over 150 years have been spent viewing content in Canvas on Facebook.
According to Facebook:
“Adding 360 video to Canvas will give advertisers a unique way to engage people on mobile and encourage them to interact with content.”
New Canvas templates
Facebook’s also working on templates for Canvas to make the ad creation process easier than ever. These templates will be available in the next months, but Facebook revealed a little sneak peek:For those who haven’t created a Facebook Canvas before, the templates could be a real godsend.
If you’d like to see more Canvas ads examples, visit the Canvas Ads public Facebook group.
Read more: A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Canvas
4. Facebook launched team collaboration tools – Workplace
Most people are using Facebook to manage their friendships. Marketers use the Facebook Ads Manager to manage their ads.What about managing your work on Facebook as well?
On October 10, Facebook publicly introduced its new collaboration platform Workplace, previously referred to as Facebook At Work.
Isn’t that exciting?!
According to Facebook:
“We’ve brought the best of Facebook to the workplace — whether it’s basic infrastructure such as News Feed, or the ability to create and share in Groups or via chat, or useful features such as Live, Reactions, Search and Trending posts. This means you can chat with a colleague across the world in real time, host a virtual brainstorm in a Group, or follow along with your CEO’s presentation on Facebook Live.”
The pricing of Workplace is cheaper than that of other collaboration tools such as Slack or Salesforce Chatter. You’ll pay $3 for each active user (up to 1k users), and $2/active user (1,001 – 10k monthly active users).
Workplace
provides popular Facebook features such as Groups, Reactions, chat,
search, trending posts, video, and live video, each with a Workplace
twist.Imagine holding a group chat to discuss important matters, collaborating in multi-company groups, or viewing a live announcement from your CEO. Facebook says over 1,000 companies already use Workplace and 100,000 groups have already been created from its pilot program. We’ll surely see more companies hopping on board.
As reported by TechCrunch, some of the early customers that Facebook has signed up have included 36,000 employees at the carrier Telenor, and 100,000 employees at the Royal Bank of Scotland, and today Facebook’s announcing more such as Danone (100,000 employees), Starbucks (238,000 employees) and Booking.com (13,000).
We’re curious to see where all of this leads. The new Workplace product could also mean new fascinating ways for marketers to engage with enterprise audience.
5. New measurement tools for advertisers
Facebook recently rolled out some additional measurement products that will help marketers see how well their cross-channel campaigns perform.The new measurement tools will help to keep track of both online and offline return on investment.
With over 90% of consumer purchases still happening offline, marketers still have a need to connect digital adverts to in-store sales. That’s why Facebook partnered with companies including Nielsen Catalina Solutions, Oracle Data Cloud, Visual IQ and Neustar MarketShare.
The third party measurement tools are based on the “people-based measurement” approach to giving brands more accurate results.
Facebook’s partnership with Nielsen Catalina will allow advertisers to see how a campaign affects offline purchases by connecting Nielsen Catalina’s purchasing data from retailers with ads data from Facebook and Instagram. The partnership with Oracle Data Cloud will let Oracle-owned Datalogix tap into Facebook’s Lift API to test how likely people are to buy products if they have or haven’t seen an ad.
According to Adweek:
“Mobile app developers will be able to get their own focused measurement tool. Facebook’s Mobile Measurement Partners—companies like Adways Inc., AppsFlyer, Apsalar, and CyberZ—will let app advertisers see which ads people viewed that didn’t lead to clicks. That way, if someone downloads the app later, an ad that is viewed but not clicked doesn’t get all the credit.”
6. Facebook launched Marketplace to let users buy and sell items
Collaboration features in the new Facebook Workplace weren’t Facebook’s only attempt to make us spend more time on the platform.On October 3, the company announced the launch of Marketplace, a destination for people to find and buy items directly through Facebook’s mobile app.
According to Facebook, around a fourth of everyone on the platform—or about 450 million of the 1.7 billion users, visit buy-and-sell groups every month. So it only made sense to offer them a better shopping experience.
Here’s how Facebook Marketplace works:
To visit Marketplace, just tap on the shop icon at the bottom of the Facebook app and start exploring.Marketplace opens with photos of items that nearby people have listed for sale. Users can search for an item based on category, location, and price. They can also browse what’s available in a variety of categories such as Household, Electronics, and Apparel.
When you find something interesting, tap on the image to see more details from the seller, including a product description, the name and profile photo of the seller, and their general location. You can also save the item to later quickly find it.
If you find something you like, you can send the seller a direct message from Marketplace to tell them you’re interested and make an offer. From that point on, you and the seller can work out the details of the sale.
Right now, Facebook does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace.
How to post something on the Marketplace:
- Take a photo of your item, or add it from your camera roll
- Enter a product name, description, and price
- Confirm your location and select a category
- Post
Final words
Alright. It’s time to wrap up the October newscast and keep our eyes opened to see what Facebook’s coming up with next.In case you’d like to quickly revisit the October Facebook news and updates, here they are:
- Facebook said there were miscalculations in video metrics (it’s fixed now)
- You can buy for ads only if the right products are in stock (by using Facebook Dynamic Ads for Retail)
- You can now add a 360-degree video to Facebook Canvas (+ Canvas templates coming soon!)
- Facebook Workplace – a new collaboration tool – is now on the market
- Facebook introduced third-party measurement tools for advertisers
- Marketplace – a platform to find and buy items directly through Facebook’s mobile app – was launched
Are there some other noteworthy Facebook news and updates you’d like everyone to know about? Let us know in the comments section!
Feel you’re missing something? Then keep on reading, you’ll find a detailed report of what happened on Facebook during the summer!
Facebook Updates You Can’t Miss in September 2016
There are plenty of Facebook news we’d like to share with you in September 2016. Here’s what we’re going to explore:
- New and improved Facebook Offers
- Higher importance of page loading speed and prefetching
- Category Blocking and Block Lists on Audience Network
- An update on conversion pixel deprecation (you’ll need to start using the new Facebook Pixel)
- New Video Ads tracking metrics
- Facebook vs. Adblock (you don’t want to miss this one!)
- Vertical Live Video
- Slideshow ads just got many new features
1. Improved Facebook Offers
Have you ever used Facebook Offers?If you’re new to the advertising world, here’s a quick explanation: Facebook Offers makes it easier for advertisers to share their discounts and promotions. Businesses can create two types of Offers – online and in-store – and they can share Offers in two ways: in an Offers advert or a Page post.
Facebook recently made the mobile offers more handy for the users.
What changed: For the people seeing a Facebook Offer in their mobile News Feed, there’s now a possibility to claim the offers by saving them under new Offers bookmark. This way, the offers won’t get lost and can be found more quickly.
You can choose to enable a barcode or QR code to scan at checkout, making the experience even smoother.
Right now, Facebook Offers support one offer code or barcode for every claimed Offer. But this is about to change very soon. The company’s working on the capability for unique offer codes, so that advertisers could provide unique offer codes to each individual, preventing the Offer from being distributed to people on a larger scale.
You can create Offers with the Offer Page Composer in your Facebook Page or through Facebook’s adverts interfaces. See the guide by Facebook
2. Facebook wants you to boost your mobile page loading speed
On August 31, Facebook announced that it starts preloading ads even before anybody clicks on them. The main benefit of this move is to prevent users from leaving sites before they even finishing loading. According to Google, 29 % of mobile users switch the page if it loads too slowly or is irrelevant to them.
Facebook named the new process prefetching, and it could potentially accelerate the loading process by as much as 20 to 30 percent.
What you need to know about prefetching:
In their post about boosting mobile loading times, Facebook suggested quite a few ways to improve it:- Minimising landing page redirects, plugins and link shorteners
- Compressing files to decrease mobile rendering time
- Improving server response time by utilising multi-region hosting
- Using a high-quality content delivery network to reach audiences quickly
- Removing render-blocking JavaScript
“Our goal is to improve user experience by helping businesses be the best mobile advertisers they can be, so we’re always developing new tools and insights to improve the mobile experience. Today, we’re introducing prefetching – pre-loading mobile content in the Facebook in-app browser before a link is tapped. This can shorten mobile site load time by 29 percent or 8.5 seconds.”
Improving your mobile loading speed should be on top of your to-do list, as it will soon impact whether people will see your Facebook ads or not. We’ll likely be hearing more about the effect of mobile loading speed in the upcoming months.
3. You can now block categories and URLs on the Audience Network
Did you know that you can block your ad from running on specific categories of apps and mobile sites on the Facebook Audience Network?Now, there are two different options for preventing your ads from running on certain apps or websites:
1. Enable category blocking
You can choose to exclude sensitive categories like Dating, Gambling, Politics, and Religion.2. Create block lists
You can upload a list of website domains and mobile app URLs where you don’t want your ads to run. After you’ve saved your selection, Facebook won’t show your ads on these domains.You’re able to upload up to 10,000 website domains into one block list. Once you’re done, you’ll be able to apply your block lists in ads creation in Ads Manager or Power Editor.
Blocking categories can help you deliver your ads to highly targeted audiences and avoid promoting to uninterested people. This is something to definitely check out in September.
4. New video engagement metrics
On August 10, Facebook introduced new video metrics in Page Insights and Video Library that help to better understand your Facebook videos’ audience and engagement.According to the announcement:
“The new metrics help publishers to better understand who’s watching their videos, how audiences are engaging with Live video, and how sharing contributes to video distribution. These updates give publishers actionable data to help them create videos that forge stronger relationships with their viewers and engage new audiences.”
You’ll now be able to break out minutes viewed by age, gender, and top geographic locations. Find the data in the new ‘Audience and Engagement’ card in Video Insights.
Tracking viewer engagement in Live Video is now possible:
You can now see how the audience reacts at specific points during a Live broadcast. This means that you can see when people were moved to react to, comment on, or share the video. To access these metrics, go to the new ‘Audience and Engagement’ card, and select the ‘Video Engagement’ section (these metrics are exclusively for Live videos).Track the original video engagement vs. the engagement rate of this post’s shares
Have you ever considered that original and shared videos may have a different engagement rate? You can test it out now! For all videos, you can see the breakdown of views and minutes viewed from the original video post versus shares and crossposts of the video. Simply check the ‘Minutes Viewed’ and ‘Views’ cards.5. Facebook conversion pixel deprecation
It has been known for a while that Facebook’s going to move on to the new pixel. If you haven’t yet replaced your old pixels with the new one (these became available in July 2016), there’s a timeline to keep in mind.September 15, 2016: Ad account owners won’t be able to create conversion tracking pixels anymore. You can still use the already created conversion pixel for your ad campaigns and reporting.
October 15, 2016: Facebook will stop actively supporting the conversion tracking pixel. This means that no new functionalities will be added to the pixel but you can still use the ones you have.
Remember this date!
February 15, 2017: In the beginning of 2017, the conversion tracking pixel will be disabled. You can’t use it in your ad campaigns anymore but it will be viewable in your previous ad reports.Here’s how to create a Facebook pixel:
- Go to your Facebook Pixel tab in Ads Manager
- Click Create a Pixel
- Enter a name for your pixel. You can have only one pixel per ad account, so choose a name that represents your business
- Check the box to accept the terms
- Click Create Pixel
What you should do: It’s time to move on to the new Facebook pixel. You can use the combination of Custom Conversions, Standard Events and Website Custom Audiences to get all the information and metrics you need.
6. Facebook vs. Adblock – the everlasting battle
On August 9, Facebook changed its desktop website so that visitors
would see ads on pages even if they were running an ad-blocker.Wondering how on earth they could do that? It wasn’t actually all that hard. Facebook made the ads appear as normal posts with a little “sponsored” label on them. And ad blocking tools seemed to be in trouble recognising these ads.
However, the cat-and-mouse game only started as Adblock Plus found a workaround that once again filtered out Facebook’s ads. The game went on for a couple of rounds, and as one news headline put it:
“Adblock Plus blocks Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook ads.”
Facebook says it is circumventing ad blockers on its desktop page as part of an effort to review and improve its ad policies. Meanwhile, on September 13, Adblock announced it has finally found a way of monetizing its business: it started selling ads. To be exact, this means that Adblock Plus users will be able to select which ads are acceptable and may be shown to them.
For Facebook marketers, there’s no need to worry about right now. Leave it to Facebook and rather use your time to create another A/B test to boost your sales.
7. Vertical live video
We’re all used to seeing square live videos in the Facebook News Feed. But that’s about to change. In the beginning of September, Facebook took their new vertical live videos live.According to Adweek, the vertical live videos can boost the cost-per-mile as much as three times. If you’ve previously seen some success with live videos, this is definitely something worth testing.
8. Slideshow ad updates
Last but not least, Facebook recently updated its slideshow ads. Now, brands will be able to include text and music to the slideshow ads. Right now, Facebook offers a range of themed audio tracks, but the company has promised to soon allow brands to upload their own tunes.Moreover, you can now add up to 10 photos to a slideshow ad. The images can be takes from your Facebook Page’s photos, still images from video or Facebook stock images.
What’s even more awesome, is that you can now create slideshows on the go with Android mobile device.
Take your slideshow photos from a video
It is now super easy to turn a video into a slideshow ad. Simply upload a video into slideshow tool, and it will automatically select ten image stills to use for building a slideshow.Cool idea for testing: create a slideshow ad of this month’s most popular blog content, and share it with your fans for an end-of-month traffic boost.
Alright, folks. It’s time to wrap up our September Facebook news session. But before you leave…
Time for a quick conclusion
Here are the most important news in September:
- New and improved Facebook Offers
- Higher importance of page loading speed and prefetching
- Category Blocking and Block Lists on Audience Network
- An update on conversion pixel deprecation (you’ll need to start using the new Facebook Pixel)
- New Video Ads tracking metrics
- Facebook vs. Adblock (you don’t want to miss this one!)
- Vertical Live Video
- Slideshow ads just got many new features
Facebook Updates August 2016 Edition
Summertime… and the living it’s easy… Billie Holiday was singing in 1936. Yeah, but digital marketing wasn’t there back then!
In 2016, for marketers, summertime means that it is even harder than usual to keep up with all the latest news, research, and best practices of Facebook advertising.
And since business never goes on vacation, there’s some news you can’t afford to miss in August 2016.
No worries, we’re here to bring you the latest Facebook updates month after month, so if you missed July edition of Facebook news, including the removal of 20% text rule,
lick here.
1. Updated app-install ad targeting
The main reason behind this decision is that people download apps but then forget about them.
According to a study by eMarketer, only 6% of people still use an app 30 days after installing it. This makes the other 94% a complete waste of advertising budget.
The new feature is called App Event Optimization and allows advertisers to select from 14 user actions that might signal how likely a person is to engage in an actions like:
- purchase a product
- initiate a checkout
- add an item to an online shopping cart or wish list
- rate an app
- search for an app
- view content, and more.
Jehan Damji, a Product Manager at Facebook, said that “not all installs are created equal” and explained that some app advertisers might choose to target a broad audience if it’s a new app, but
others want more specific targeting to boost downloads by people who seem more likely to make mobile purchases.
How to target based on actions?
Right now, advertisers can choose only one action per ad. Still, there’s no limit to the number of ads that can be run. So if you’re interested in targeting different actions, you’ll be able to do it by creating multiple ads. There might be an option to select multiple actions per one ad in the future.
Facebook has also announced two new ways for marketers to advertise their apps: by using
2. Two-person Facebook broadcasts
The good news is that soon, you’ll be able to create broadcasts with two people participating from different locations. Hint: think about all the possibilities of broadcasting remote interviews, talk shows, etc.
Brands could have their partners and/or celebrities participating in their Live videos, expanding the creativity in live streaming.
The new feature will go live later this summer, starting with Verified Pages, and will then be rolled out to other users.
3. Waiting rooms for live streaming
As a brand, you’ll be able to pre-schedule the time you’re going live so that Facebook can notify users before the stream begins.
The huge benefit: Right now, broadcasters are having a hard time deciding when to start the live stream as they’d like to wait for enough users to opt in. Meanwhile, the early arrivers get bored and opt out before the stream starts.
With this update, brands will be able to have a large audience already waiting, just at the right time.
New to Facebook Live Video but keen to find out more? Check out this guide to Real-time Broadcasting with Facebook Live Video.
4. Facebook Messenger reached 1 billion users + Q2 earnings
We just thought you should know that Facebook Messenger now has over 1 000 000 000 users. That’s a lot of zeroes!The messaging app is gaining around 100 million active users every three months. Facebook also announced that Messenger now supports Instant Articles, making it easier to get your content in front of millions of eyes.
In July, the Messenger bot platform has grown to include over 18,000 bots — up from 11,000 at the end of June. If you’re interested in introducing Messenger bots to your marketing mix, here are 5 inspiring examples.
CAUTION! While chatbots are gaining ground, there are many reasons why you shouldn’t go with the flow (or at least take it with a grain of salt).
Related: Facebook announced its Q2 earnings
As one might expect, Facebook’s revenue keeps steadily growing. The company reported $6.44 billion in revenue and $2.05 billion in profit.
5. Everything else you need to know
Facebook’s testing self-destroying messages
On July 8, Facebook released a public statement that it’s working on a Secret Messages feature that allows users to send messages that disappear forever after a set period of time.This could mean that more users that now prefer private messaging apps will be moving to Messenger.
Instagram-inspired cropped clips increase completion rates by 67%
If you’re using video ads, this recently published study could make a
huge difference in your video completion rates (and
cost-per-conversion).VML, a global marketing and ad agency found that Instagram-style squared video ads performed a lot better than the regular 16:9 format ads when displayed on Facebook News Feed.
Already back in April, Facebook updated its creative guidelines, recommending that brands start changing their ads from 16:9 aspect ratios to videos with 1:1 ratios in the shape of a square that’s designed for mobile.
Among other video ad tactics, Facebook suggests that you:
Capture attention quickly – by using catchy imagery and colorsDesign for no sound – not everyone plays the videos with sound, so show captions, logos, etc.
Frame your visual story – Make sure your video looks great on a small screen as well as on desktop
Play more – keep testing new approaches
Check out this guide to creating highly efficient Facebook video ads
Let’s have a quick recap:
The most important features that appeared in August are:
- You can target based on actions in app-install ads
- You’ll soon be able to stream 2-participant broadcasts
- There will soon be waiting rooms for Live Video
- Facebook reported huge growth in earnings and the number of users
- Facebook will soon introduce Secret Messages
- Instead of the universal 16:9 video format, test 1:1 square-shaped videos to increase the completion rate
Facebook Updates July 2016 Edition
Be it summer or winter, the holiday season or the busiest time of the year, Facebook never sleeps. Over the previous month, the social network announced a fair share of updates that are going to affect the way we communicate with our Facebook audiences.
Before you head to Google in search of the latest updates, consider this: We’ve got it all covered right here!
Here’s what you need to know about Facebook updates in July 2016:
- The audience network will move beyond Facebook
- The 20% image text rule is gone
- Facebook added maps to its Local Awareness Ads
- The big News Feed update that will lower brands’ reach
- Facebook Exchange is shutting down
1. Audience Network will be expanded beyond Facebook
Up until now, advertisers had the opportunity to communicate with 1.65 billion Facebook users. This number is about to change very soon (and we’re not talking about a decline here).Facebook will expand the reach of its Audience Network so that the ads will be visible on third-party sites and apps to anyone who has ever visited Facebook, not just registered users.
The practice, known as online interest-based advertising, is already widely popular across the advertising industry.
So what’s in it for everybody?
According to Alvin Bowles, Head of Global Publisher Sales and Operations at Facebook:“In Q4 2015 we reached a $1B annual run rate for advertising spend through the Audience Network. With Audience Network, we will continue to introduce new ways for publishers to take advantage of everything that makes Facebook ads valuable to our partners: high-quality demand, people-based marketing, measurement and our ads delivery engine.”
Alvin Bowles, Head of Global Publisher Sales and Operations at Facebook
Your ads will be more relevant to people.
According to the Wall Street Journal,
Facebook will use a mix of cookie tracking, its own buttons and plugins
and other data to track and identify non-users on third-party websites.Combined with the social network’s user insights, marketers can rest assured that their ads reach the most interested audience. It might even help to boost your ads’ average relevance score.
“Because we understand people in general, we can still use all the things we’ve learned about people-based marketing to apply and show them a relevant ad based on what information we do have.”If hundreds of Facebook users who visited a third-party site are also interested in your products or app, Facebook could use this data to boost the relevance of your ads for its non-users.
Andrew Bosworth, VP, Ads and Business Platform, Facebook
By using the expanded audience network, marketers can reach interested people who they otherwise might have missed.
“One of the things we’ve heard from people is that many of the ads they see are annoying, distracting, or misleading. We think companies can do better, and that’s why we’ve been focused on improving ads both on and off Facebook.”The update will be rolled out over the next few months, so keep your fingers crossed to get a hold of new interested audiences.
Andrew Bosworth, VP, Ads and Business Platform
Important note: Starting today, people have the option to opt out of seeing ads on apps and websites not offered by Facebook.
2. The 20% text rule in ad images has changed
As reported by AdEspresso and Jon Loomer, Facebook updated its 20% text rule in ads.Before the update, advertisers were struggling to understand how Facebook evaluates the text density in ad images. Marketers used to employ a grid tool to ensure only 5 out of 5×5 squares contain text.
Now, Facebook is looking to eliminate the confusion. It recently announced new rules for text in ad visuals, making clear that it endorses ad images with light or no text.
According to Afsheen Ali, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook:
“Our research has shown that people demonstrate a preference for ads with less text. Previously, if 20% of an ad image’s area was text, it was not approved to run on Facebook, Instagram or the Audience Network. We are shifting to a new solution to improve this experience which allows advertisers more flexibility while still allowing us to maintain an enjoyable experience for people.”
Afsheen Ali, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook
Here’s how the new rule works:
By the old rules, this AdEspresso ad would have contained 36% text, and Facebook might have decided not to display it at all.Now, advertisers are playing by a different set of rules – the amount of text in an ad image is considered either OK, Low, Medium or High.
Facebook provides a clear-cut formula of the new regulations:
As you can see, a large amount of text on the ad image results in lower reach, leading to higher cost-per-acquisition and wasted potential.
You can test your ad’s text density by using Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool.
Moreover, whenever you create an ad in the ad create tool or Power Editor, you’ll get a notice if the amount of text in your ad image might start limiting its distribution.
More on the recent change:
The new text overlay tool is not perfect and still favors some high text-density images over others. But overall, Facebook now accepts ad images with a higher text-density than it used to (you just need to pay more for distribution).For example, the following AdEspresso ad is considered to have a low text density.
The following ads with relatively heavy (well over 20%) text usage are appraised to be “OK”.
The good news is that advertisers are allowed to stack up a considerable amount of text before being punished by Facebook’s advertising-robots.
You do not want to upload a text-heavy ad visual as its reach will be either ineffectively low or it won’t be displayed to the target audience at all (unless you qualify for an exception, which is highly unlikely).
So avoid creating text-crowded ads looking like this:
The new image text rule gives advertisers more flexibility to play around with different visuals and engage in further A/B testing.
For more on the new rules, here’s your go-to guide: Facebook Changes the 20% Text Rule
3. Facebook is putting maps in ads, helping to measure store visits
For years, brands have struggled to measure the impact of Facebook ad campaigns on store visits and sales.Now, Facebook is adding maps to its Local Awareness Ads and will start reporting estimates of how many store visits those ads drove. Store Visits is a new metric added to Facebook’s Ads Reporting tool.
This is how a local awareness ad with a map will look like
While people use mobile in 45% of all shopping journeys, the majority of sales still occur in brick-and-mortar businesses. In fact, more than 90% of retail sales take place in-store.
Moreover, the Local Awareness Ads help to bring people to your business in different locations. Mixed with Facebook’s extensive targeting capacity, these ads make it easier for you to pop literally up on people’s maps when they search for local businesses. Use a call-to-action such as “Get Directions” to attract new customers.
There are two main features of the ads with a local awareness objective:
- Map card – including a map pin for your business location, distance to business, hours of operation and a direction link
- Call to action button – Get Directions, Call Now, Learn More, and Send Message
According to Facebook:
“The store locator shows a map of all of the locations that a business has nearby. People can click on the map in the advert to view information about nearby locations. Without leaving the advert or app, they can view the address, opening times, phone number, website and estimated travel time for each store.”Moreover, by placing maps in your ads and tracking the store visits, you’ll get a more accurate overview of your Local Awareness Ads performance.
Facebook says that advertisers can use store visits reporting to:
- See how many people come to their store after seeing a Facebook campaign.
- Optimize advert creative, delivery, and targeting based on store visits.
- Analyse results across store and regions to plan and optimize future campaigns.
4. The much talked about News Feed update
On June 29, Facebook announced that it would change its News Feed to be more family and friend-centric. The goal of the algorithm update is to show people the most relevant stories.Up until now, over 40% of Facebook users got their news from the platform, according to a survey by Pew Research.
But this trend is likely to decline shortly. As one can expect, the number of posts from friends and relatives showing up in people’s news feeds is going to grow at brands’ and publishers’ reach expense. But more on this later.
First, let’s have a look at the core reasons for the update.
“Our success is built on getting people the stories that matter to them most. If you could look through thousands of stories every day and choose the 10 that were most important to you, which would they be? The answer should be your News Feed. It is subjective, personal, and unique — and defines the spirit of what we hope to achieve.”
Adam Mosseri, VP, Product Management, News Feed
What’s going to change for marketers?
As we mentioned before, our news feeds are going to be populated with more posts from our friends and family.For regular Facebook users, it means that fewer posts from publishers will show up in their News Feed.
For (brands as) publishers, the algorithm change denotes a continuous downfall of their posts’ reach.
According to research by SocialFlow, publisher reach on Facebook declined 42 percent from January to May.
If you compare it to another chart displaying a mounting trend of posts published on Facebook (the
graph shows posts that went through SocialFlow’s platform), you’ll see that published posts don’t mean a higher reach.
You’ll have to spend more to reach the same audience
With an increasing number of brands competing to show up in our News Feeds, brands are forced to up their bidding game and contribute more resources to each campaign.
When will the algorithm update occur?
According to an article in The New York Times, Facebook plans to start making the changes as soon as this week.“We view our work as only 1 percent finished — and are dedicated to improving along the way. As we look for ways to get better, we will continue soliciting feedback. We will be as open as we can — providing explanations in News Feed FYI wherever possible and looking for opportunities to share how we work.”We’ll soon see where this big algorithm change leads.
Adam Mosseri, VP, Product Management, News Feed
5. Facebook Exchange will soon be the past
While this news doesn’t impact a large share of advertisers, for those using Facebook Exchange (Facebook’s desktop-based ad retargeting exchange FBX), it’s been sad news. Soon, the tool will be shut down.According to Facebook’s most recent earning’s report, mobile now accounts for 82 percent of the company’s overall revenue.
Moreover, the number of mobile-only monthly active users is increasing at a rapid rate.
Facebook VP of Monetization Product Marketing Matt Idema explained that Facebook Exchange is primarily a desktop retargeting tool, adding that newer product such as Dynamic Ads for Carousel, video campaigns, and custom audiences have mobile retargeting features not supported by Exchange.
Idema told Adweek that
“the company has already begun moving clients and ad tech partners over to newer products with the goal of being fully migrated by Nov. 1.”
For small publishers and brands, this news won’t make a big difference. So rest assured.
We’ve covered the five top news from Facebook. Let’s revisit them once more:
- You can reach even more users via the expanded audience network
- Forget about the 20% text rule. It’s gone for good.
- As a Local Awareness ad user, you’ll now have a better overview of the campaign’s performance
- Brands and publishers can expect their News Feed post’s reach to plummet
- Facebook Exchange will be shut down; it’s time to move to mobile
