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
It’s time to grab a huge cup of coffee, read about the latest Facebook news and, once you’re done, boost your Facebook ad results in just 120 minutes with these tips and our latest guide.
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
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:
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
Facebook Ads is a powerful advertising channel, but only if you nail your audience targeting and know how to evaluate your ad cost.
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.
Here’s an example of a Facebook GIF post by Buffer:
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
GIFs, like video ads, have the potential of returning higher click-through rates and a lower cost-per-click price. Using GIFs in your Facebook video ads is definitely worth a shot.
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.
With this update, Facebook’s emphasizing the need for authentic content.
Source: AdWeek
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.
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
If you missed our past Facebook news broadcasts, no worries, they’re all in this very same post, waiting to be discovered!
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.
Right now, dynamic ads are only available for US brands, but Facebook is planning to include other regions in the coming months.
Read more: A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
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.
As Facebook’s representatives said: “From interviews to book readings, we’re excited about the layer of interactivity that Live Audio brings to both the broadcaster and listener.”
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
And now… get back to work! But just in case you think you might have missed some of the big updates of the past year… keep on reading, we have the past six months covered right here!!
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.
The top Facebook news in December 2016 are:
Multi-product News Feed ads (coming soon)
Manage your communications in the Pages Manager app
Partial removal of ethnic ad targeting
The battle against fake news sites
Holidays are coming in, be prepared!
Alright, time to dive into the news like they were presents under a Christmas tree!
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
That’s pretty helpful, right?
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.
As reported by AdWeek:
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
If you want this year’s Facebook holiday campaigns to be extra enchanting, get the holiday advertising guide by Facebook here.
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.
Here’s what you need to know:
Facebook released a new quarterly earnings report, and it’s a golden one
Facebook Live is going to be huge (and we’ll tell you why)
Facebook releases new powerful Live video filters (they’re pretty cool!)
There are new call-to-action button options for Facebook pages
The company’s expanding its ad network to Apple TV and beyond
Brands can now promote their chatbots with Facebook ads
It’s time to start preparing for holidays, especially if you’ve got some cool Facebook campaigns in mind
Keep reading to get the full reporting on each of these topics!
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.”
Facebook Live is going to be BIG, and it’s a great time to start to learn more about its broad possibilities.
Read more: The Marketer’s Guide to Real-time Broadcasting with Facebook Live Video
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, check out this video.
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.
For the full coverage on Facebook’s new Live video filters, see this article.
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.
(Yol first need to have an account of one these services for the users to be able to book appointments with you via Facebook.)
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
! The rollout of the new CTA buttons begins in the US, so you may not have all of the options yet.
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
As reported by AdWeek on November 8, Facebook is further integrating chatbots into the plat