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Got a minute? Check out our quick update on a recent Facebook announcement.
Facebook is shifting its goal of helping people find relevant content to a new mission: helping people have more meaningful social interactions. What does this mean for your news feed? Less content from businesses and more content from friends, family, and groups. Facebook says this change will reduce the reach of business pages across the platform, particularly posts that are unpaid or “organic”.
Was your New Year's resolution to focus on improving your marketing strategy? Are you considering expanding your strategy into social media? You should! Today, we want to dive into a few benefits of social media for your brand.
Got a minute? This week's Marketing Minute is all about Facebook's new content penalization announcement.
Earlier this week, Facebook announced that they will penalize Page owners who ask for post engagement through certain calls-to-action (CTAs), such as "Like this post if you agree" or "Share with a friend for a chance to win". Facebook calls these types of posts "engagement bait" — encouraging followers to engage on a post in order to increase reach. In their announcement, Facebook warns that brands who use this tactic will have the total reach of all of their posts reduced. This new penalty, however, will not apply to posts that "ask people for help, advice, or recommendations, such as circulating a missing child report, raising money for a cause, or asking for travel tips."
Got a minute? Check out our quick update on what's happening in the industry.
Facebook’s “Our Story”
Facebook has added a new section called “Our Story” to the right-hand column of business profiles. It gives businesses the ability to add an additional picture and highlight the company’s story on the home page. When this update went live, Facebook automatically chose a picture for the Story that performed well in the past, but feel free to update it as you see fit.
Sometimes it can seem like using social media is like walking on eggshells. You want to be personal, professional, on brand, fun and exciting, all while keeping your audience engaged. Do you share pictures of your dog? Maybe. Do you only talk about the product or service you offer? Definitely not.
Got a minute? Check out our marketing update from the week -- all about Instagram!
Instagram Stories
Instagram's latest feature allows users to pin their favorite Instagram Stories to their profile. Instead of saying good-bye to the content after 24-hours, you can now pin it to your Instagram page directly below your Instagram bio.
Got a minute? Check out our quick update on what's new in the industry.
Instagram
Instagram is testing out a new function that would allow users to follow specific hashtags in addition to profiles. Related posts would appear in the home feed based on the hashtags a user follows. Instagram hasn’t announced yet when or if we’ll see this function rolled out to everyone.
Our Take:
- We think this feature is a great move for brands, particularly those with branded hashtags. Having your audience follow your hashtag directly could go a long way towards building community and engagement.
- The ability to follow hashtags could also be beneficial for brands and marketers to track certain industry-related hashtags and see how people are using them.
Got a minute? Check out our quick update on what’s new in the industry.
YouTube
Currently, YouTube creators have the option of promoting their other videos or livestreams through suggested links that pop up mid-clip, but not for long. YouTube announced they'll be getting rid of these links on December 14th and they were very straight-forward about the reason why: no one clicks on them. The company claims that cards and end-screen video links are much more effective.
Got a minute? Check out our quick update on what's new in the industry.
Instagram
Instagram quietly released a color-matching tool for Stories users recently. You may have noticed the teardrop-shaped tool appear the bottom left corner when you’re adding text to a Story. By dragging the tool around your image, you can pick out an existing color in your image to write or draw with. Sticking to the coordinating colors theme, Instagram also updated the look of the “Learn More” bar that appears at the bottom of Instagram ads. The bar now appears in a color that coordinates with the ad image. Unlike the Stories color-matching tool, though, users don’t yet have control of choosing which color will appear.
Got a minute? Check out our quick update on what's happening in the industry.
Facebook
Facebook Ads Manager is rolling out split-test options to all advertisers this month. Facebook will give users the ability to run A/B testing on different creative formats and then provide data on the results. To further help pinpoint effective ads, they're also adding a new feature called "Test and Learn" which helps advertisers answer certain questions about their ads' effectiveness.
Here's what Facebook has to say about the function: "Test and Learn answers your toughest marketing questions and pinpoints the strategies that drive the best results for your business. Simply identify a question you want to answer, such as "Which campaign causes the lowest cost conversions to occur?" or "How many conversions are all of my Facebook ads causing?" and Test and Learn will determine which test you should run to answer your question."
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