Video ads to launch on Facebook in coming months
Facebook is tentatively preparing the launch of its video ads service this autumn. Originally anticipated to launch in the summer, the social network has done extensive testing to try to find a suitable balance between customer experience and commercial opportunity. Users will only see one video advertiser per day, but may see up to three pieces of content from the advertiser over 24 hours.
Video ads are rumoured to be considerably expensive. According to executives familiar with the ads, there will be a daily charge of around $2 million (£1.3 million) if marketers want to leverage Facebook’s entire 18 – 54 population, with a lower charge for smaller segments of Facebook users.
Facebook muscling in on social television and contextual conversation
The beginning of September saw Facebook partially open its doors to selected news organisations. Their new tools, the Keyword Insights API and the Public Feed API, gives a small group of media partners access to demographic data from the entire Facebook population and specific posts from public profiles based on keyword searches.
Combined with the launch of the hashtag in June, Facebook is clearly indicating the intention of being a key player in the discussion of key news and live cultural events, as well as social television. However, the debate as to whether Facebook hashtags increase viral reach is inconclusive, with research suggesting that the hashtag does not make Facebook posts more viral.
Rules regarding promotions have changed, with lower barriers to entry
Restrictions have been removed by the platform, allowing brand pages to hold competitions and promotions without the use of third party apps. Therefore anybody that manages a Facebook page has the ability to trade various forms of engagement for competition entry.
Although this is another way for brands to increase engagement with fans, “this ease of use also means users could soon be facing a barrage of competitions, as smaller pages in particular continue to focus purely on ‘Likes’ as a measure of success
Facebook improves analytics tool
Over the summer, Facebook rolled out an improved analytics platform for Facebook Pages. As well as a change to aesthetics, the People Talking About This (PTAT) metric has been broken down into more digestible elements. As a result, Page Likes, People Engaged (clicks, likes, comments or shares of posts), Page Tags, Page Check-ins and others will be reported separately.
The Virality metric also received some changes. The benchmark often used for page post quality now includes clicks in its measurement. This helps to better inform marketers of the effectiveness of their posts. In addition to this, Facebook has changed the name of this metric to Engagement Rate, to add clarity to the suggested use of the measurement.
Ads Manager Reports receive updates
In a continued push to encourage marketers to spend more of their budget on the platform, Facebook released a number of updates to Ads Manager Reports. The changes allow account managers to have more control over what is included in their reports, thus making it easier to compare the data sets that are pertinent to their needs.
The new Ad Manager Reports platform also breaks down performance by age, gender, country or placement. This level of insight allows greater understanding into where, and with whom, ads and campaigns are performing best, thus allowing marketers to maximise the abilities of the platform for targeting content.
What are the general social media marketing trends
Social media is an integral part of the customer experience
Consumers are becoming increasingly accustomed to interacting with brands across a range of media, of which social media is one of them. As expectations continue to mount, brands will have to develop their ability to respond via social media, in accordance with their social strategy.
Organisations struggle to define success with regards to social
With the link between social media and business objectives still unclear in many organisations, many marketers still struggle to define what success looks like. Attempting to combine financial or commercial metrics with social engagement and influence continues to prove a challenge for many businesses.
Social media platforms are the place for personality
As well as using social for broadcasting information and handling customer queries, humanising brands has proved to be a popular way of using social media. Many brands have adopted a humorous and light-hearted personality, making themselves more approachable and helping to create various forms of engagement with followers and other brands.
Agility is key for killer social content
Brands are utilising the ability to communicate in real time to become more relevant. The ability to react to breaking news and current events instantly has enabled brands to create impromptu content. ‘Twitter Wars’ between brands often break out in spurts of competitive banter. However, care must be taken not to create content that can be perceived as offensive or inappropriate.
Social video gains traction with help from Facebook and Twitter
Facebook and Twitter’s social video platforms continue to gain momentum as more consumers embrace the short-form video apps. Whilst previous attempts from Viddy to create social video struggled to gain a critical mass of users, Video on Instagram and Vine have received a more welcoming reception. Consumers and brands have jumped on the platforms and while best practices have yet to emerge, creativity seems to be a key component.
