Last year saw continued growth and innovation in social media opportunities for brands with new features, content formats and dynamic creative capabilities designed to bring brands closer to their customers. For social marketers, a successful strategy involves tapping into audiences in compelling ways that can grab attention in passing moments.

Facebook and Snapchat launched new immersive formats, including augmented reality. Pinterest and Instagram ramped up shoppable post capabilities. Machine learning powers an ever-growing slate of platform functions. Here’s the rundown of top features and formats social marketers should explore in 2020.

Facebook

Groups. Over the last few years, Facebook has been pushing hard to beef up its community-driven Groups feature, opening it to brands and publishers in 2017 and with a suite of settings and tools specifically for Groups creators. By July 2018, Facebook rolled out Watch Party for all Groups, a video feature that allows multiple users to watch and comment on the same video in a Facebook Group simultaneously. The following month, Facebook opened up its ads pixel to a limited number of Groups, and said it was planning a broader roll-out in the coming weeks.

It didn’t come as a surprise when, in early 2019, Facebook announced that it would make “Groups” a central focus of its platform. After overhauling the Groups tab with a redesign and a new slate of features, Facebook Groups saw tremendous growth in 2019, with users able to discover more relevant content, more easily. The Groups tab now shows a personalized feed of activity across all of your groups, and the discovery tool touts improved recommendations to let users quickly find groups of interest.

Facebook Groups offer an opportunity for brands willing to put the time and effort into building out a community via the platform. Not only do Facebook Groups provide direct engagement with followers, but they give brands using them more exposure on the app with posts and discussions from Groups visible in News Feed.

Messenger ads. Facebook originally launched Messenger ads in 2016, but the ad product has since undergone a series of upgrades and improvements that will make it a valuable channel in 2020. Messenger ads work like ads across other Facebook platforms to automatically deliver ads to the placement most likely to drive campaign results at the lowest cost. The best part? Advertisers can use the same creative for Messenger that’s already being used for Facebook and Instagram. Audiences will see these ads in the Chats tab in their Messenger app. When they tap on an ad, they’ll be sent to a detailed view within Messenger with a call-to-action that will take them to the destination you chose during ads creation—whether that’s your site, app, or a conversation with your business.

Click to Messenger ads. In October, Facebook released a new feature that allows advertisers to use Stories ads to start conversations in Messenger. Users can swipe up on Stories ads that have a “Send Message” call to action to start a conversation with the business in Messenger without leaving the app they’re in. And for businesses with multiple Facebook apps connected to the Messenger platform, the company is made it easier to select which app they want to use for their Click to Messenger ads. As social platforms and usage patterns trend to a more personalized, messaging experience, brands focused on one-on-one communication with consumers will have an advantage over the competition and a better chance at attracting a loyal following.

Instant Experience ads. Formerly known as Canvas ads, these full-screen takeover ads load instantly and are mobile-optimized, designed to capture the full attention of the audience. Within Instant Experience, users can watch engaging videos and photos, swipe through carousels, tilt to pan, and explore lifestyle images with tagged products all in a single ad experience. Facebook last year also added new metrics for Instant Experiences in Ads Manager: Instant Experiences Clicks to Open, Instant Experiences Clicks to Start and Instant Experiences Outbound Clicks. The new metrics give advertisers more insight into the key “drop-off” points within an ad and are available to campaigns implementing Instant Experiences and Lead Ads.

Dynamic ad formats. Dynamic Ads, launched in 2019, are Facebook’s machine-learning ad unit that delivers a personalized version of the ad to everyone who sees it, based on which ad types they are most likely to respond to. The format is available for any campaign that uses objectives for catalog sales, traffic, and conversions. According to a Facebook test, Dynamic Ads delivered an average of 34% improvement in incremental ROAS, 10% improvement in lift, and 6% lower cost per incremental purchase compared to carousel-only ads.

Creator Studio. Facebook originally launched the Creator Studio in 2018 as a centralized hub for publishers and creators managing video content. In 2019, the tool underwent a series of updates and improvements to help support brand and partnered monetization efforts. Enhancements to the Creator Studio included a dedicated Monetization Overview section, new audience and retention insights, and the ability to now manage Instagram posts and IGTV from within the Creator Studio. The tool itself gives marketers a one-stop-shop to post, schedule posts, manage, monetize, and measure content across Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts. Page admins will be able to schedule video content on the Instagram platforms up to six months in advance via the Creator Studio, and Facebook reports it is working on new drafting features for videos published to the Instagram Feed and IGTV. It’s likely that the Creator Studio will continue rolling out updates to support individuals and brands managing content video across Facebook properties.

Instagram

Story ads. It’s been more than two years since Instagram first rolled out Story Ads, and the ad format has been a big win for the company, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claiming that more than three million advertisers were running Story Ads across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. And, according to a report from Kenshoo, Instagram Story Ads accounted for nearly 20% of ad spend on the platform during the second quarter of 2019. It’s no surprise Story Ads are performing well — Instagram reports 500 million accounts are using Stories on its platform. One-third of the most viewed Stories come from businesses, while 1 in 5 Stories are generated via direct message from viewers. In October 2019, Instagram confirmed it was experimenting with increasing the ad load in Stories, not surprising considering the activity Stories are generating.

Shoppable posts. Instagram first debuted its Checkout feature in March 2019, giving online retailers a more seamless way to connect with customers. The feature allows users to make purchases from in-feed or Story content without leaving the app. It works with Shopping on Instagram, enabling businesses to tag up to five products per image (or twenty products per carousel). The tags contain product details and pricing, giving shoppers a smoother path to purchase, and brands the ability to creatively showcase shoppable products. To create shoppable posts, businesses will need to create a Facebook Shop account to link to Instagram.

IGTV. In 2018, Instagram launched IGTV as a hub for watching and creating long-form video content, with a direct connection to the Instagram platform. Unlike Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, IGTV content occupies a permanent home on the platform, offering the ability to record videos up to an hour long. IGTV videos are largely vertical – and watching them feels similar to watching a Stories feed, giving video creators more opportunities to capture engaged audiences.

While there is a standalone app for IGTV, the majority of users access it on Instagram through either the IGTV tab or the “Explore” tab, which more than half a billion users visit every month, according to Instagram.

Twitter

Hide replies to tweets. In November, Twitter began testing the ability for users to hide tweet replies – an effort to provide users with more control over managing conversations. Users can opt to hide replies to the tweets they create. However, users can still see and engage with hidden replies by selecting the “View hidden replies” option in the Tweet’s dropdown. For brands, the ability to hide Tweet replies could help give them more control over the context of their engagements – such as weeding out spam replies. On the other hand, hiding all replies could have a negative impact for users who rely on replies to find out more information about the product or topic discussed.

Revival of Lists. The longstanding Twitter feature underwent a series of upgrades in 2019, including a new Lists look (courtesy of the platform’s redesign in July), the option to follow specific topics as Lists, and the addition of a shortcut tab for Lists on the mobile app. Twitter said it plans to continue improving Lists in 2020 – an indication that the feature is becoming a core component of Twitter’s social offering. For marketers, the revamped Lists feature offers the ability to build and engage with a curated feed of content, created from specific topics or interests. Brands on Twitter can use Lists to curate community-driven conversations, keep tabs on competitors and stay up-to-date on industry trends.

Video focus. In April 2018, Twitter attributed more than half of its ad revenue to video ads. In 2019, Twitter reported that video ad formats continue to be its fastest-growing ad format. Twitter rolled out a new video ad bidding option in August, giving advertisers the option to run video ads up to 15-seconds long and only pay for ads viewed for a full six-seconds with pixels at 50% in-view. Twitter calls it a “flexible option for advertisers who care about the completed view metric, but are ready to… develop short-form assets optimized for in-feed viewing.”

The platform has also made sure creators and publishers are able to maximize video efforts with new tools and offerings to help drive performance. The “Timing is Everything” tool, launched in March, shows an aggregate view of when users are watching an account’s videos. In April, Twitter announced exclusive media partnerships with a handful of news and entertainment organizations (Univision, MTV, Wall Street Journal – among others) to bring more video content to the platform and attract video advertisers. The media partners were hard at work on Twitter in 2019, creating video content for news, tech, politics, music and sports – all aimed at appealing to a wide spectrum of brands.

Snapchat

Augmented reality (AR). Snap has been an AR leader among social platforms, getting marketers to consider AR in their strategies. At its annual partner summit in April, Snapchat rolled out significant creative updates to support new AR experiences. The company introduced enhanced AR capabilities, including dynamic scanning, improved movement tracking, interactive templates via Lens Studio, landmark manipulation, and object scanning. By October 2019, the company reported that its daily active users (DAU) interact with AR features nearly 30 times every day, on average.

If that isn’t enough to pique your interest in the platform’s AR capabilities, Snapchat has acquired AI Factory – the computer vision startup that Snapchat collaborated with on its recently launched ‘Cameos’ video mode. It’s likely AI Factory technology will be used in developing more interactive features and creative tools for Snapchat users and marketers.

Paramount Picture recently created an AR-driven UGC campaign with Snapchat’s Cameos feature. As AR becomes more established, first-mover brands will be a step ahead in driving deeper engagements with audiences.

Dynamic ads. As with the dynamic ad capabilities of Facebook, Google, and Pinterest, Snapchat’s Dynamic Ads option reduces the amount of time and effort it takes to create and maintain product ads. In October 2019, Snapchat began testing the dynamic format, which automatically creates and updates product ads to run on the app. Dynamic ads are available in a wide array of templates for retail, e-commerce and DTC brands to upload their product catalogs to the platform. As product details such as price or availability are updated, Dynamic Ads adjust accordingly. Snapchat’s Dynamic Ads give the platform room to elbow its way into social commerce ad budgets that are largely allocated to Facebook and Instagram. For commerce advertisers targeting younger audiences, Snapchat’s dynamic ads are particularly appealing, as Gen Z and Millennials account for more than 75% of users aged 13 to 34.

YouTube

Original content. YouTube lifted its Premium paywall on original content in May, making YouTube Original series, movies, and live events free with ads to all viewers. Soon after, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that more than half of digital video ad spend in 2019 would come from video ads featuring original content. While video is, without question, a highly effective format, advertisers should also embrace the idea of creating original video content that caters to the varied interests of their brand’s audience. YouTube aside, the industry’s continued investment in original content proves that it can do what stock or mass-produced content can’t – which is deliver deeper value for engaged consumers interested in the brand’s offering.

15-second non-skippable ads. YouTube made its 15-second non-skippable video ads available to all advertisers at the beginning of 2019. Before that, the ad unit was only open to advertisers buying through the YouTube reservation process and its premium Google Preferred network. In addition to the classic TruView ad unit, the option to buy traditional, non-skippable ads can be valuable for branding and reach and for advertisers who want to re-purpose existing creative designed for television and other non-skippable environments. With more viewers turning to the big screen TV to stream content through YouTube and other services, the non-skippable ad unit gives advertisers a simple path to target eyeballs at home from the living room.

Intelligent ad tools. In an effort to make advertising easier and more accessible to a broader range of advertisers, YouTube last year rolled out a range of machine learning-powered tools to do just that. Google made Discovery ad inventory (the native ads that appear in Google feed environments) available to advertisers on YouTube. With the Discovery ad unit, advertisers can upload individual creative assets, which Google then uses to churn out ad combinations based on the desired outcome.

YouTube also put machine learning to the test with an intelligent video ad editing tool dubbed the Bumper Machine. The tool automatically creates six-second bumper ads from existing video ads that run 90-seconds or less. It identifies well-structured clips in longer videos and converts them into multiple six-second video ads. For advertisers with limited resources, YouTube’s continued investment in intuitive, self-serve ad tools makes it easier to create and deploy visual campaigns across the platform.

Pinterest

Visual search. Pinterest has been on a slow journey to bring more e-commerce capabilities to its platform, but its new deep learning-powered visual search tool, launched in June, gives brands a major opportunity to be seen by consumers on their discovery journey. Dubbed “Complete The Look,” the tool makes it possible for the platform to recommend fashion and home decor products based on the context and attributes of all objects within an image a user searches for or saves. As a result, retail brands can gain more exposure on Pinterest as users browse for looks to aesthetically complement their initial search.

Catalogs. In March, Pinterest announced a new way to showcase products with the launch of Catalogs, allowing brands to upload multiple product images, organize the products by category and turn the images into dynamic Product Pins. ‘Catalogs’ makes it possible for merchants to create a full product catalog on the site as long as they have claimed a domain on Pinterest. Catalogs can then be used to generate product Pins in bulk and organize the Pins by product groups. After the launch of Catalogs, Pinterest added dedicated sections for products from specific retailers, giving shoppers the opportunity to see more from certain brands.

Self-serve shopping ads. Pinterest made Shopping Ads available via Ads Manager in August, giving advertisers the ability to launch Shopping campaigns via the self-serve interface. With shopping ads, marketers are also able to tag products from ‘Shop the Look‘ posts to create shoppable Product Pins. The company said the ad format was inspired by its organic Shop the Look pins, which rolled out in 2018 to give businesses the ability to tag up to 25 items in a single image.

TikTok

E-commerce capabilities. The short-form video app started testing shoppable video posts in 2019, making it possible for influencers on the platform to place social commerce URLs within posts. TikTok officially confirmed the test to Adweek in November, but did not disclose details on when it would receive a wider roll-out. In 2020, advertisers should be aware that e-commerce opportunities will be coming to TikTok, and should consider if the platform’s short-lived content model could be valuable to the brand’s retail consumers. TikTok entering the social commerce space proves the platform is entertaining more ways to appeal to the commercial interests of creators and potential advertisers. With more than 500 million global users, TikTok is still largely an untapped e-commerce market of Gen Z shoppers – but likely won’t be for long.

Ephemeral video content. On the note of TikTok’s content model: Creating snackable, short-form content doesn’t mean recycling campaign video assets and uploading them to the platform. Where traditional video content uses a heavy production hand, ephemeral forms of video don’t have that requirement – meaning brands can readily create low-budget, high-value content with an entertainment angle for younger audiences. While TikTok isn’t the first app to make a successful business model from short-lived video creations, the app has seen enormous growth over the last year – exceeding more than 1.5 billion downloads globally. That makes TikTok the third most downloaded non-gaming app of the year, behind WhatsApp (707 million installs) and Messenger (636 million). It ranks just above Facebook, which claims 587 million downloads, and Instagram, with 376 million. As TikTok continues to grow its presence in the U.S. market, social media marketers should be prepared for the next wave of ephemeral content.

More ways to share video. TikTok released its first software development kit (SDK) in November, allowing users to upload video content to the TikTok platform through third-party apps. The “Share to TikTok” SDK i’s the first kit the company introduced in its TikTok for Developers program. The SDK includes tools to help third-party apps and developers integrate with TikTok, allowing users to simply “Share to TikTok” from the editing panel of their favorite apps. TikTok named Adobe Premiere Rush as an initial integration partner, giving users the ability to edit using Adobe’s rich features and share instantly to TikTok. For marketers, the SDK brings more engagement to the video-sharing platform with a more accessible, one-click posting experience.

Social platforms and third-party apps seemingly rise and fall overnight, making it difficult for brands to adapt to the evolving landscape and develop targeted, platform-specific content. Consequently, brands often struggle to allocate their resources strategically and purposefully. Strategies that may have been successful in 2018 are already obsolete for 2019. The same will be said for 2020 and beyond.

So exactly where are social ad initiatives falling short? And what can brands do to address these shortcomings? Here are a few common pitfalls we see across channels.

Targeting in all the wrong ways

Brands often overlap their prospecting and retargeting efforts, delivering irrelevant messages for new and existing customers alike. This wastes dollars and delivers messages to the wrong consumers at the wrong time. Conversely, some campaigns don’t have a targeted audience at all. Without a clear sense of their audience or objectives, brands tend to struggle with purposeful targeting. In one audit of a new partner, we observed a previous campaign where ads were served to over 240 million people without any identified target audience.

We’ve seen brands also target such a small audience they cannot reach their campaign target goals. Striking a balance between strategic targeting and audience size is a critical skill that brands need to master in order to optimize the reach and ROI of any social campaign.

Creating and delivering content

Creating the right, engaging content can be a hurdle. For example, an outdoor cooking equipment manufacturer posted social ads that showcase food instead of actual products. While food is an engaging image – especially for people scrolling Pinterest – it’s ineffective in establishing a brand identity or product portfolio with potential prospects.

Social video content is often a compelling and effective sales and engagement driver. Despite that, we often find video content is often low quality or even non-existent. In 2019 we saw an explosion in video performance, even with the decline in Facebook’s accessible inventory. There are ways to reduce production costs and still develop high-quality content. Consider free creative services platforms that produce fantastic results or minimize the length of higher-budget videos to reduce production costs.

With the total number of global social platform users to rise to over 3.09 billion by 2021, and with an average of 136 minutes spent on social each day in 2018, advertising success is dependent upon strategic social investment.

Brands will continue to miss significant opportunities unless they look ahead to the emerging trends and technologies that will drive social success in the future. Regardless of which platform becomes the next big thing, remember to always target with purpose, define audiences strategically and develop impactful content.

Pro Tip is a special feature for marketers in our community to share a specific tactic others can use to elevate their performance. You can submit your own here.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Zenith, a media agency owned by Publicis Media, predicts global social media ad spend will grow 20% this year, reaching $84 billion. According to Zenith’s data, social media advertising will account for 13% of total global ad spend and rank as the third-largest advertising channel, behind TV and paid search.

2019 will be the first year that social media ad spend outperforms print ad spend, says Zenith, with newspaper and magazine ads generating less than $69 billion this year.

SMBs and digital brands driving social ad growth. Zenith attributes the growth across social media ad channels to SMBs shifting and adding budgets in order to take advantage of the targeting and localization capabilities offered by platforms like Facebook.

“Small businesses in the U.S. are spending heavily on social media and paid search, and are fueling much of the global growth of these channels,” writes Zenith.

Facebook reported last Friday that it estimates more than 140 million businesses are currently using its family of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp) every month, “To find new customers, hire employees or engage with their communities.” During the company’s first quarter earnings report call earlier this year, COO Sheryl Sandberg said that Facebook’s top 100 advertisers accounted for less than 20% of the company’s ad revenue. “Our advertiser base is more diverse compared to the same period over last year,” said Sandberg in April, backing up Zenith’s theory that the surge in social media ad spend is a direct result of SMB ad investments.

Zenith expects social ad spend growth to level-out over the coming years. “It’s growth is slowing as it matures,” writes Zenith. The company reports social media ad spend growth will slow from 20% this year to 17% in 2020 and 13% in 2021.

Paid search ad spend tops social. The ad targeting capabilities offered by social networks is enough to help push social into the top three ad channels, but it still falls behind paid search. According to Zenith’s report, paid search ads will take in $107 billion in 2019 and own 17% of global ad spend. This is the first year paid search ads are expected to generate more than $100 billion globally, up 8% from last year.

TV accounts for 29% of global ad spend. TV remains the top-ranking ad channel but is losing momentum. Zenith reports TV ad spend is suffering from “shrinking ratings in key markets,” and that the total spend on TV ads will decline by $2 billion during the next three years, dropping from $182 billion this year to $180 billion in 2021.

Why we should care. Zenith’s forecasts are based on its own client data (historical ad spend across channels, future budget plans, price negotiations with media owners) combined with local media market conditions and competitor campaign analysis. The media agency’s data underscores how traditional advertising is losing its footing, while digital channels continue to pull more ad dollars from SMBs and brands aiming to reach nicheaudience.

By offering sophisticated targeting capabilities and unparalleled reach for businesses of all sizes, social and search platforms have chipped away at traditional advertising sources.

Social media by its very nature is fast, bi-directional communication, but many companies are plagued with social media policies that hinder agility. Is your social media policy agile? If not, it’s time to jump into modern marketing and have your brand be part of a conversation, not a pushed message.

An agile marketing company uses social media to have one-on-one conversations with customers, and social media policies must encourage, not discourage this type of rapport.

Social media turnaround times are critical

A recent client I worked with reported that before starting agile marketing, its social media policy requires at least 10 separate approvers and 10 to 12 revisions on messaging for any social media campaign to go live.

They soon realized by the time they got their social messages approved, it was too late. Messages were outdated, irrelevant or didn’t add much value.

The other big problem was the approval process made it impossible for them to have any real dialogue with customers on social media.

Traditionally, social media policies were put into place to protect the company from bad publicity. But In a world where brand relationships mean everything, we need to be willing to take on a little more PR risk or we’re faced with something even riskier – our customers going elsewhere.

Empower the team to respond quickly to customers

Social media is by its very nature meant to be two-way communication and its critical that even large, regulated companies are able to trust and empower people to react and respond in real time.

If employees are required to get approvals, communication is delayed and customers will feel ignored and under-valued.

So, what’s a reasonable turnaround time for companies to respond on social media? According to HubSpot, 80 percent of customers expect companies to respond to social media posts within 24 hours. In fact, 50 percent of customers claim they would cease business with a company that fails to respond to a negative social media post. And 62 percent of customers are influenced enough by negative social media comments on a brand that they would cease business with them.

KLM Airlines has some of the best social media response times in the industry since 2014, which has helped them to build better relationships with their customers, according to Econsultancy.  The airline goes above and beyond by allowing customers to tweet lost items directly to the company. A staff member then picks it up off the plane and brings it to them – quick, easy, and a much better way to keep customers happy.

Gap has an interesting social media policy that recognizes mistakes can happen. They simply state, “If you #!%#@# up? Correct it immediately and be clear about what you’ve done to fix it. Contact the social media team if it’s a real doozy.”

Bring legal closer to your team

If you can’t give 100 percent control to your social media team and still require legal sign off, then the next best thing is bringing your legal department to your team.

If legal involvement is needed on a daily basis, having a person from legal as a regular part of your agile team is imperative. This person should attend daily stand ups and be aware of any social media content that may need to be approved that day. She should also be available in real-time for any negative responses from customers that the team needs to immediately address.

If your legal needs are more sporadic, it may be overkill to have a legal representative on your team, but he should be a dotted line team member. This means accessible and available to the team when needed, but not a regular contributor to the team’s work.

Regardless of which structure suits you best, if legal counsel must be part of your social media policy, you need to be closely aligned on response times and the cadence in which your team operates.

If you have a legal team that is used to responding to all of the company, a better structure in agile marketing is to have a representative affiliated with teams. Depending on how often they are needed, it may be a 1:1 relationship or 1-to-several.

Put customers first

While social media policies began as ways to protect the company and controlling how we respond, we need to loosen the reigns and take into account the risk of not being there for our customers. It’s time to focus on relationships with our customers and tearing down the guard rails we’ve put up during the last decade.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Social media is a living organism. Things change all the time. They change in response to developers’ ideas, user requests, scandals, politics and the rise of social awareness. People behind social media networks never sleep. They test new features, algorithms, ads and designs. They are doing their best to keep you attached to your phone, even though one would assume it’s literally impossible to spend more time on social media than we do already.

For marketers, it’s vital to stay up-to-date with how social media develops. Every feature and every update might become crucial to us. Then again, it might not. Alot about social media is pointlessly hyped up and has no real significance. So it’s also important to filter out the noise and stay aware of just the things that might affect your marketing campaigns, your paid and organic reach, and your choice of social network.

This is the post of such updates. We’re only half-way through 2019, but as you’ll see, there’s been enough changes to start reinventing your social media marketing strategy because more are rolling out all the time.

Google

First, as of April 2019, Google is gone. All profiles and pages are deleted. I am sure you know that but it’s something that couldn’t have been left out of the list of social media updates.

Google explained that they decided to close down the network “due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations.

I bet you don’t care since you never used it in the first place. I am with you on that.

TikTok

In case you’re not 100% sure what this is, TikTok is a video-sharing app that evolved from Musical.ly in 2017. In China, it’s branded as Douyin. The app lets users create and share 15-second videos. It’s something like Vine used to be. Right now, the app boasts more than 500 million users, particularly among younger users. Kids and teenagers make short skits, lip-sync, create cringe-inducing videos and cooking instructables.

This year, TikTok dived into advertising. Just like the big guys, they now have interest-based targeting, custom audience and pixel tracking, as well as age, gender, location, network and operating system targeting. 

TikTok marketing campaigns were getting popular even before the ads were out. It’s only logical that the platform marketing usage is about to blow up.

Facebook

Through scandals, scandals, and more scandals, a lot has changed the way Facebook works this year. And even more things are about to change. Let’s go through the most significant updates.

Custom Ads become more transparent

In the spirit of transparency, Facebook decided to let users know more about why they are targeted by a specific Facebook Ad.

The “Why am I seeing this?” explanation now includes the name of the business that uploaded the user’s information to Facebook, potential involvement from agencies, Facebook Marketing Partners or other partners and any other sharing of custom audiences that may have taken place.

You can also see all active Ads a page is running in Ad library, which allows you to discover what your competitors are up to in terms of Facebook advertising.

testing with ads in News Feed and Marketplace search results. Yet, marketers point out that Facebook is unlikely to give its users much control over sharing their data – after all, that’s how the company is making money.

Targeting for certain ads is restricted

In pursuing the noble goal to fight discrimination, Facebook restricted targeting options for some companies. Housing, employment and credit ads can no longer be targeted by age, race or gender. Facebook explained that these changes came as the result of settlement agreements with civil rights organizations and will help protect people from discrimination.

Changes in the News Feed algorithm

Apart from Mark’s goal to make Facebook transparent but not too transparent, there’s also another one: to make the social media platform more like a “living room.” This is why we’re seeing the 2019 algorithm update that prioritizes close friends.

Facebook knows how close you are with your friends (in fact, it knows much more). The social media network analyzes what you have in common with the person and how you interact to determine whose posts you care about the most. Here’s what they have to say about the algorithm update:

“We look at the patterns that emerge from the results, some of which include being tagged in the same photos, continuously reacting and commenting on the same posts and checking-in at the same places — and then use these patterns to inform our algorithm. This direct feedback helps us better predict which friends people may want to hear from most.”

However, there’s also another update to the algorithm by prioritizing certain Pages and Groups.

Turns out, even though people behind Facebook (robots behind Facebook?) genuinely want you to feel surrounded by friends and relatives on the platform, they also don’t mind you seeing some Business Pages and Groups – as long as you’re truly interested in their information and will click on the links. That’s how Facebook puts it:

“Similar to the above update, we use these responses to identify signs that someone might find a link worth their time. We then combine these factors with information we have about the post, including the type of post, who it’s from and the engagement it’s received, to more accurately predict whether people are likely to find a link valuable.”

Video algorithm updated

Videos weren’t left unnoticed by Facebook. Since the beginning of May, three factors impact video rankings:

• Loyalty and intent: videos that people seek out and return to are prioritized.
• Video viewing duration: videos that capture the user’s attention for at least one minute are prioritized.
• Originality: unoriginal and repurposed content will be limited, as well as the content of the Pages involved in the sharing schemes.
• Length: longer (three minutes or more) videos are favored. 

New tools for small businesses introduced

Recently Facebook announced new tools that are meant to simplify the management and promotion of small businesses on Facebook.

Automated Ads

Automated Ads allow you to create a marketing plan for your business in no time and effort on your side. All you have to do is answer a few questions about your business and your goals, and the tool will create up to six different versions of your ad, provide tailored audience suggestions, recommend a budget and send you timely notifications about your ad.

Appointments management

This feature lets customers book a business’s service through Facebook and Instagram. You can also send appointment reminders, customize your business menu of services, display availability, and manage appointments from your business page.  All your appointment can be synced up with your calendar or another appointment management tool.

Video editing tools

Facebook videos also got a bunch of editing additions:

• Automatic cropping
• Video trimming
• Image and text overlays
• Single image templates
• New fonts
• New stickers and templates for seasonal ads
• Creating multiple videos with various aspect ratios for the news feed and stories from one

New ways to manage notifications are introduced

While it doesn’t seem like a big thing, Facebook notifications used to play a significant role in user experience as well as in marketing practices. Marketers preferred Facebook Groups to Facebook pages, Live videos to recorded videos, and made other little tricks so that users would get notifications of their activity. 

Now, however, things have changed. You can clear and mute all push notifications and also choose whether you want to see Notification Dots and for which categories.

Facebook cryptocurrency is announced

In June Facebook officially announced Calibra, a new Facebook subsidiary for financial services, and its first project Libra cryptocurrency along with a digital wallet.

The announcement on the topic says that the aim is to enable money transfers for “almost anyone with a smartphone, as easily and instantly as a text message and at a low to no cost.” It also points out that Calibra is a separate entity from Facebook, which means that Facebook won’t have access to your financial data if you use Libra.

Yet, Facebook faces many challenges trying to become a part of the financial sector, and it’s too early to predict whether it will overcome them.

Instagram

Brands can promote sponsored posts from influencers

On Instagram, you can now turn a sponsored post of your influencer into an ad with a notation that says, “Paid partnership with XX.” This allows brands to set ad targeting for the posts of their influencers. The feature will require some setup for both the brand and the influencer.

Other Instagram updates didn’t make our top list, but are worth looking at if your marketing circles around this platform specifically.

Twitter 

Twitter rolled out a new desktop design. It has more customization options and is generally very different from what it used to be. The biggest change is that the top navigation bar has been moved to the left sidebar. It contains bookmarks, lists, your profile, and a new explore tab. Direct messages have also changed: they now show conversations and sent messages in the same window. You also get more options for themes and color schemes. Twitter ArtHouse also recently launched to give brands more access to creators and influencers.

a number of important updates:

Lookalike audiences

LinkedIn now combines your image of a customer persona with the data from LinkedIn to find your target audience. It finds people that are similar to the ones that have already shown an interest in your brand: for example, they’ve opened your website.

Interest targeting

LinkedIn interest targeting was introduced in January 2019, and it was recently updated to include Bing integration. Now the social network targets users based on “a combination of your audience’s professional interests on LinkedIn and the professional topics and content your audience engages with through Microsoft’s Bing search engine, in a way that respects member privacy.”

Audience templates

Templates provide any user with a selection of over 20 predefined B2B audiences. They include audience characteristics, such as member skills, job titles, groups and so on. The feature will definitely be helpful to beginner marketers.

New post reactions

promote their products using Shopping Ads.

Conclusion

These were the most significant social media updates of 2019 so far. Hopefully, you’ll be able to adjust your strategy to these updates and even benefit from some of them. 

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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About The Author

SEO PowerSuite, professional software for full-cycle SEO campaigns, and Awario, a social media monitoring app. He is a seasoned SEO expert and speaker at major industry conferences, including 2018’s SMX London, BrightonSEO and SMX East.