Facebook logo - latest updates to Facebook

Facebook has been under a lot of scrutiny lately. While most of their time has been dedicated to dealing with issues in regards to privacy, transparency and security, its developers have managed to put out a few new updates.

Although the platform is constantly changing and adapting, we highlight a few of the latest updates to Facebook that we think are the most important for Facebook advertisers.

Facebook Considering Hiding Like Count

You may have noticed a change to your Instagram feed a few months ago — In an effort to improve user well-being, Instagram removed the like count in 7 countries across the world. The thought process behind this was to bring the platform back to its early days of being more about the content and less about popularity. Now it seems that the developers are achieving the results they hoped for and are looking to expand this change to Facebook as well.

This change poses an interesting question for social media advertisers on whether the amount of likes on a post influences users’ decisions and buying habits. Facebook has confirmed they are considering this change, however, no official trial start date has been determined.

Highlighting Stories From Pages

Although the Stories feature on Facebook hasn’t taken off as developers had originally hoped, it is starting to pick up in popularity and is now at 500 million users daily.

Recently, developers began testing a feature that places stories from pages, including business pages, in a new in-feed panel. The Stories panel is already located at the top of a user’s feed, and this added Page Stories panel will highlight branded stories even more, offering a great opportunity for promotion.

New Business Tools for Messenger

Messenger interactions have become increasingly more important for brands as people take their queries and comments from phone calls and in-person to messaging platforms. Messaging platforms offer ease of use and even sometimes, instantaneous answers with the use of bots. Bot technology has improved exponentially over the last few years and will only continue to grow.

Facebook has announced the following updates to its business tools for messenger:

Lead Generation Flows

As explained by Facebook,
“This new template within Facebook Ads Manager enables businesses to create automated experiences to help qualify leads within Messenger. Businesses can continue the conversation with prospects directly in Messenger and integrate with existing CRM tools to seamlessly track leads.”

Appointment Booking

This update will allow businesses to integrate calendar booking software directly into their messenger bot response flow.

“With this feature, businesses can convert Messenger conversations into in-store traffic, online and phone appointments, and more.”

 

As mentioned earlier, the platform is constantly changing and these are just a few of the latest updates to Facebook.

Are you having a hard time keeping up with changes to Facebook? Or not even sure where to start when it comes to social media marketing? Cloud9 Marketing can create and manage your social media campaigns with effective strategies that drive quality engagement. Learn more about our Social Media Marketing services here.