As of March 12, 2015, you may notice that your Facebook page has fewer likes. This is because Facebook is removing inactive Facebook account likes from your total.
“Inactive” Facebook accounts will include accounts that were deactivated by users, as well as memorialized accounts. While this doesn’t include removing spam accounts, it is certainly for the greater good. “True likes” are the only ones that will impact your business on Facebook.
While there are sure to be more developments announced at the Facebook Developer Conference (www.fbf8.com) later this month, here are a couple of trends we are keeping an eye on.
Native video is exploding.
Online video is a very big advertising medium right now, and Facebook is at the forefront. Native Facebook videos launched in March 2014. While it started off slowly, by June there were an average of one billion video views every day on Facebook. This opens up a new world of content for marketers to share on their pages. When you share video directly through Facebook, it appears larger than life in users’ newsfeeds – plus it starts auto playing (without sound) immediately. YouTube and Vimeo videos are being shared much less because they appear as a smaller thumbnail in users’ newsfeeds, and they have to be clicked to play. Of course, video can also be used as a “sponsored story” ad segment used to drive engagement. Check out RITTA’s recent foray in Facebook native video advertising: http://goo.gl/CV8guS.
Multi-product ads are gaining traction.
You’ve probably been noticing more multi-product ads from brands in your newsfeed. This ad type gives advertisers the ability to show multiple scrolling images and webpage links in a single sponsored story ad unit. Many brands are reporting tremendous success through these units, especially since you can also use them for retargeting. However, I’ll have to see how this evolves before I can strongly recommend it. Why? Honestly, it’s clunky. It’s a very basic carousel that needs to be more dynamic. Simply arranging it like an interesting grid, so the user can see multiple products at a glance, would help.
The good thing about Facebook is that it is always evolving. Let’s see what happens later this month.
