2019 Facebook updates were announced during the company’s annual F8 conference earlier this year. These included changes to the algorithm, the desktop layout and app design. Marketers can leverage these changes to benefit their brands, here’s how.
Two Major Facebook Updates Explained
Greater Focus on Groups
Facebook is placing greater emphasis on groups. This affects users in two ways, in newsfeed visibility and site layout. Marketers can leverage branded Facebook groups to build a community around a target audience and increase content visibility. Opportunities exist in combining existing best practices and the new tools available in groups.
Social Report has a great blog post explaining how brands can launch and grow communities using branded groups. Recommendations include keeping groups private because that creates a sense of exclusivity. According to Social Report, this, “entices new members, retains them, and keeps group secrets within the group, encouraging people to share more.” To read more, check out the entire post here.
Quality, Original Videos to Receive More Distribution
Facebook posted details about three factors that, “affect video distribution across Facebook, including News Feed, Facebook Watch and our “More Videos” recommendations.”
The factors are 1) loyalty and intent, 2) video and viewing durations and 3) originality. They are not new, but they now have a greater impact on content distribution than before. It’s important to note, marketers were previously encouraged to post at least 60-seconds of video and now Facebook is saying videos longer than 3-minutes are preferred.
In Conclusion
Marketers are always adapting their digital marketing to accommodate platform changes so the latest Facebook updates are nothing out of the ordinary. As brands begin leveraging these updates, we’ll likely see innovative content creation, for instance a new kind of video marketing that utilizes the longer format. For brands, the potential to reach a wider target audience and engage through groups is a very promising possibility. We look forward to expanding our Client’s reach using these new tools.
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