Amy Gesenhues says, “In case there was any doubt left, Facebook is serving notice that it’s super-serious about its video platform, Facebook Live. The company announced a set of new features to Facebook Live and, more importantly, says it’ll make Live one of the primary tabs in its mobile app — replacing the Messages icon. That Facebook would put Live video right alongside News Feed, Friend Requests and Notifications tells you how committed the company is to winning the live battle it’s fighting with Twitter/Periscope. In addition to moving Facebook Live front and center in its app,... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “It’s no secret that Facebook has been steadily building up its ad technology — directly challenging Google. These moves, coupled with the introduction of native ad formats that appear throughout Facebook’s mobile news feeds have propelled it past Google to become the leading seller of display advertising worldwide. The speed at which Facebook’s mobile ad offerings took off surprised analysts. In 2013, eMarketer’s projections had Google continuing to lead display advertising in the US through 2015. The firm’s updated estimates in 2015 paint a very different... [...]

Brad O’Brien says, “There are multiple ways you can structure a Facebook advertising account. What I’d like to share today is a tried-and-true method I’ve honed over the years. It’s a structure that we follow 100 percent of the time for our clients. At its core, it’s simple and logical, yet it is not how most advertisers are structuring their accounts on Facebook. It’s based upon the principle of isolating single objectives at the campaign level, which I’ll explain further in this post. An objective is a single goal you wish to hit for your organization. Maybe you want to... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “Get ready for video ads in your Facebook Instant Articles. With video having such popularity as of late, the social network has acknowledged that video advertisements are coming. As you may recall, Instant Articles are a way for publishers to put their content within Facebook for a seamless user experience that doesn’t cause delays, especially on mobile. Instant Articles encourage publishers to promote their content and use their own advertising; Facebook gives them 100 percent of the revenues if sold directly (or 70 percent if sold via Facebook). With its launch to... [...]

Ben Davis says, “For years, brands and publishers in particular have been warned of the dangers of wallowing too far into Facebook. The rationale was that if brands didn’t prioritise their own publishing platforms (apps and websites), they would be vulnerable if Facebook decided to shake things up. 2016, to my mind, has seen the old argument finally put to bed, as Facebook steams into new features and publishers realise the art is in hedging bets and learning as they go. Facebook forges ahead in 2016 There are several features that Facebook is currently prioritising that promise value... [...]

Shirley Pattison says, “Video is a remarkably engaging medium. It enables you to share your stories visually and dynamically, and when you couple such a creative outlet with social platforms, you create opportunities to reach dramatically more potential customers than when using other media. Why Video Advertising on Facebook? It isn’t difficult to understand why Facebook has been placing so much emphasis on video as a preferred medium. Considering its 1.04 billion daily active users logging into Facebook and over 76% of those users discovering video content through their News Feeds,... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “Facebook is improving upon the video metrics feature it rolled out last month. In February, Facebook enhanced its video metric view with information on minutes viewed, 10-second views, whether videos were watched with sound on (or off), unique viewers, views, average percent completion, audience retention, average view duration and organic vs. paid views. Today, even more detail is being added to video metrics, including day-by-day performance. Minutes viewed Facebook will now provide data that empowers publishers to learn the number of time spent on a video on a particular... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the test is live, stating “People have told us they’d like more options on Facebook to see and have conversations about specific topics they’re interested in. So we’re testing giving people the option to choose a topic tag for the type of post you’re sharing.” With topics, post privacy settings will be maintained; topics will be restricted to the audience the poster has limited the post to. Topics appear to be similar to hashtags, giving users the ability to post to the news feed but will not affect prioritization of any... [...]

Mari Smith says, “Facebook ads are the most targeted traffic your money can buy. Period. There is no other platform out there with 1.6 billion active users that offers the depth of granular targeting than Facebook. And now Instagram, too. However, every day, I hear of marketers who end up frustrated and confused when it comes to actually generating positive, measurable results from their Facebook advertising efforts. In this post, I’ll demystify why exactly there is so much frustration and confusion out there, and help you understand what even a few critical tweaks will make to your results. 1.... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Media companies have had Facebook’s Instant Articles all to themselves since the social network introduced the fast-loading mobile content format last May. But now, brands are finally able to get their hands on one of digital publishing’s shiniest new objects without piggybacking a publisher’s access. Facebook has opened up Instant Articles to mobile publishing platform Steller so that people, including brands, using Steller’s app to create visual-heavy stories can now distribute that content on Facebook through Instant Articles, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed. The... [...]