Kerry Flynn says, “Once upon a time, Facebook was just a website for college students to connect. If Facebook gets its way, it’ll be the go-to solution for all companies, especially small businesses, to run their operations. “If you think about over the last 13 years, we’ve been making progress on our mission of making the world more open and connected,” said Katherine Shappley, Facebook’s director of small business in North America. “Other people and businesses that they care about, and, of course, communities are at the heart of that.” Facebook... [...]

Earlier this week, Jai Sharma released Shot Messenger, a major tool in your Facebook toolbox. Sharma makes a bold statement about his new software: You can “broadcast personal messages to the entire connected audience of your Fb pages right inside their Fb messenger to engage with them personally, in 1 click with 100% open rate guaranteed.” If anything, that appears to be an understatement. His new tool takes full advantage of the new Facebook Messenger to give you extraordinary capabilities With Shot Messenger, you can: ■ Broadcast Fb Messages to Thousands of Subscribers Instantly ■... [...]

It ranks right up there with the Nigerian prince who wants to give you a share of the inheritance received as the result of a tragic death. Thousands of incorrect stories are available on the web. Pick a politician or a celebrity and you will find dozens of fake news stories about them. It’s easy to say, “Somebody ought to do something about fake news.” And to look at yourself as essentially powerless to do anything. You’re not completely powerless; you can at least avoid being deceived by fake news. You can educate yourself before believing the story you just read. One... [...]

Rose Leadem says, “As a small business, you don’t need to spend loads of money on advertising. There are plenty of free or low-cost tools that you can use to effectively market your company. One of the biggest opportunities is through social media, specifically Facebook. Ninety-five percent of social media marketers say that Facebook gave them the best return of investment out of all the social platforms. With more than 1.5 billion monthly users, that’s not surprising. Although Facebook advertising is pretty straightforward and easy to use, there are certain things you should know before... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Facebook’s iAd-like Canvas ads can be as labor-intensive as they are immersive. The social network unveiled the creative kitchen sink of an ad format in September 2015. Since then, brands have had to manually create each individual Canvas ad on Facebook’s desktop site — uploading the photos and videos, typing out the text and links, placing each element on each page and so on. Now, Facebook is automating that production process. On Monday, Facebook debuted a way for brands to create Canvas ads through third-party software tools that use its Marketing API. As a result,... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Facebook is reportedly experimenting with a second News Feed that would display content from sources users have’t Liked or followed. As detailed by TechCrunch, users of the social network’s iOS and Android apps have reported seeing a rocket ship icon under which content that Facebook thinks might be of interest is displayed. Here’s what you need to know. Facebook has acknowleged that it’s testing a new feature According to Facebook, “We are testing a complementary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, customized for each person... [...]

Jack Morse says, “There’s nothing quite like a clean slate — especially one that’s pre-populated with a generous helping of algorithmically generated spam. Perhaps realizing that the News Feed has over the years morphed into a cluttered mess, Facebook has started testing an entirely new feed with a subset of its users. After all, why have one feed when you can have two? Double the ad-serving pleasure, double the ad-revenue fun. This new feed, identified by a rocket-ship logo, isn’t the same as your current stream of family-focused updates. Instead of pushing out every... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “The average clickthrough rate (CTR) for Facebook ads across all industries is 0.90%, according to recent research from WordStream. The report was based on November 2016 through January 2017 Facebook advertising data for 256 US-based WordStream clients in 18 industries: apparel, auto, B2B, beauty, consumer services, education, employment/job training, finance/insurance, fitness, home improvement, healthcare, industrial services, legal, real estate, retail, technology, and travel/hospitality. Legal advertisers have the highest average CTR on Facebook ads (1.61%); employment/job... [...]

David Moth says, “Later this year – July 4 to be exact – Econsultancy is hosting a new event that will investigate how AI is impacting marketing. As well as looking at how AI will change the way marketers implement CRM and content personalisation, the agenda at Supercharged also includes a few talks on chatbots. This inspired us to launch our own Facebook Messenger chatbot to offer people information about the event. The bot is already live – you can speak to it via our Facebook page or by searching ‘Econsultancy’ in Messenger. At Econsultancy we’ve always been happy about sharing... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “Facebook Inc.’s newest shopping ad format, which it calls Collection, aims to drive product discovery while also presenting mobile users who tap on the ad a direct-response format that leads them to click and buy. The ads will begin rolling out Thursday. Collection provides a mobile ad format for retailers to tell “visual product stories,” says Maz Sharafi, Facebook’s director of product marketing. The ads feature a primary video or image above product images. When a user clicks on the ad, it quickly opens a full-screen display that features up to 50 products at... [...]