Tim Peterson says, “Late last May, GroupM’s head of paid social, Kieley Taylor, sent an email to the WPP-owned media agency network’s paid social teams in the US. She had just finished one of her regular check-ins with Facebook, during which she was told that any video ads bought through Facebook would now be automatically opted in to run across Audience Network, Facebook’s ad network of third-party sites and apps. Taylor’s message to her team was clear: Opt out now. “Our hesitation to use Audience Network really comes from a place of complete lack of transparency,” Taylor said... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “With the brouhaha about fake news and the significant impacts it’s making, Facebook has come out with two algorithm updates, one of which is focused on timely signals to improve prominence of news stories and the other to better rank authentic content. In a joint announcement made by members on its engineering and research science teams, new signals will determine how visible Facebook updates are going to be in the News Feed. According to Facebook, authenticity is based on a number of factors, including categorizing Pages to identify whether they’ve solicited likes... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “It was a rather surreal month all round, wasn’t it? Here’s a little look back at some of the shenanigans that occurred on social media during January, from the sublime to the downright ridiculous. The sad death of Carrie Fisher inspired one of the most popular hashtags on social media this January. The #EndTheStigma campaign involved users posting colourful badges adorned with declarative statements, with the aim of combatting common misconceptions about mental health. Designed and created by mental health advocate, Kat Selwyn Layton, the campaign was quickly met... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “What Facebook wants, it usually gets, and despite the general belief that attention spans are increasingly limited, the world’s largest social network is apparently intent on encouraging long-form video. Here’s what brands creating video content for Facebook need to know about the changes Facebook is making to accomplish that. It’s changing the way video completion rates are factored into News Feed ranking In a blog post, Facebook product manager Abhishek Bapna and research scientist Seyoung Park explained that Facebook is changing the way it factors... [...]

Rich Kahn says, “The holidays are an extremely profitable time of the year for businesses of all sizes. After all, they can account for 20-40 percent of a business’ yearly sales. But what about after the holidays? Budgets are tighter, consumers are exhausted and it can be hard to make the idea of shopping again appealing at all. Don’t let your marketing efforts go stale in the post-holiday shopping season. Your consumers are tired, but they’re still keeping an eye out for the next appealing product or service. Here’s what you can do to keep your business’s holiday success going. Keep... [...]

Kevan Lee says, “Understanding how to leverage Facebook Ads is becoming a staple part of almost every social media strategy. And if you want to get your posts seen on Facebook, it’s becoming more and more likely that you’ll have to pay for reach with Facebook Ads. Paid advertising on Facebook seems to be one of the most immediate ways to impact the reach of your content. Though it’s not without its questions. How well does it work? What kind of engagement do you get? And what can you expect for your hard-earned money? In this post, we’ll share with you everything you need to know... [...]

Kerry Flynn says, “Remember the days when we talked about how Facebook and Snapchat are competing for these things called views? Yes, we cared about the overall number of three-seconds versus one-millisecond of time people spent on the apps. Forget about those meager numbers. Facebook wants your eyes to be glued for much longer than three seconds. Why? Television has more dollars. On Thursday, Facebook announced longer videos watched through will be given a higher priority in the ranking of the News Feed. Hidden within a jargon-filled, 411-word News Feed FYI (a blog dedicated to publishers... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “As always, Facebook is constantly refining the user experience for the benefit of both content creators and consumers. Today, Facebook shared some information regarding changes made to the way videos are ranked in the News Feed, specifically addressing the value it gives to how much a video is watched so that users can find the best possible videos on the social network. Various signals are evaluated to determine prominence, including live video status and engagement based on length of time watched, as a metric known as “percent completion.” A video that is watched... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Facebook can only pop so many advertisements into your News Feed before it drives you crazy. But it needs to keep selling more and more of them to keep up its juggernaut growth. And the company is worried that it could run out of ad space in its News Feed this year. That’s probably why Facebook is now turning to some untapped real estate: its Messenger platform. The company announced Wednesday that it’s testing new ads in Messenger that look a lot like ones you might see in your News Feed. The ads are carousel-style, meaning that users can swipe sideways through... [...]

Bloomberg team says, “Facebook Inc. hasn’t been shy about copying Snapchat, its smaller social-media rival. Now it’s unveiling the biggest and boldest clone so far: a feature resembling Snapchat’s Stories, directly within the Facebook application. Snapchat Stories are short annotated videos and photos that people post to their entire audience, viewable for 24 hours only. The feature was already knocked off by Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing app, in August—and that version is now used by 150 million people daily, about as many as use the entire Snapchat application. Facebook’s... [...]