Facebook and Instagram have made significant changes over the past few months to assist companies in promoting their business better on their platform. From reaching their ideal target audience(s), to improving on automation tools and the introduction of new functions like Reels, these platforms have gone through tremendous innovation to better enhance the platform’s overall user experience.
Maximise your marketing efforts through these digital platforms today by leveraging on the latest functionality updates of Facebook and Instagram, as released in August 2022.
Facebook Live Shopping shutting down (October 1st 2022)
According to a statement from Meta, Live Shopping will be removed from its platform as of October 1st, 2022. However, users will still be able to live stream on the platform.
Live shopping was initially used to broadcast shopping events. The feature allows purchases to be made as the LIVE happens. However, despite its innovatory features, the function was poorly received. As a result, Meta has decided to shift their resources and enhance the functionality of Instagram Reels instead.
New automation tools
Automation and machine learning are heavily used in online marketing and advertising to align content with user preferences. Recently, Meta Business Suite unveiled a number of new automation tools aimed at helping e-commerce and retail advisers grow their businesses and increase their sales. These tools will be offered as part of their Advantage+ offerings.
Let’s examine each of the updates that are present since they are all related to the Meta’s Advantage expansion.
1. Advantage+ Shopping campaigns
Rolling out to ecommerce and retail advertisers on August 15, the Advantage+ shopping campaigns tool gives advertisers new ways to optimise campaigns. Instead of relying on manual effort, with this function, up to 150 creative options can be created and split-tested simultaneously to support the desired campaign. This makes this functionality a valuable tool for advertisers looking to create profitable, conversion campaigns quickly.
2. Automation Advantage features
Several new tools for creating automated ads for small businesses went live in August.
i. Advantage+ creative makes changes to the creative for every view. Each person will see the advertisement that has the highest chance of getting their attention.
ii. Advantage audience creates a customised audience based on the information on your particular page. The audience shifts as Facebook learns more about how your audience converts.
iii. Advantage+ app campaigns have also received a number of new features that will encourage users to download apps. Some of the updates include increased creative freedom, 7-day click attribution capabilities, and thorough reporting.
3. New B2B targeting options
B2B marketing has always been more difficult than B2C marketing when using Meta, especially in comparison to B2B-focused websites like LinkedIn. However, new features recently released by Meta aim to change that.
They’ve announced improved B2B targeting options based on on-platform job titles and interests. These new audience segments include the following:
- IT decision-makers: This segment targets ads based on job titles.
- Business decision-maker titles and interests: This segment uses job titles and interests to target business decision-makers.
- Business decision-makers: This segment uses job titles and industries to target decision-makers. The group includes users in engineering/IT, operations, HR, strategy or marketing.
- Three new targeting segments for new businesses:
– New active business (< 6 months)
– New active business (< 12 months)
– New active business (< 24 months)
More Reels features roll out
The most notable change to Meta over the past few months is their focus on Reels and its features. It is a new way to create and discover short, entertaining videos on Instagram. It is also expected that new features will continue to be updated.
First, through Creator Studio, users can now schedule Facebook and Instagram Reels. Prior to this modification, Creator Studio was the only way to schedule posts and videos.
Secondly, The “Add Yours” sticker, which was formerly only available in Stories, has now been added to Facebook and Instagram Reels. Allowing viewers to add a video response to a certain prompt or theme.
In addition, cross-posting is now available! Users of Instagram can now directly post their Instagram Reels to Facebook. When you go to post a Reel on Instagram, a prompt that reads “Share your Reels to Facebook to grow your audience” will appear. You can choose to share all content or use the feature for each individual video.
Lastly, we now have better Facebook Reels insights for more thorough analytics in Creator Studio. Metrics include reach, average watch time, and total view time.
Conclusion
Meta has been increasingly meticulous in enhancing their platforms’ features over the past few months and their hard work is certainly paying off. The Facebook and Instagram updates we received in August were all fairly significant and we’re particularly excited to see how brands use the new B2B targeting features to exponentially grow the impact of their marketing and brand campaigns!
