B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

Facebook’s New Changesand what they mean for brands

In the past few weeks, Facebook has announced some major changes to its entire platform - some of which were a surprise, and on a much bigger scale than anything they’ve done before.

What does this mean for brands? Facebook have been focusing on the consumer product, and keeping quiet about Pages, but we have a good idea.

It certainly means big changes in the way brands handle themselves on the platform, where engaging content and talking with people will become far more central.

Here, our social media team walk you through the big changes to explain why the new features make interaction and quality that much more important.

We’ll explain:

The (new) News FeedTimeline ProfilesChanges to Facebook AdvertisingThe “Open Graph” system & apps“People Talking About” your brand

Then we’ll cap it all off with what this means for your social media campaigns.

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

The News FeedThis change was put into place a few weeks ago, and regular users will already be familiar with it.

In a nutshell, the news feed – the stream of information which acts as your Facebook “homepage” – isn’t just chronological any more. Now there are “top stories” labelled with small blue corner flag which dominate the top of the screen (before you have to scroll down).

This is great news for users, at it means the most “interesting” content (based on Facebook’s algorithms) always comes up first.

It presents a challenge for brands, however, who must now more than ever aim to produce genuinely interesting and valuable content.

This is a recurring theme of the recent changes.

1. The revamped news feed, showing top story indicators.

TOP STORIES

LINK TO OTHER STORIES

 

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

New profiles: “Timelines”Another new feature expected to come on stream in the next few days and weeks are Timelines. These new profiles for users provide a large section at the very top of the profile for what Facebook calls a profile cover. This photo can be anything of a fixed size, and really opens the door for creative branding.

The layout of profiles is now chronological, too - you can post updates all the way back to the day you were born. The style is far more visual and has a lot more flexibility with new actions (more on that later).

Unfortunately, there’s no indication when, or even if, a similar redesign will appear for Facebook pages for brands. However, it’s a clear sign of the visual design Facebook is aiming for, and we can expect changes in brand pages to be similar in style.

The opportunity exists for some fan-targeted cover photos: Volkswagen has already released a clever one for early adopters.

2. The revamped news feed, showing top story indicators.

3. Volkswagen’s fan-targeted cover photo.

 

 

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

AdvertisingAs you can see from the profile overview, Facebook ads remain on the right hand side of new profiles. You might not be able to see that they’re now slightly narrower (and smaller overall) than they were before.

However, ads now stay in the same place on the page as you scroll down a user’s Timeline. This means they are always visible on the page.

This was not the case before. In exchange for a slightly reduced display size, the ad gains much higher visibility.

It’s widely expected that the new changes to Facebook’s system called the Open Graph (which we’ll come back to) will allow for better targeting of ads based on what people are actually interested in as well as their demographics.

 

4. The existing ads, top, and how they will display on the new Timelines, right. They will become narrower but more persistent.

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

AdvertisingThe same Open Graph technology will change the way sponsored stories can work based on your friend’s activities. At the moment, it’s possible to sponsor an ad which says something to the effect of “your friend likes this,” - the implication being you will too.

Shortly, advertisers will be able to add far more functionality to their sponsored stories - such as “Your friend listened to album X,” “Your friend watched TV show Y,” and so on.

This function in its early days can be seen with the new Guardian newspaper app released in September.

5. The Guardian’s use of the custom “read” command through their app.

 

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

New actions (the Open Graph)Ever since Facebook first appeared, we’ve had one thing we can do: Like.

This function has been so much part of everyday life that it has become a part of popular culture. But it’s flawed: it implies approval. That’s why we get inappropriate and sometimes disturbing results.

Facebook recognise this, and have brought in changes to the way our updates work.

Facebook’s new Open Graph function (a name that you don’t need to worry about unless you’re a developer) expands the “like” into read, watch, listen, share and everything else.

Some of this is built into the core functionality of the new Timeline profile, where there are now buttons and drop-down menus for important life events such as marriage, starting a new job, or getting a tatooo.

6. ‘Liking’ isn’t always the right verb.

7. The new update box allows for a lot more flexibility.

Like

 

 

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

On top of this, as mentioned before, there’s a whole realm of possibility with custom actions. For the user, this comes under the “other” categories, and can be used for almost any eventuality.

We’ve already mentioned that these actions can be purchased as advertising. For example, if a friend of mine listens to a band’s album on Spotify or any other music service, I might see an ad telling me this and linking to the song, or to concert tickets.

The really exciting part from a brand perspective is that apps can be written to create a custom action.

The example Facebook has made for their developers is for a recipe application. In the example, the app includes an “I cooked it!” button which posts a human-readable update - “Jane cooked brand X’s cookies,” and links back to the brand/app.

 

8. Updates can be customised to use any verb users want.

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

This is, again, all about interaction. If, in the above example, the customer enjoyed the recipe and it turned out well, they’re more likely to want to tell people about it and share it with friends.

9. The Open Graph example Facebook provides to developers.  

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

A new metricLastly, Facebook has introduced one more thing of interest to Page admins: a new, measurable piece of data.

It’s called “People Talking About” and is, essentially, a measurement of interaction - how many people are sharing, liking and commenting on your content.

Crucially, it’s public and can be seen by anyone.

This means that pages with high fan numbers but low interaction will have a number on their page that reflects that. It also changes incredibly quickly, with different figures showing up each day.

Again, this all comes down to a focus on quality content and interaction.

10. Facebook’s new publicly viewable interactivity metric.

 

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

SummaryThe focus of social media campaigns in the past has often been on increasing fan numbers to the exclusion of everything else. We understand that without connecting with your customers, numbers mean very little. Now, that’s going to become even more important.

Quality content is key, and it needs to be tailored. For one product, ‘quality’ content might mean articles on financial markets, while for another it might be extreme sports videos or YouTube clips of cats. Understanding the community is key.

Engaging content is vital as always - an understanding of EdgeRank, Facebook’s quality assessment system, will be important to keep content high on the ‘top stories’ scale.

Conversation will remain vital, as genuine discussion with fans drives Affinity (part of Facebook’s ranking system) and naturally grows interaction.

Consistent and smart branding and marketing will be an important part of the upcoming changes, particularly when it comes to targeting advertising and remaining visually appealing – whether that’s with landing pages, new profiles if and when they become available, or apps.

B&W logo

www.hagroup.ie

facebook.com/HAMarketingPR

www.hagroup.ie

twitter.com/#!/HAmarketingPR