How brands should change their marketing after Facebook’s F8 conference

April 30, the social media giant Facebook held its yearly global F8 conference, a two-day annual event intended for developers, creators and entrepreneurs around the world.

Those who expected big announcements probably weren’t disappointed, because a lot will change in the near future. Mostly on Facebook, but on Instagram too. As a matter of fact, things have already started to change, with the new redesigned Facebook mobile app being launched already and the desktop changes for Facebook being rolled out in the next few months.

Overall, groups and communities will become more important and the news feed will be downplayed. There will also be an emphasis on ephemeral content that isn’t permanent, as ‘Stories’ have become a big part of how we interact on social media.

We’ve listed below the most important changes for marketers, and how they will affect your communication and digital marketing strategy.

Most relevant platform updates for marketers

1. Events tab

What’s new:

• Facebook will roll out a new Events tab to make it easier for users to see what’s going on, get suitable recommendations or discover local businesses. Or just to coordinate and efficiently organize outings with friends.
• There will also be a map that lets you browse through local events and see what events your friends are attending.

  

This change is already live in the mobile app and it will be rolled out on desktop in the next few months.

What it means for businesses:
Friends attend events that their friends and community mates are attending. Therefore, brands hosting event will have to put more effort into tapping into the core communities where their target audience is active.

This means adopting apeer-to-peer communication strategy which is more about conversations and starting dialogues with specific customers and in smaller groups than pushing out generic ads to the broad mass.

When such conversations are taking place on a regular basis, the customer-to-brand relationship will improve long-term and the attendance rate for branded events will also likely improve.

2. App redesign and more focus on groups

What’s new:
Perhaps, the most noticeable difference is the visual makeover and the new color scheme of both the app and the desktop version. The traditional blue color that people associate with Facebook is now significantly less dominant, and in general, the platform will be mostly white and have more of a tab-like format both in the app and the desktop version.

According to a company news release, it’s not just about the aesthetics:

“This redesign makes it easy for people to go from public spaces to more private ones, like Groups. There are tens of millions of active groups on Facebook, and when people find the right one, it often becomes the most meaningful part of how they use Facebook. That’s why we’re introducing new tools that will make it easier for you to discover and engage with groups of people who share your interests.”

To put even more emphasis on communities, the Groups tab will be placed front and center and display content from the groups each user is a member of:

• On desktop, the Groups tab will be added to the top of the Facebook homepage.
• In the mobile app, the tabs will change depending on which features the user uses the most

Overall, more content from groups will appear in the news feed, indicating a shift from generic feeds filled with content shared by all of your friends to more customized and groups focused feeds, relevant to your specific interests and friend circles.

Other new features related to groups and communities

• Users will be able to post to groups directly from the homepage, making it a lot easier and accessible to share content in smaller communities.
• Facebook is also launching a ‘Meet New Friends’ feature, to help people connect with each other within communities and meet new friends at for example a shared workplace, school or in the same city.

What it means for businesses:
With groups at the heart of the Facebook experience, brands will need to tailor their marketing for different communities and not for a general audience.

It’s worth noting also in case you missed it, that Facebook launched a set of branded groups features last year, letting brands create groups under their brand name.

The new focus on groups means that marketers will need to rely on paid reach and branded groups for their marketing and communication.

3. Ephemeral content and reduced permanence

What’s new:
Everyone is talking about ephemeral content. But what is it? The term refers to content with an expiration date. Content that isn’t permanent, that disappears after a certain period of time. We first saw it on Snapchat, but after Instagram and Facebook made it possible to share ephemeral content through ‘Stories’, a lot of users have abandoned Snapchat.

With the ever increasing popularity of this type of temporary content, Facebook is now also introducing more self-destructing features, where users can set messages to auto-delete or archive after a certain period of time.

Zuckerberg previously said in a blog post, published on his Facebook page:

“The future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever.”

The Stories feature on Facebook will also now be placed at the top, to give it more emphasis.

What it means for businesses:
Quick, easy and fun content will increase as ephemeral content continues to grow in popularity. Long-term ad campaigns will still be a cornerstone for marketers, but won’t any longer be the center of the marketing plan. Instead, marketers will have to rely more on shorter content campaigns. They will need to be prepared to quickly adjust their marketing plan or create a campaign on the go.

4. Sharing to Stories from third-party apps

What’s new:
There will be more third-party integrations for Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories. Meaning that a user will be able to share stories from third-party apps, starting with Spotify, Soundcloud and GoPro. Rather than posting a screenshot, users will now be able to share a photo or video of for instance a song or video clip directly from these apps, by hitting a button.

Users will also be able to use AR effects from influencers and brands going forward.

What it means for businesses:
This probably won’t affect businesses in a noticeable way, but it will likely mean that the Stories feature will be even more widely and frequently used than it already is. Ephemeral content is here to stay and if you don’t already have a Stories content plan in place, it’s about time.

5. Messenger becomes better for businesses

What’s new:
Direct messages will become more important and on Instagram, business accounts are already frequently communicating with their customers and followers through DMs. Asking questions and doing mini-polls is easy on Instagram Stories, and personal communication is an effective way to drive leads.

• To make it easier for page admins to keep their personal Facebook accounts private, it’s possible to change your display name and photo when using Messenger on behalf of your business.

  

• Chatbots have been predicted as the new way of simplifying and making brand-to-consumer communication more efficient. To make it easier for business to use Messenger to drive leads, Facebook is now adding new lead generation templates in Ads Manager for building chatbots that can help move users further along the sales funnel.
• It will also be possible for customers to book appointments with a business through Messenger.

  

What it means for businesses:
Lead generation templates will probably be welcomed by many marketers. While chatbots have proved to be successful for many brands, simplifying the customer support workflow in many aspects, it’s important that brands maintain the personalized and human brand-to-consumer connection.

6. Instagram testing to hide likes from public view

What’s new:
Instagram has gradually become a platform where users chase likes and numbers. This can cause stress and take focus away from the quality of the actual content being shared. Instagram is now testing a feature where users’ public like counts are hidden in the feed, on permalinked pages and on profiles. Only the admin of the account will be able to see how many likes a certain photo or video has received.

This feature is currently being tested in Canada and if it proves to be successful, it might be something that will be rolled out globally.

What it means for businesses:
If this feature is launched worldwide (which we don’t know yet), it’s probably a step in the right direction towards a more authentic platform where quality is more important than likes. Content creators will need to adopt a more inventive mindset and put more effort into creating images and videos that are unique.

This also likely means less business for engagement bots that create false engagement, and a more legitimate platform overall.

7. More private content sharing and co-watching

What’s new:
Overall, Messenger will become more than just a messaging platform. It will become, as Zuckerberg himself previously said, a “digital living room” and it will have privacy of one as well, stating that “the future is private”.

• To achieve this, Facebook is creating a space in the Messenger app where users can find content from the people they message the most. There will be a Friends tab in the new Messenger, where you’ll find private videos and messages that are not public.
• Facebook is also launching a feature to let users co-watch videos privately with their friends in real time on Messenger.

  

What it means for businesses:
More private spaces and less emphasis on the general news feed means businesses will need to find new ways of infiltrating consumers’ daily social media consumption.

It’s not yet clear how Facebook will monetize the new focus on groups and events, now that the regular news feed will become less important and thus less significant for advertisers as well.

Perhaps in the coming future, brands might be able to create sponsored video content that users can co-watch. This means shifting from an “on-demand” mindset to a “real-time” mindset, where for the viewer, it’s about the community and sharing an experience

8. Communication in multiple messaging platforms

What’s new:
Facebook is now integrating its messaging services on Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The three services will still remain separate apps, but they will share the same infrastructure. In other words, they will be integrated in a way which makes it possible for someone on Facebook or Instagram to for instance message a friend who only has a WhatsApp account or vice versa.

What it means for businesses:
This might seem like a minor change on the surface, but what it actually means is that Facebook going forward most likely will share data between the apps, making it possible to build a single user profile from all three apps. This would allow brands to do more specific and effective targeting for ads and sponsored posts.

9. In-app selling on Instagram

What’s new:
Influencers won’t have to use “link in bio” as a caption anymore for linking to products they promote in photos.

Why? Because they will now have the ability to sell products directly through Instagram, so that their followers never have to leave the app if they want to purchase an item.

Influencers will be able to link to their partner’s products from the photo itself with a paid placement.

What it means for businesses:

• This is probably welcomed news, not only for influencers but also for marketers. This means brands can now in an easy way track specifically how many sales they’ve made through an influencer on Instagram.
• For a general Instagram user, the step from seeing a photo of an influencer to purchasing an item will be shorter, and this should be good news for both brands and influencers.

How will these platform changes affect paid placement on Facebook?

Facebook hasn’t yet specified what their plans for ad integrations are, with the new focus on groups and events. Back in 2016, ads in groups were rolled out as a test, but it was never fully launched officially.

Fidji Simo, Head of the Facebook App, previously said:

“If you look historically we’re really focused on creating great consumer products. We’re thinking more about [advertising] after whether it’s Facebook Watch, Marketplace, Dating. We know that given the ad systems we have we can easily monetize these services.”

In other words, Facebook will monetize these new features and brands will still be able to reach their audience through paid placements in different ways, even if the news feed will become less important. It just remains to see exactly how such an ads model will work, more specifically.

What brands should do now

So with all this information at your hands, what changes should you make to your marketing strategy? Here’s what we suggest:

• With the new focus on groups, having a Facebook page won’t be enough. Start a branded group, associated with your page. A lot of brands have done it already as a way of recovering the lost page reach, after Facebook reduced the organic reach for pages a while back. Running a group is great for building a community of engaged followers around your brand and products. And 2019, it’s all about communities in social media.
• Brands 2019 must establish more intimate and personal connections with consumers. Shift your strategy from public posting to group communication. Have one-on-one conversations with customers and combine chatbots and lead generation templates with real and authentic human communication.
• Acknowledge direct messaging as a way of strengthening your community and brand-to-consumer relationship, not just as a channel for customer support and tech-related support questions.
• Think in terms of niche groups and subcultures. Engagement and dedication tends to be higher in smaller groups. In addition to starting your own branded group on Facebook, use hashtags on Instagram to communicate with your community. Reply and comment on your customers or potential customers’ photos. Once you give, you will receive.
• Embed user-generated content (UGC) on your site and in your online campaigns. This is especially relevant for B2C brands. Find out what hashtags your customers are using when posting photos online and ask them for permission to use their content in your own marketing. This will strengthen your community and many times customer loyalty as well. This is also a way of building your online community. Your community is everywhere, not just in your branded Facebook group.
• Use Stories more, both for daily content and for ads and campaigns. Don’t make it too polished. Ephemeral content works best when it’s fun, fast and authentic.
• WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook will now share the same infrastructure. And if you’ve previously had separate communication strategies for different platforms, it’s time to streamline your approach. This doesn’t mean posting the same content across all platforms and taking shortcuts, but rather being consistent in the way your company communicates with your customers across all social networks.
• Don’t stop advertising in the news feed (just yet). Although the news feed won’t be as important as it previously has been, it will still be there. Stick to your news feed ads plan until it’s clear exactly what the new advertising model for events and groups will be, but stay up-to-date and be prepared to make changes to your social media advertising model.

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