Tag: Facebook

Social Overtakes Search As Main Traffic Source For News

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
A recent report from web traffic analytics firm Parse.ly says its data shows Facebook now accounts for more of the traffic to news sites than Google. Traditionally, organic search dominated as the top traffic referrer online, but social media has been quickly catching up in recent years and has now seemingly overtaken search as the leading traffic referrer source for good. As of July 2015. social media, of which Facebook is the largest, accounted for 43% of the traffic to news sites tracked by Parse.ly, whereas Google Search only accounted for just 38%.

What Brands Can Do
As consumers increasingly switch from desktop access to mobile devices, time spent in apps is starting to eclipse time spent on the mobile web, which could explain why more people are getting their news and content from social media instead of web search. This means brands need to make a conscious effort in translating their web content onto social media platforms, if they wish to keep up with the changing user behaviors.

One bonus effect of this shift is that content that does well on social media can get exponentially more attention than something that does well in search. Studies have shown that consumers are more likely to buy a product if it is recommended by someone they know.

 

Source: Fortune

Facebook Revamps Notes To Attract Long-Form Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has started testing an update to Notes to make it easier for users to create and read long-form content on Facebook. The revamped layout looks similar to that of popular blogging platform Medium, complete with new features such as header images, user tagging, links and hashtags.

What Brands Should Do
Facebook has been steadily building out its content offerings in recent years, with special attention to short-form videos. Back in May, it launched an “Instant Articles” program that aims to lure digital publishers to put their content up natively on Facebook for faster mobile access and allegedly better distribution. So it makes perfect sense for Facebook to push further into building out its long-form content tools. For brands that wish to utilize Facebook as a native channel for content marketing to engage with fans, this revamped Notes could be a good testing ground.

 

Source: The Next Web

How Brands Are Increasingly Utilizing Live-Streaming

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Mobile-first live-streaming platforms are on a hot streak of late. As SXSW-breakout Meerkat and Twitter-owned Periscope continue to duke it out for the top spot, formidable newcomers launched by Facebook and Samsung also look to capitalize on the live-streaming craze.

Unsurprisingly. some early-adopting brands have already started experimenting with this rising platform. For example, Coach and Taco Bell used Periscope for live announcements of new products and special offers. To better engage with fans in real time, Nissan and Target offered fans exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage, while Benefit Cosmetics hosted live Q&A sessions about their products. Meanwhile, brands like JCPenney are using it to host celebrity “takeover” sessions to appeal to a larger fanbase on social media.

What Brands Should Do
As the examples mentioned above demonstrate, there are a variety of ways that brands can utilize the live-streaming platform to connect with today’s mobile-first consumers. Producing live content may be a bit trickier for brands due to its “high-stakes” nature, so it is crucial that brands and agencies have a live-stream strategy in place and carefully choose the right ways to engage with a live audience.

To learn more about how your brand can utilize live-streaming to reach a wider audience, read our recent Fast Forward feature on live-streaming.

Source: Digiday

Facebook Extends Autoplay Video Ads And More To Mobile Ad Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook continues to diversify its mobile ad offering by bringing its autoplay video ads to third-party mobile apps that utilize its mobile ad network, Audience Network. Moreover, the social network is also extending its slideshow-like carousel ads that first debuted on Instagram to non-Facebook apps, as well as its dynamic product ads that allow retailers to target shoppers who had previously browsed on their ecommerce sites.

What Brands Should Do
Mobile ads, especially those in the mobile web, have been widely criticized for dragging down access speed and undermining the mobile experience. By employing the new in-app ad formats, brands and marketers may find a way to skirt around some of the common issues plaguing display ads in mobile web, while also discovering new, efficient ways to reach consumers in today’s mobile-first world. As of right now, Google’s mobile ad network doesn’t support autoplay video ads or other high performing ad units that Facebook offers.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Facebook Debuts Live-Streaming Feature For Celebrity Pages

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Wednesday, Facebook unveiled a new “Live” feature in its Mentions app for verified celebrities, which allows stars to live-stream video footage to their fans watching through the main Facebook app or on the web. After the live sessions end, a recording of the livestreams will be published to celebrites’ pages so that fans can catch up or rewatch.

What Brands Should Do
Facebook’s entry into the live-streaming space offers brands and early adopters one more prominent platform to explore, and its larger user base makes it instantly appealing, compared to the much smaller audience Meerkat and Periscope have been drawing. Even though this is only offered to celebrities as of now, brands can still easily find ways to capitalize on the live audience via sponsorships and product placements. If it takes off, we expect Facebook to expand this feature to all users.

Update 8/13: As we anticipated. Facebook has confirmed that this new live broadcasting feature will soon be open to journalists and all Verified Profiles.

Source: AdWeek

Image courtesy of Facebook

Facebook Debuts New VR Short For Oculus Rift

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Earlier today, Facebook unveiled the first original VR experience produced for Oculus Rift, its first consumer-facing virtual reality headset. Henry, a 10-minute-long animation short created by a former Pixar alum, is among several original narratives that will be made available on Oculus Rift when it launches in early 2016. Similarly, Samsung announced earlier this month that it has teamed up with Skybound Entertainment, to produce a VR horror series exclusively for its Gear VR headsets.

What Brands Should Do
As more and more media owners and brands start producing original content for the VR platform, it is important for brands seeking to immersively engage with its audience to start creating branded VR content now to stay ahead of the curve. For instance, subscription-based beauty e-retailer Birchbox is adding Google Cardboard in their monthly offers to treat its customers to some branded VR experiences. Besides, brands can also team up with media owners and content creators to help produce their own VR content.

 

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

What Facebook’s New “Secret Videos” Means For Brands

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Earlier today, Facebook unveiled a series of new video publisher tools as it gears up to compete with YouTube for brands’ attention and ad dollars. Besides some standard additions that focuses on video customizations and library management, Facebook also added an option for brands to upload “secret videos” to their pages, which are only viewable to people with the direct links to such videos. We expect the exclusivity of the content and its artificial scarcity to increase engagement amongst the target demographics.

What Brands Should Do
If your brand produces videos for content marketing purposes, It may be time to consider trying out Facebook as it continues to build out its video ad platform. “Secret videos,” for example, give brands a way to share branded content privately with a selective audience, or simply embed it somewhere else without having it show up on the brand pages. Coupled with the vast demographic and behavioral data that Facebook processes on its users, these new video publisher tools could make it as a more targeted and effective alternative to YouTube for brands and marketers alike.

 

Source: The Next Web

Facebook Dives Deeper Into Ecommerce By Integrating Shops Into Pages

Posted on by Lab Team

Almost a year ago, Facebook entered the ecommerce space with a test run of adding “buy buttons” in its sponsored posts. Now, the social network seems ready to dive deeper into ecommerce by building out shops within Facebook Pages, essentially mini retail sites that will bring entire shopping experience from product discovery to checkout inside Facebook.

Social ecommerce has been gaining tremendous momentum lately, as major sites like Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube all jumping to launch their own respective versions of the “buy buttons.” Just yesterday, Google officially unveiled its “Purchase on Google” feature, which will add e-retail options to its mobile search ads. As all social media site rush to monetization, we expect to see this kind of ecommerce integration continues to improve.
Source: Buzzfeed

Facebook Planning Virtual Assistant Service Staffed With Real Humans

Posted on by Lab Team

Facebook is reportedly planning to add to its Messenger platform a new digital assistant service dubbed “Moneypenny,” which will allow users to ask real people for help researching and ordering products and services, among other tasks. Previously, Facebook had already started letting Messenger users communicate directly with businesses, and this new feature feels like a natural, yet significant, development in building out its messaging platform.

Since this is Facebook, there is no doubt that they will leverage some of the user data it has for better targeting and recommendation. The question here, however, is just how much access the Moneypenny staff will have to the vast amount of data that Facebook has gathered on the users across its various services and platforms. While it’d make for a quicker, more personalized service to let the “Moneypennies” tap into the user data and learn about their customers’ preferences and interests, ensuring user privacy and data security remains a big issue to Facebook.

Source: Business Insider

Facebook Tweaks Ad Measurement To Focus On Clickthrough

Posted on by Lab Team

Right after updating its video ad unit earlier this week, Facebook has continued its efforts to make its ad products more appealing by modifying its cost-per-click (CPC) algorithm to exclude the old engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares. Instead, the new CPC calculation will only track the actions directly related to certain ad objectives, such as clicks to visit a destination site or to install an app. This makes it easier for marketers to evaluate campaign performances and get a more precise view of the outcomes.

 

Source: Marketing Land