Facebook's newest Facelift: how it impacts your business plus 5 top tips on how to stay ahead of the game — UNBXD

Digital media and social networking sites are constantly changing. You buy a new phone; what seems like just months later it is 'out-of-date'. You learn all about social media updates; it completely changes again. You just get your head around Facebook’s newest update, and before you know it, another update has gone live.

Often these changes are negatively received from users and businesses – like the Instagram update late last year, when the home feed was changed to horizontal for less than an hour and it wasn’t well received. Typically, users don’t like change.

Facebook’s most recent update is to make it more personal. The future of Facebook is private - said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO– as he presented the newest set of updates at F8, this year’s annual Facebook conference. And just like with any change, you are likely to be asking “how will it affect my business?”

As a creative agency that specialises in digital marketing, it is our job to always keep you up-to-date with these changes, helping your business to understand and get the most out of the new features.

Let us run you through the changes and our top tips on how to stay ahead.

New features

There are many new features:

the infamous blue banner has disappeared on the mobile app (the re-design of the web-based platform will follow in the coming months), leaving a minimalistic and clean interface;
the ‘news feed’ function no longer exists and has become more of a ‘story feed’, resembling Instagram;
the posts visible on a feed will prioritise personal connections (friends and family) over businesses and brands - instead of sharing information, it is now for sharing experiences and memories as part of a community;
the recommendations on pages are changing to make leaving reviews easier – instead of just the star rating from customers, your customers can now include hashtags, text and photos in their feedback;
the new augmented reality ads, where your customers can ‘try on’ your products in the camera feature on Facebook;
among many more!

5 top tips

While there is a lot of talk about the changes in more detail and potential implications, we think it is much more useful to discuss ways to boost your social presence and brand awareness through the digital channels.

Here are our top tips on how to increase the reach and engagement of your social content:

1. Listen to your customers/clients

Social media is all about engagement. Use it to start conversations, ask questions, respond to comments and use Facebook Insights to find out their interests.

2. Focus on engaging content, not just buy buy buy!

Offer advice, trends and information about your industry to get your brand noticed, instead of just posting for sales.

3. Create or join groups

Find groups on Facebook that are related to your brand or business. By interacting with fellow members, you can increase your consumer base. But just don’t advertise on there as it is breaking group rules!

4. Live Q&A videos

Facebook Live is a great way to reach customers with engaging video content. Use this opportunity to create live videos, answering questions during your live stream, for product or service demos, interviews or behind-the-scenes content of your business.

5. Boost your Facebook Ad budget and try split testing

Now that it is harder for businesses to feature in the new ‘story feeds’, boosting posts and creating paid promotional ads on Facebook is becoming more necessary to reach customers. Also, utilising Facebook’s split testing feature allows you to test your content on different audiences, maximising your campaign performance.

At UNBXD, we create content management and digital marketing strategies to maximise return on investment on your digital channels. Keep an eye out for future case studies and more information about our marketing and design services.