Can you believe it’s almost fall? Maybe it’s because it’s been a blistering 90-100 degrees every day here in San Diego, but it’s been quite hard for me to believe that fall is just around the corner. My boots are all eyeing me for attention, but all I can muster the enthusiasm to wear in this weather is sandals!
And much like this hot weather, my RSS feeds are burning up with all the new Facebook updates that have been announced recently. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the new features, here’s a review and some details on the latest Facebook rollouts.
Facebook Login Changes
Whenever you go to a new app on your mobile device, you are often prompted to login via Facebook (or another site) for a quicker login process. One of the major concerns that many users had was that using these login methods allowed the app to post or share on your timeline. However, with the new login features, Facebook must now ask you separately for permission to post or share on your timeline.You can even skip the option to post all together, while still gaining access to the app. Now you can use Facebook Login as a faster means to access app, rather than as a dumping ground of shares and content exchange.
Contests In Your Timeline
This news spread like wildfire across Facebook pages and other platforms. Facebook revoked the requirement that all contests be administered through a third-party app. While the information was exciting and people were drooling over it like any new shiny object, some caution must be advised. Yes, you can now run a contest directly on your page. No, you cannot collect any solid data from a page contest. If you just want to boost some engagement or gain some new fans with a simple “like” contest, a timeline contest will work well. However, if your goal is to grow your list or collect more information from participants, you’ll still want to use third-party apps to administer your contests and help gather the data.
Hashtags Are Activated
It was inevitable that hashtags would be implemented by Facebook. They’re here! You can use hashtags in any post on Facebook to increase searchability. A side note, though, recent discussion and testing has found that including hashtags in your posts may actually diminish initial reach. And while hashtags are activated on all desktop applications, they haven’t been fully rolled out to all mobile users. Along with the introduction of hashtags, Facebook is also testing out trending topics, much like you see on Twitter, for those mobile users who do have hashtag functionality.
New Ranking for News Feed
Facebook announced new changes to their News Feed ranking algorithm and promised more transparency in how the algorithm would work. There has been much talk and complaints about Edgerank and how it penalizes pages, essentially requiring us to purchase promoted posts to get our information into the news feeds of our fans. With the new algorithm, Facebook determines quality content based on a number of factors (including relevance, trustworthiness, shareable, interesting, etc.). Quality content will get priority reach and poor content (including memes or other attempts used to game the old Edgerank algorithm) will be penalized with reduced reach. The new format also includes story bumping, posts that are deemed valuable may get bumped back up to the top of a news feed if it hasn’t previously been seen. This is good news for those pages doing things the “right” way, as we will likely see increased reach and engagement.
Graph Search
While the talk of Graph Search has been going on for a while now, Facebook has now rolled it out to all English speaking users in the US. If Graph Search is new to you, it’s essentially a redesign of your top navigation bar and a new means to “search” both Facebook and the Internet. Graph Search allows you to find connections or pages based on simple, specific phrases. For example, you can now search for “people from my hometown” and Facebook will give you a list of all users (whose security settings allow appropriate display) who match this criteria. The benefit is that search results are custom to you and your queries. However, it is a new interface and takes some getting used to.
Embedded Posts
This was an exciting announcement for a lot of marketers. As of August, you can now embed Facebook posts directly into your blog or website. You can embed your most relevant Facebook posts directly into your website for enhanced visibility and engagement. Posts can include pictures, video and hashtags. And, most importantly, viewers can like and share the content or follow your page directly from the embedded post! Like I said, this is exciting for marketers. If you can include key Facebook content in your blog posts, you can drastically increase your post reach.
New Page Insights
Most page managers have complained about Facebook insights. The confusion behind the numbers and lack of relevant data often left us yearning for more. The new page insights, still in the roll out process, have fixed many pastissues for page managers. With multiple pages of insights and tabs full of detailed information, it is now possible to gather much more relevant data. Some of the best new features include knowing when your fans are on Facebook daily, detailed information about where new fans and likes came from, specific analysis of each individual post and its engagement, page visits, and post reach.
Phew! That’s a lot of new features! And if things keep at this pace, Facebook will roll out even more new features in the near future. The key is to determine how these new features will benefit you and your social media strategy. Take some time to review each of these features and experiment with implementing them into your strategy.
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