2023 Social Media Marketing Updates: 16 Thus Far
This year, social media underwent a lot of changes, and more are constantly being implemented. Here are some noteworthy highlights.
Social media is a dynamic living system. Things are constantly changing. They alter in reaction to user requests, controversies, politics, and the emergence of social consciousness. Social media network administrators are awake at all times. They test new functions, formulas, advertisements, and designs. Even though one would suppose it’s virtually impossible to spend any more time on social media than we already do, they are doing their best to keep you glued to your phone.
It’s critical for marketers to monitor social media’s evolution. Every upgrade and feature could end up being essential to us. However, it might not. Many aspects of social networking are overly touted and of no genuine use. Therefore, it’s crucial to sift through the noise and focus on the factors that could have an impact on your marketing initiatives, your paid and organic reach, and your choice of social network.
This article contains these updates. Even though 2019 is just halfway over, you’ll see that there have already been enough changes to warrant starting to rethink your social media marketing approach because more are constantly being implemented.
Google+
First, Google+ has been discontinued as of April 2019. Pages and profiles have all been erased. You already know that, but it was a necessary addition to the list of social media updates.
The network was shut down, according to Google, because of “low usage and challenges associated with maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations.”
Since you never used it in the first place, I bet you don’t care. On that, I concur with you.
TikTok
If you’re not entirely certain what this is, TikTok is a video-sharing application that changed its name from Musical.ly in 2017. It is marketed as Douyin in China. Users of the app can publish and share 15-second videos. It resembles what Vine once was. More than 500 million people currently use the app, mostly young people. Kids and teenagers create cheesy films, lip-sync, short skits, and cookery instructables.
TikTok entered the advertising world this year. They now have interest-based targeting, specialised audiences, pixel tracking, age, gender, location, network, and OS system targeting, much like the big players.
This year, Facebook has undergone significant transformation as a result of numerous controversies. Even more changes are on the horizon. Let’s review the most important updates.
Custom advertisements become clearer
Facebook made the decision to inform users of the specific reasons why they are being targeted by a particular Facebook Ad in the sake of transparency.
The name of the company that uploaded the user’s information to Facebook, any potential involvement from agencies, Facebook Marketing Partners, or other partners, and any other possible sharing of custom audiences are now included in the “Why am I seeing this?” explanation.
Discovering what your rivals are doing in terms of Facebook advertising is made possible by the fact that you can view all active Ads that a page is currently running in the Ad library.
Additionally, Facebook has increased the scope of its testing of advertisements in Marketplace and News Feed search results. However, marketers note that Facebook is unlikely to give its users much control over sharing their data because that is how the firm is generating revenue.
Restrictions apply to certain ad targeting
Facebook restricted some businesses’ ability to target customers in an effort to uphold the noble cause of combating bigotry. Age, racial, and gender targeting for housing, employment, and credit marketing is no longer an option. According to Facebook, these modifications were made as a result of settlement agreements with civil rights organisations and would aid in the protection of individuals from prejudice.
Algorithm changes for the News Feed
In addition to Mark’s objective of making Facebook transparent without being overly so, there is a second one: to make the social networking site more like to a “living room.” This is the rationale for the 2019 algorithm upgrade that gives close friends the highest priority.
Scripted Ads
You can quickly and easily develop a marketing strategy for your company using automated ads. Simply by providing some information about your company and your objectives, the tool will generate up to six distinct versions of your advertisement, advise a targeted audience, suggest a budget, and notify you when it is time to run the advertisement.
Management of appointments
Customers can use this feature to reserve a service from a company on Facebook and Instagram. From your business page, you can also manage appointments, display availability, customise your service menu, and send appointment reminders. Your calendar or another appointment management application can sync with all of your appointments.
There are new methods for managing notifications.
Although it may not seem like much, Facebook alerts formerly had a tremendous impact on both user experience and marketing strategies. In order for users to receive notifications of their activity, marketers preferred Facebook Groups to Facebook Pages, Live videos to recorded videos, and other small techniques.
But now, circumstances have shifted. You can choose which categories you want to view Notification Dots for and whether or not you want to get any push notifications at all.
Facebook has unveiled a cryptocurrency.
Facebook formally introduced Calibra in June, a new division for financial services that includes a cryptocurrency called Libra and a digital wallet.
Influencers’ sponsored posts can be promoted by brands.
You may now add the note “Paid partnership with XX” to an influencer’s sponsored Instagram post to transform it into an advertisement. As a result, businesses can target their ads to appear on influencers’ posts. Both the brand and the influencer will need to set up the feature.