Looking for new ways to unlock the power of Facebook marketing?
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With about 1.23 billion daily active users, Facebook continues to be a goldmine for businesses and digital marketers. But as technology advances, Facebook also revamps old features and introduces new ones to improve user experience.
What do these changes mean for your business?
The Facebook marketing features that worked two or three years ago may not work for you today. In a fast-moving digital world, you need to stay on top of Facebook marketing trends in order to get the most out of the social network.
So, what’s in store for 2017 and beyond? In this post, we’re sharing 8 Facebook marketing features that you should be using this year. Let’s get into it.
1. The Power of Facebook Video
Digital video is the future of digital marketing.
By 2019, video traffic will constitute a whopping 80 percent of all internet traffic.
Now let’s get back to Facebook.
How big is video on this platform?
Well, the numbers are pretty interesting.
On average:
- Facebook videos receive at least 8 billion daily views,
- At least 100 million hours of videos are watched every day on Facebook
- In terms of organic reach, Facebook video posts outperform photo posts by over 135 percent.
Can you hear what these stats are screaming?
Get ready to hit the record button more often this year!
To improve your video sharing experience, Facebook introduced the cross-posting feature, which enables you to share the same video across multiple fan pages from the same Business Manager tool.
2. Facebook Live is Gaining Traction
Even though video is the future of digital marketing, the jury is still out on which between live videos and recorded videos will be a hit among viewers.
For now, though, recorded Facebook videos still rule the game today, but Facebook live is quickly gaining momentum.
In 2016, the company made changes to the News Feed, enabling Facebook live videos to get higher rankings.
As a business owner, using Facebook live in your marketing strategy not only increases your audience reach but also enables potential customers to interact with your brand in real-time.
You can also use Facebook live to send special messages to customers and give daily updates on what your business is up to.
3. Facebook Marketplace
With Facebook marketplace, you can sell products to your local customers, just as you would on eBay and other established online marketplaces.
Maybe you are asking yourself, “why should I switch from an established online marketplaces to the little-known Facebook marketplace?”
To begin with, you don’t have to move, because you should sell your products on various marketplaces to pump up your sales.
But, here is why Facebook Marketplace is the real deal this year.
To begin with, more than 450 million people visit Facebook to sell and buy goods. This means there are already potential customers for your business on the platform.
Secondly, it’s designed with local businesses in mind. If you own one, you can leverage the power of this feature to reach more customers in your neighborhood.
4. Instant Articles
Video consumption may be growing by double digits, but written content is still central to every content marketing strategy.
Yet, there is nothing more painful to digital content consumers than slow load speeds.
From a business perspective, slow load speeds can stagnate your business. You will lose out on thousands of potential customers since about 40 percent of internet users abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load!
Using Instant Articles solves this problem because the feature speeds up the loading time of a link by up to 10 times.
All you have to do is publish an Instant Articles on Facebook, so mobile users can view them within Facebook’s mobile app.
Given the faster load speeds, Instant Articles have the potential to receive lots of views, which could translate into more traffic to your business website.
5. Share Quotes
Have you ever read something on a blog and felt like sharing it on Facebook?
In the past, you had to copy the text and paste it to Facebook, or type it out.
Today, you can use the share quotes feature to mark out a text and share it directly to your Facebook friends or fans.
Business owners can integrate this feature into their blogs, enabling readers to share interesting quotes on Facebook.
The more people share your content, the more the conversations about your brand on Facebook.
6. Workplace by Facebook
This is one of the marketing features Facebook has built for businesses that sell products and services to other businesses (B2B).
Workplace by Facebook provides your whole organization with familiar Facebook tools, helping everyone in your business turn ideas into action.
Live Video lets you broadcast to your whole business from the camera in your pocket.
Multi-company groups let you collaborate with people from any other business that uses Workplace.
With Work Chat you can reach any coworker instantly with messaging, voice and video calling.
Search lets anyone across your business find people, group posts and files to get the answers they need, and so much more.
7. Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger has been around since 2011, but 2017 is the year that it became indispensable to businesses.
With over a billion monthly users, virtual business cards and the power to send and receive money, using messenger for business can boost your sales.
It’s also possible to use bots to respond to complex queries and even handle some aspects of the sales process. Uber, for example, allows U.S. customers to book rides via messenger.
8. Facebook 360
Before we bring the curtains down on the Facebook marketing features, let’s zoom in on Facebook 360.
What’s Facebook 360 and how can you use it in your marketing efforts?
This feature is designed to help you give your customers a complete view of your business environment.
For instance, using Facebook 360 to create 3D photos of your latest products enables customers to view it from every angle.
The feature is also ideal for live events and location sharing. You can take photos outside your business to guide new customers to your premises.
Closing Thoughts on Facebook Marketing Features
Facebook is doing an excellent job providing businesses with powerful marketing tools.
However, it doesn't create the marketing features equally. Some are more powerful and suited to certain tasks than others.
It’s your responsibility to identify the features that fit into your marketing strategy.
Luckily, we just covered the hottest marketing features as of 2017, so your job is to incorporate them into your strategy.
If you need help designing and implementing a Facebook marketing strategy, get in touch with us today and let the certified digital marketing experts grow your brand.
Owner and Chief Marketing Officer, Jason Hall, and his team specialize in creating brand awareness / traffic and lead generation / marketing funnel and conversion optimization, while utilizing the appropriate marketing channels available within your industry. With diverse clients throughout the world, Jason's team is well connected within many industries to assist with your marketing strategies. With no long term contracts and various levels of service, Jason's team will increase the quality of your online traffic, leads, and sales.
About the author...
Located in the heart of the Emerald Coast - Destin, FL, founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Jason Hall, and his team specialize in creating brand awareness / traffic and lead generation / marketing funnel and conversion optimization / and PR campaigns, while utilizing the appropriate marketing channels available within your industry.
With diverse clients throughout the world, Jason's team is well connected within many industries to assist with your marketing strategies. With no long term contracts and various levels of service, Jason's team will increase the quality of your online traffic, leads, and sales.
Request a digital marketing strategy session today and we'll show you what you've been missing!
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