Earlier this year, Facebook announced changes to its Ads Manager and Business Manager to improve user experience. These changes include:

Simpler design

A more streamlined and cleaner Ads Manager interface has been introduced. Its simplified navigation features allow more space to manage ads and promote tools that help gauge ad performance.

Copy & paste functionality and auto-naming

Advertisers are given more flexibility when creating ads with the launch of a copy and paste functionality. An auto-naming feature has also been added for businesses to customize their ads in a much shorter time.

Adding new clients made easy

Business Manager has been updated to allow agencies to activate their clients’ campaigns more efficiently. These updates include a streamlined process for agencies to add new clients, making it easier to manage clients’ historical reporting, as well as to assign and organize assets within a Business Manager account.

Over the past month, Facebook has also updated page posts and ads on mobile to provide a more consistent look across the Facebook’s family of apps and longer term value for its clients. These updates include:

These updates include:

visible primary text being shortened from 3 to 7 lines, with a prompt at the end to read remaining text.

maximum media height being revised from a 2:3 to 4:5 aspect ratio for photos and videos.

As part of its continuous efforts to refine targeting options, Facebook has removed targeting options that are outdated or had not been popular among businesses.  For instance, options associated with older song titles, albums or games are no longer available. The aim is to make it easier for advertisers to identify and take advantage of the right targeting options. In the meantime, guidance is available to those who are looking for options that have been removed.

With Facebook always evolving to deliver the best user experience and products, advertisers can simply kick back, relax, and quite literally, let Facebook do their work! Share with us your thoughts about the latest updates.

If you advertise on Facebook and Instagram, it’s time to update yourself with some of the latest creative tools.

Video creation

In Facebook’s Video Creation Kit, you will now have even more visually-engaging templates to choose from.

What’s more, seasonal stickers and templates are now available in the Effects tab to help “freshen up” your ads. Your ads will never be “the same old thing all year round” anymore!

Meanwhile, 20 new font options have been introduced, making it easier to add text overlays that tie in with your brand guidelines better.

Ever felt “trapped” working on a video because the moment you start, you can’t step away as you don’t want to lose all your work?  The Video Creation Kit has made it possible to save drafts of videos, so you can work on your video whenever you have a moment and pick up exactly where you left off later on.

Video editing

Ads Manager allows selection of an aspect ratio  (4:5, 2:3, 9:16, 1:1 or 16:9) to crop your video according to requirements of different placements (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or Audience Network).

Similarly, you can trim the duration of a video for different platforms as well.

Dynamic ads

Whether you’re selling products, hotels, flights or vehicles, a dynamic ad might just work for you. Available in single-image, carousel and collection format, dynamic ads can be used across Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger.

Branded content ads

Advertisers can now promote branded content posts as feed ads, reaching a wider audience. “Paid partnership with” along with the brand name will appear to ensure ads transparency.

ThruPlay

Available for Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network, ThruPlay allows advertisers to pay only when ads are played to completion or for at least 15 seconds. Optimize your video ad campaign for ThruPlay, and Facebook will deliver it to users that are likely to watch 15 seconds or the whole video.

Let your creativity run amok and have fun experimenting with these creative tools!

F8, Facebook’s developer conference, took place on April 30 – May 1, 2019.  During the keynote speech, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a number of updates to Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, three of the world’s biggest social media platforms.

Facebook

• New design

Facebook will have a new, simpler design, highlighting groups and events.  The Groups tab will introduce a more prominent design and a personalized feed from groups, as opposed to just a general update feed from friends, making it easier to connect with people who share the same interests.  With this new emphasis on groups, even business Pages can now join groups and take part in group discussions where they can engage with target customers and share content and events.

• Facebook dating

Facebook Dating is currently only available in Colombia, Thailand, Canada, Argentina, and Mexico. Although Facebook is expanding it to 14 new countries, Hong Kong has yet to make the list. At this stage, businesses won’t be able to take part or place ads in Facebook Dating, but Facebook is not ruling out introducing monetization opportunities for businesses in the future.

Messenger

• New business solutions

Messenger will be launching a number of business solutions designed to help businesses generate leads, drive in-store traffic and provide customer care. Among these solutions is lead generation template in Ads Manager.  Businesses can create an ad that triggers an automated question-and-answer flow in Messenger to generate leads. In addition to the lead generation templates, Messenger will also launch an appointment booking interface which businesses can opt to integrate with their existing calendaring system. This functionality is still in beta and will be more widely available later this year.

Instagram

• Shopping tags

Businesses in the US currently with in-app checkout on Instagram (still in beta) will be able to approve individuals, e.g. influencers, artists and celebrities, to tag checkout-enabled products from their shops and let followers purchase the items within the app. This new functionality will extend businesses’ reach to potential customers and facilitate the shopping experience for customers.

• Improved camera

Instagram will be updating its camera interface and offer “Create Mode” which allows users to share a post without having to upload an existing photo or video. This feature, as Facebook stated, will benefit all accounts, business or personal.

Businesses can expect to be that much closer to their customers as Facebook rolls out all these exciting new features gradually in more countries.

In order to maintain the integrity of content across its family of apps, Facebook has been adopting a strategy called “remove, reduce, and inform” since 2016. The strategy involves removing the content in violation of its policies, reducing the spread of problematic content that’s not in violation of its policies, and providing users with information so that they make informed choices when deciding what to click, read or share.

Remove

Facebook’s Community Standards page sets out what content is or is not permitted, and is designed to create a communication environment that embraces real-world safety, diversity, and equity.

Facebook has recently introduced a new section on this Community Standards page where users are regularly informed of the latest updates. A new feature named “Group Quality” has also been implemented to help admins of Facebook groups understand better how Facebook enforces its standards.

Reduce

While some types of content might not violate the Community Standards, they are not exactly popular among Facebook users, e.g. misinformation and clickbait. Utilizing technology and people in its fight against photo and video-based false news, Facebook has been gaining momentum enforcing against fake accounts and coordinated inauthentic behavior. Measures have been introduced to help users identify false news. Certified fact-checking partners are also used to assess content in 24 languages.

Going forward, Facebook is to continue consulting academics, fact-checking experts, journalists, and other organizations to find new ways to snuff out fake news stories. Groups found to have repeatedly shared false content will have their overall News Feed distribution reduced.

Inform

Features, e.g. the Context Button, have been launched to provide background information related to News Feed content to help users evaluate source credibility.

As part of its upcoming plan, Facebook is set to expand the Context Button to images as well. Existing features, e.g. the Page Quality tab, will be enhanced, and more features like the Trust Indicators will be added in order to provide clarity on a news organization’s ethics and standards.

Messenger

Facebook will be bringing its Verified Badge to Messenger, helping users avoid scammers. Messenger users will be given more control over who can reach them and whom to block. In a move to curb the spread of false news, Messenger will also have its own Context Button and Forward Indicator.

As scammers are constantly evolving their techniques, Facebook is determined to continuously step up its efforts in its war against misinformation.

WhatsApp Business is an Android instant messaging app specially designed to help small businesses advertise and interact with their customers. Launched by WhatsApp in 2018, WhatsApp Business offers tools to help businesses sort, automate and facilitate their communication with customers.

Setting up WhatsApp Business is as easy. Simply create your business profile with a photo, a brief description, as well as essential information, e.g. address, website, and email. Then set a greeting message, an away message, and frequently-used replies that can be re-used as quick responses.

Recognizing the effectiveness of business exposure on WhatsApp, Facebook started offering its advertisers who have both WhatsApp Business and Facebook Ads Manager accounts an option to add a call-to-action button to their ads. Facebook users clicking on the button will be taken to WhatsApp where they can communicate directly with the advertiser. Here are the benefits.

1. Multimedia 

Choosing to connect Facebook ad with WhatsApp does not only enhance exposure. Advertisers can instantly communicate with their customers through multimedia messaging, free international calls, group chats, etc.

2. Accessibility

Being available on WhatsApp means advertisers are more discoverable and accessible, boosting customer engagement rates, which helps grow business.

3. Efficiency

WhatsApp Business comes with tools that help automate, sort and organize customer messages, speeding up the communication process and enhancing customer satisfaction.

4. Flexibility

Advertisers can use both WhatsApp Messenger and WhatsApp Business on the same phone. Meanwhile, WhatsApp Web — the version of WhatsApp for computers — offers even more flexibility to advertisers.

5. Statistics

The statistics feature of WhatsApp Business allows advertisers to gauge the effectiveness of their messages and better understand their customers.

Customer relation is crucial in any retail business, be it brick-and-mortar or online. Combining Facebook and WhatsApp adds a bit of personal touch to traditional advertising and gives business a competitive edge. What’s more, with over 300 million active users on a daily basis, WhatsApp certainly offers businesses an enticing customer base to tap into.

Source:

1. https://www.facebook.com/business/whatsapp/get-started

2. https://medium.com/invoice-blog/whatsapp-business-app-features-benefits-for-small-business-owners-6c0fe5f4b181

Articles on content marketing will tell you that strong promotional messages drive your customers away. But is that really the case?

Yes, social media was first created for socialising. But as the years past, more users began to use it as a tool to look for information, connect with their favorite brands and discover new ones. In other words, they are more open to your sales message being put further upfront — as long as you offer value — content appealing enough to make them stay.

Our experience in developing social media content for Olivier Pacific tells us that great aesthetics always wins. That applies to both visual and copy. We are naturally attracted to beautiful things. Olivier Pacific’s target audience stay for the sight of Michelin-starred creations, hearty feasts and delicate patisserie, accompanied with writing so vivid one could almost taste it.

Our content also offers industry professionals with insider tips about ingredient selection, food pairing and more, establishing the brand as a knowledgeable and go-to source of information. Once you give the audience ample reasons to connect with your business, leaving an email contact at the end of the feed and asking them to reach out will be the next most sensible thing to do.

Of course, you are still encouraged to build relationships with followers in the long run. But with the right audience, there’s no harm garnering sales results earlier on.

Think of the most loyal and highest-spending customers of your company. Now imagine reaching out to potential customers that are similar to these “ideal” customers of yours. That sounds like a lot of business potential, doesn’t it? Well, that’s exactly how Facebook’s value-based Lookalike Audiences works to maximise the return on your advertising spend.

Launched in 2013, Lookalike Audiences has become the “bread and butter” for companies that rely heavily on Facebook to reach out to their potential customers.

There are primarily three audience types that you can use on Facebook to target your advertising campaigns:

1) Saved Audiences

You define your target audiences according to location, income, education level, interests, age, gender, language, etc.

2) Custom Audiences

You define your target audiences according to their website and app activity. People who have visited your website or used your app are considered high-value as they have already displayed interest in your products or services.

3) Lookalike Audiences

Algorithm-based Lookalike Audiences allows you to reach out to potential customers that share similar profiles as your existing customers, i.e. you have a very good chance of converting them.

It works like this: First, you let Facebook know what types of potential customers you intend to reach by creating a Custom Audience based on up to 15 identifiers (e.g. email, phone number, year of birth, etc). Then, you pick a target location and a percentage (1% to 10%) of that location’s Facebook users that are the most similar to your defined Custom Audience. With the help of various AND/OR, as well as EXCLUDE, options, you can precisely narrow down your requirements.

Lookalike Audiences is an effective way of assessing customer value and reaching new prospects that are likely to convert, allowing you to make the most of your advertising budget. Facebook is now offering new event sources for creating value-based Lookalike Audience to make the process even more automatic, accurate, and in real-time. Talk to us to learn more about these tools that apply to web, app, catalog, or offline event sets.

Sources:

1) https://www.adweek.com/digital/3-benefits-to-using-facebooks-value-based-lookalikes

2) https://adespresso.com/guides/facebook-ads-beginner/campaigns-adsets-bidding

A household name in Hong Kong, Pok Oi Hospital has been providing quality medical and social services to the community since 1919. Their services span from dental to Chinese medicine, from primary schools to nursing homes.

According to Instagram statistics, one-third of the most viewed Instagram Stories are generated by businesses. Also, one in five Stories receives a direct message from its viewers. This is how promising it is to place Ads on this popular feature that rolled out in 2017. Steadily maturing into a channel of its own, Instagram Stories will definitely continue to flourish as an Ad platform. Here are a few tips for running great Instagram Story Ads.

Instagram Story Ads pop up in between the Stories of accounts you follow. Keep in mind that photo ads only last 10 seconds and video ads up to 15 seconds, plus users won’t be able to return to them later, so it’s important to always catch the eye in an instant. Strong visuals and clear messages are a must.

Make your ads as visually-appealing as possible, with the brand name clearly-visible right at the beginning to make an impression. 60% of Stories are viewed with sound on so don’t forget to add music to your ads. All of the above will contribute to prompting the viewer to click on your call-to-action (CTA) at the bottom, or follow up for more information afterwards.

If you are used to creating Facebook ad, you will find it easy to do so with Instagram Story Ads. You can also manage the latter from the same dashboard as your other Facebook or Instagram campaigns! And of course, it comes with Facebook’s comprehensive demographic data.

Instagram Story Ads give brands a new way to connect with potential customers. If you are interested, feel free to drop us a line for more insights.