Welcome to the Major Tom’s monthly update on social media.
We know that it can be challenging to keep up with the constant changes that take place, so we scour the web for the most noteworthy news from the social media sector so that you can keep track of the developments that might impact your organization.
So, from new and improved Facebook pixels to time tracking tools, these are the social media stories that caught our eye this past month.
Facebook’s Advanced Matching Pixel got a facelift, offering organizations even more options to track their activity.
While the Manual version of the pixel is nothing new, Facebook introduced a new Automatic version to give advertisers even more data to refine targeting.
Among the major benefits, Automatic pixel adopters can expect increased custom audience sizes due to continuous customer data syncing and Facebook profile matching. They should also see increased conversions from Facebook ads since the additional tracking helps tie more attribution to social advertising.
The social media giant already offered fantastic trackability, but these new updates give organizations even more ways to analyze their posts enabling them to boost their retention rates and drive even more conversions as a result.
The opportunity to increase your custom audiences and remarketing lists is reason alone to try the Advanced Matching Pixel. If you’re already using Facebook’s Manual version, it’s easy to make the switch. There’s even a set of instructions available on Facebook’s developer site, to help you to implement the changes on your website.
Social Media gets a lot of criticism. In fact, social channels have been blamed for everything from decreasing productivity to contributing to depression.
It’s no surprise then to see the major players take action to help their users make better decisions about their social media use. Recently, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube all launched new tools that share user activity and track the time people spend on their apps. Facebook and Instagram even went so far as to include a push notification feature that will remind users to close the app after a set period of time.
By making this data available to everyone, the idea behind these innovations is to make users more aware of the time they are spending on social media and in turn enjoy a more positive experience as a result.
Right now it’s unclear exactly how these new features will impact content performance. However, any changes that are designed to limit the amount of time users spend on social media is bound to have some effect.
Of course the changes could be beneficial, after all, less time spent online could lead users to have more engaged sessions. But these updates are more likely to force organizations to ask serious questions about the content they post.
There’s no denying the saturation of content out there. So, it’s the social network’s responsibility to ensure the wellness of its users, and it’s our job as content creators to ensure the content we publish is what our audience wants to see.
Given these recent changes, there’s no better time to perform a content audit. Review your analytics for spikes in reach, engagement, or attributed referral traffic. Those posts that outperform the others are what your audience wants to continue seeing. Adjusting and cutting out “the filler” content is what’s going to help your brand navigate through this uncertain time.
Instagram account verification has long been a lengthy process that was next to impossible unless you had a Facebook representative fighting in your corner from the inside.
However, in a new development, Instagram introduced a verification form in the app that makes it much easier for accounts to request that coveted blue check mark.
In the past, the only guidelines given to people hoping for verification were notability, celebrity or global recognition. This eventually expanded to include authenticity, uniqueness and completeness.
They are hardly comprehensive, but currently these are the only guidelines released to the public. In our experience, it’s well worth trying for verification regardless of your brand’s global reach or audience size. There’s no downside, and as long as your submission does not include any false or misleading information, you can always re-apply consequence-free after 30 days if you are rejected.
Good things come in small packages.
