Greg Finn says, “A new tool in the Facebook ad repertoire may act as a real-time focus group of its 1.35 billion users. According to AdWeek, this new platform, dubbed ‘Grapevine’, is available only to high end advertisers. ‘Grapevine’, will help give context to topics and ads so that brands can better customize their messaging. According to Facebook the data derived from the tool is both qualitative and quantitative — so users could see what users are saying about a topic and craft ads based on the sentiment. Someone could look up what people are discussing on a topic like home... [...]

Stephanie Jones says, “Everyone’s doing it these days. There was nothing lewd or raunchy meant by that, so get your head out of the gutter, folks. We’re talking about ads on Facebook, which for a number of reasons, has become the norm for businesses marketing themselves on the website. These days, it’s so easy for a company’s ads to get lost in the abyss on Facebook. It’s the same old tale: Organic reach is down to nearly nothing and businesses are struggling to reach their current or future customers. If your ads aren’t well planned (from your organization’s goals for... [...]

Pamela Parker says, “One of the hot topics at SMX Social Media Marketing this year was how marketers can get into the Facebook News Feed, given that the social network giant seems to be constantly throttling back the reach of organic content. Must we pay? Or are there other options? This was the focus of two different panels at the Las Vegas event, the “The New News Feed: How To Break Into Facebook’s Exclusive Neighborhood” and “Winning Strategies With Facebook Ads.” Both were especially timely, given the site’s announcement last week that it will show promotional and sales-oriented... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “According to Facebook, the number of videos posted by SMBs has nearly tripled since last year, with the number of companies posting videos nearly doubling in the same amount of time. The social network reports more than 800,000 small to medium sized businesses posted over three-million videos during September alone. Of the three million videos posted by the SMBs, 84 percent were uploaded outside of the U.S. After breaking news earlier this year that it has been averaging over a billion video views a day since June, Facebook continues to deliver more video to its desktop... [...]

Lara O’Reilly says, “Forrester, the respected market research company, has a history of releasing reports that cast Facebook in a bad light in the eyes of advertisers. Last year it suggested Facebook was “failing marketers” by “abandoning” its promise of social marketing. Now Forrester is truly hitting Facebook where it hurts: it is advising advertisers to stop using Facebook if they want to build social relationships with their customers. The release of the “Social Relationship Strategies That Work” report follows Facebook’s announcement on... [...]

Lara O’Reilly says, “Gobble, gobble. YouTube’s dominance of the worldwide video market is under threat as Facebook continues to ramp up its charge to increase its share of the lucrative online video market. In recent months Facebook began seeding autoplay videos into the News Feed, shortly followed by premium autoplay video ads; the company has increased its mentions of the importance of video in its quarterly earnings and investor calls; and it is reportedly actively trying to poach YouTube stars to create content made specifically for its platform. The results of energized... [...]

Nate Elliott says, “After years of pushing brands’ reach lower with one hand (and opening marketers’ wallets with the other) Facebook has finally announced the end of organic social marketing on its site. In a Friday night blog post the social giant warned brands that “Beginning in January 2015, people will see less of this type of content [promotional page posts] in their News Feeds,” and admitted that brands that post promotional content “will see a significant decrease in distribution.” It’s not as if marketers could count on much organic reach or engagement anyway. Ogilvy... [...]

Adam Hansen says, “As of November 5th, 2014 Facebook has officially killed the Like Gate, in one of the biggest social media marketing updates in latest memory. This change was announced back in August, so it’s not taking anyone by surprise or anything. However, it still has huge impacts on how businesses run social media marketing campaigns on Facebook. If you’re freaking out about this change because you’ve used like gates in the past or you just want to know how to approach future Facebook campaigns”. Facebook Kills “Like Gates”: What it Means for You and What to do Next Mark... [...]

Todd Wasserman says, “Facebook announced that it intends to crack down on “promotional content” from brands, citing feedback on Friday from users who complained about too much hucksterism in their News Feeds. Such content was showing up in the form of status updates from brands that consumers had Liked at one time or another. Starting in January, updates with a promotional bent won’t show up in users’ News Feeds as much, thanks to an algorithm tweak. Facebook defines “promotion” in three ways: Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app”. Facebook... [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “You already Facebook at work, so here’s “Facebook at Work.” Facebook is working on extending its network beyond the social realm and into the professional world, according to the Financial Times, citing anonymous sources. The company’s new, enterprise-focused product will be similar to the functionality of its current site, with a newsfeed, groups and messaging capability. However, it will also include collaborative tools for work on shared documents. Facebook at Work will be entirely separate from personal accounts, with no information from a... [...]