pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

NEXT CONFERENCE: FEBRUARY 23-27, 2015

DOWNLOAD OUR APP

News

FACEBOOK IN 2015: MARKETERS HAVE THEIRSAY! Marketing

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015

by cormac reynolds

Home About Cities News Schedule Sponsors Get Involved Media Contact

Login Create Account

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

43 0 11 24 NEXT: 5 Essential Twitter Search Operators To Find The Most Rel…

For most of us, when we think social media, we think Facebook. However, as we’re all well aware things changeddramatically in 2014 with the world’s biggest social media platform.

From changes in the levels of reach, to changes to the way businesses went about advertising we saw Facebook changeddramatically. So, we at My Online Marketer thought who better to ask about the future of Facebook than a selection ofesteemed marketers and social media professionals?

Q. Will Facebook be as popular to marketersin 12 months time as it is now?A. Greg DiVilbiss (Partner)

I believe it will be more popular as targeting and retargeting gets re ned even more. The ability to reallyhone in on the marketplace that will most likely be your customer and the ability to engage with thosepeople who are interested in whatever it is that you are selling is unparalleled. So the combination oftargeting and engagement will keep marketers zoned right into whatever Facebook is doing.

What I see is the biggest problem with Facebook is the young seem to have abandoned the platform for things likesnapchat and Instagram. Now since Facebook owns Instagram if they can somehow integrate or learn why the teens haveleft in droves than that would increase the longevity even more. But when the teens get in that prime purchasingdemographic than it could be a problem.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

A. Je rey Romano (Founder & Blogger at WP LIghthouse)

Facebook will continue to be a massive marketing platform in 2015. However, I believe the shift inperception towards treating Facebook as an advertising platform, rather than a social media platform,will continue. 2015 will be the year in which we see a signi cant rise in importance attributed to expertFacebook ad managers. These ad experts specialize towards driving leads at a lower overall cost forboth B2B and B2C businesses.

Local businesses who can’t a ord hiring such experts will continue to lose faith with Facebook as they realize that thenumber of Facebook Page Likes they have is just a vanity metric. What matters is their ROI and this becomes easier tomeasure as they use ads. When they see a negative or low ROI, they will be more likely to prioritize other marketingmethods instead.

A. CGGSOC

In a recent blog, I evaluated the changes that took place on Facebook 1st of the year. It certainly lookslike Facebook popularity for business will wane because of those modi cations. To continue usingFacebook, people in business will have to focus on what is still working. Currently I am nding Shares canincrease Reach. Therefore, creativity will be required to be e ective. To persuade your fans to engagemore often, especially by sharing. Will Facebook still be a magnet for business people in 12 months. Onlytime will tell. For now. I am not removing Facebook from my rotation, it just won’t be my focus. Twitter is my new focus.

A. Ledux

Facebook is becoming more mature as an advertising platform, adding better targeting and many more incrediblefunctions, but it is also getting more strict as to who is allowed to advertise and what pages are allowed to be advertised.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

This is usually a bad thing for small marketers and a good thing for big marketers. So, in 12 months I guess it will be lesspopular to small marketers because it takes more e ort to run a campaign. Also, as more big players are entering in thetra c cost is increasing. Also, not in favor for the small marketers.

Facebook fanpages are also not in favor for small marketers because as you know to get reach you need to promote yourposts. If you are a big business that’s not a problem, but if you are a small marketer, then it’s pretty annoying.

A. KenS (Facebook’s Future)

If things stay the way they are now, I believe Facebook will su er a bit at the hands of the other socialnetworks. As Pinterest, Twitter, etc beef up their advertising programs they will take business from FB asthere is only so much to go around and people are reporting better ROI on some of those othernetworks. I suspect that is very dependent on the type of product/service being marketed. For example,FB is a good venue for branding, but probably not as good for product sales.   I don’t believe it will be theend of Facebook for marketers, especially as they begin to add programs to better compete, like the introduction ofvideo.

A. Cleverpedia

I do not think it will be quite as popular. I think as other platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr really take hold(after all, Tumblr and Instagram were just rated the quickest growing platforms in a recent Pew study), people are going torely on Facebook less and less, and marketers need to go where their audience is. Even if that means learning about thesubculture of how to publish on Tumblr (very di erent from other networks) or starting a new social presence frombasically zero. Don’t get me wrong — I’m sure Facebook will still be VERY important, probably still the most important. ButI think that the value of the social networks is going to fracture, more power going to others.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

A. Paul Manwaring (Paul @ IMH Blog)

I think many marketers will shift their e orts into content creation for entities they control (blogging,events etc). For many small businesses and bloggers can get better returns investing their resourceselsewhere. It come’s to a point when you have to ask: Am I really getting anything back from Facebook.Do I realistically have enough resources to create and maintain a successful facebook marketingstrategy. The answer is usually no, and I’d suggest to concentrate on producing quality content.

Paid marketing is the way to go in 2015 if you want to advertise something on Facebook it’s as simple as that

A. Brandon Schaefer (CEO )

The in uential marketers and brands that are already established on Facebook right now will still relyheavily on it for their marketing e orts over the next 12 months. For the marketers and brands whichcurrently don’t have an established foothold on Facebook, it’s going to be extremely di cult to gain anytraction without paying a lot of money. Facebook is still a phenomenal network for marketers andbusinesses to continue to grow their brands, it’s just not going to be as easy at it was over the pastcouple years. Marketers and businesses need to nd ways to get creative with their Facebook marketing campaigns ie:contests, giveaways, and such to be successful.

A. Paul Shapiro (SEO Director at Catalyst, a WPP Agency)

As far as sophistication social advertising platforms are concerned, Facebook is king. It’s got the users aswell. This isn’t going to be changing as soon as 12-months from now. Facebook is still where you shouldbe spending for Social ads. The improvements to the Facebook platform are going to be somethingyou’re going to want to leverage more and more. However, Facebook continues to wane as an Organic-

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Social investment. I’m predicting a Twitter resurgence in that 12-month period that might encroach onFacebook advertising spend. They’ve improved their advertising platform, allowing for more Facebook-stylepsychographic targeting and have released a video platform as well.

A. sef.caa.diz (BV Digital Marketing Director. H.I.M Founder. )

Facebook is an amazing place to aggregate and take in content.

A lot of marketers and brands nd Facebook to be a great testing ground for headlines as well; however,we also see Facebook as unpredictable and even call it ‘the beach.’ This means people aren’t reallylooking to buy products on Facebook. People are on Facebook to hang out.

Also, Facebook always ne tunes their algorithm; leaving brands out in the cold. This turns o marketers who will look toother means of marketing. On the plus side, search engines use Facebook and other social media platforms as a way torank content and brands.

A. Casey Markee (President, Media Wyse)

Facebook will be more popular to marketers in 2015 than ever before and that’s because of one word:Atlas. Atlas is Facebook’s Google Doubleclick Ad competitor that provides more behavior and usertracking data to advertisers than ever before.

Already, Atlas has changed how advertisers and marketers are using Facebook. For example, advertisingholding company the Omicron Group is now using Atlas ad tags to “check the math” of their currentcampaigns with Google. They can use this data to re ne targeting AND highlight discrepencies so theycan choose to move client spend from Google to Facebook in 2015 and beyond.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

A. SEO Doctor (Gareth James)

I believe Facebook will be even more popular with marketers a year from now. Not just in advertising butusing graph search for research.  As organic reach of posts diminishes, companies will be forced to payto play.  I think the big viral content based sites will need to nd new ways to engage users and moveaway from pure clickbait.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Facebook’s news feed algorithm is continually tweaked to promote posts with strong engagement from likes, commentsand shares. Sale type posts will not get a look in and marketers will need to be more creative moving away from textheavy posts.  The use of well made videos will be be successful if marketers can nd scaleable solutions.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

A. Alyssa Gailey (Social Media Specialist)

The fate of Facebook in social media marketing is changing. Many marketers will continue to turn to thisplatform in the next 12 months and beyond because of the volume of users. The key to social mediasuccess on Facebook, is creating rich content, that is optimized and relevant, to share with your onlineaudience. Additionally, marketers will need to facilitate engaging conversations wiht their audience toestablish a relationship that will translate to all facets of their business, online and o ine.

If these simple principles are followed by marketers over the next year, then I think the aanswer to the question is yes.Facebook is iconic for changing up the way businesses can use the platform. With the recent shift to rewarding lesspromotional content, social media marketing will begin to rely even more on content marketing and SEO principles.

Q. I want to know what you think thefuture of the social media platformholds and what will be introduced thisyear

A. Greg DiVilbiss (Partner)

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Well, I partially answered in the last question but. I think they will continue to create a more elegantinterface, I believe they will some how gure out a way to further utilize the newsfeed for advertising.They could come up with some method to better get the posts that you want vs, the ones you do not. Itis possible that they will try and integrate some kind of daily feed of top posts to an email address.

I suspect that they will try and purchase competitors like Ello and Tzu. Look for things geared towardsyounger users, maybe a “Facebook Family” for younger users. They must gure out how to be cool again in the eyes ofthe up and comers.

A. Je rey Romano (Founder & Blogger at WP LIghthouse)

Facebook has been testing implementing more call to action buttons on Pages. I think this will certainlybe a development that many marketers will be paying close attention, especially if this can be combinedwith email signups, which are often one of the more important marketing-related metrics. Implementingin-built call-to-action buttons could help increase engagement which is interesting as although reach isbeing lowered, Facebook is trying to improve engagement. A smart move.

Another continuing development will be the rise of video. Facebook has been testing implementing playlists and othervideo-related features and so its clear that the social network wants to continue to seriously challenge YouTube. As timepasses, more people will probably turn-o the auto-play feature, so Facebook will have to rely on continuous innovationto be the leader in Internet video. This is de nately an exciting space to watch.

A. CGGSOC

Businesses will have to be more creative. Unless Facebook has other changes in the works for businesspages, we may have hit an impasse. We have to face that this is what we have to deal with. Some may

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

choose to opt out completely. I know there will be those few that have the persistence and creativity tond ways to continue to grow organically. I also think that your current Likes will seriously, negatively (if

your numbers are small – like mine) a ect this. Larger community fan pages will continue to growbecause of the sheer number of people. What I would really love to see introduce is an app that facilitates shares.

A. ledux

It’s hard to say what they are going to come up with, but it better be good. If Facebook wants to maintain its huge marketshare it needs to innovate. Honestly, Facebook is becoming boring, people are reluctant to share stu on Facebook, butit’s still a convenient social media site because everyone is on there.

Honestly, if something new and exciting happened to emerge it could get a huge market share o of Facebook. Snapchatis one of the candidates, but it’s still a rather small social network.

Anyways, if you’re on the top you need to keep coming up with new stu to stay there and Facebook knows that. So, it’svery likely that there are going to be a lot of updates from Facebook this year,

A. Cleverpedia

As we have noticed over the past year or more, Facebook has really come into this place where they’ve realized THEY havethe power of presenting your content to their audience or NOT presenting it. Because all of that power is in their hands,they are going to throttle organic reach as much as possible. I do not think they will completely take away organic reach,but I think as time goes on it will be harder and harder to reach your audience without spending money. And even then,when you do spend money, there are so many low-quality fans on Facebook that your content could be presented to, I’mnot sure it’s even worth that much value anymore to boost things.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

A. Paul Manwaring (Paul @ IMH Blog)

I think it will laregly stay the same. Only 2 big things I see being introduced will be:

1) Even more advertising. Snapchat announced this week they’d start introducing ads on their networkwith prices starting at $750,000. Facebook are clamping down on organic reach and many marketers seetheir reach numbers dropping week-by-week.

2) S-commerce. Twitter have been testing ‘buy now’ call to actions in tweets from brands. I think we’ll see much moredirect integration between brands and social media.

Largely from a users point of view it won’t change much. The giants will still be the biggest platforms and I can’t see thembeing overtaken any time soon.

A. Brandon Schaefer (CEO )

The future of Facebook is going to be in paid advertising for marketers and businesses. I believeFacebook will continue to seperate out the social “friends and family” type of their business, from the“business marketing” side of their business. Facebook is going to continue to focus on improving themobile experience, as well as o ering ways to gather more information on your Facebook contacts ie:before you visit with a contact, all types of information will be delivered to your device with what theperson your meeting with likes, or dislikes. Several companies are competing in this space, and I look for Facebook toacquire one of them in 2015.

A. Paul Shapiro (SEO Director at Catalyst, a WPP Agency)

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

The future of social media platforms is in data technology. We’re seeing new ways that people areleveraging social media as a source of big data and it seems that everyone is hopping on the machinebandwagon. I expect to see platforms with a more predictive feature-sets that help provide more usefulrecommendations and with a greater accuracy. This is also necessary as social media isn’t new anymore.It’s maturing and so are its users. Old social media campaigns that relied on the novelty factor still work,but less so. So what’s left? Ensuring social media content is the best possible match for our audience. For this type ofinformation, we look to the data.

A. sef.caa.diz (BV Digital Marketing Director. H.I.M Founder. )

There’s a lot of speculation that innovation in social is over. The established brands exist today and therewill be no other ‘revolution’ in social. Let’s remember that social media is great for real time. I think a lotof brands will look to social media and nd ways to capitalize on real time to get exclusive or limitedtime products and services. It’s a great way to brand a product and get more eyeballs. The future ofsocial media will be the social media of everything. Businesses will create their own social networks andkeep everyone in one community to ultimately get together in person for marketing purposes — at least this is just theone avenue it can possibly travel.

A. Casey Markee (President, Media Wyse)

2015 is the year of SOLOMO (Social, Local, Mobile). Now that Google has introduced mobile-friendly tagsin search AND is preparing to reward mobile-optimized sites with a slight ranking boost,the need for siteowners to mobile optimize their social content has never been greater.

The big winner here is going to be Facebook which is already serving mobile content at a great frequencyand engagement level than Twitter, Google+ or Linkedin is even close to reaching. Sites that focus on

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

building up their Facebook presence, then using promoted posts and Facebook Ads to drive thatcontent, are going to be more successful in 2015.

A. SEO Doctor (Gareth James)

Along with improving the mobile experience and rolling out smart publishing to brands, the area I’mwatching is Facebook Search.  Facebook really wants to get into search and compete with Google bykeeping users on Facebook to do their searches.  Facebook has huge amounts of information fromposts and pages that can answer search queries, some of the statistics are staggering, 70 billions piecesof content shared each month, with users sharing around 2.5 Billion pieces of content each day.

On 8th December, Rousseau Kazi (facebook product manager) talked about the ability to search posts that have beenshared with you more easily, moving away from simple people search.

“Every post is more or less an answer to a question you didn’t know was being asked.”

Interesting quotation in light of Google’s roll out of Knowledge Graph to answer search queries. This year will see furtherimprovements in Facebook Search through the development of their natural language interface , where user searchintent is understood and matched with information from the Facebook’s graph.

“Graph Search is one important pillar of Facebook in our mission to make the world more open and connected. We areonly 1% complete, and we are looking forward to the rest of the journey!”

Searchers want questions answered, but who will provide the best answers?  Facebook’s will undoubtedly be morepersonal.

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

A. Alyssa Gailey (Social Media Specialist)

Facebook isn’t a stranger of the out with the new, in with the old concept. They’re known for testing anew feature and then rolling it out across the entire platform or reverting to old components if it didn’tperform to the Facebook standard. What I think will be super important in the future of the Facebookplatform is helping social media marketers discover the ROI of e orts in order to use the platform to itsfullest potential; we’ve seen this with the recent release of the CTA buttons on brand pages.

In this new year, Facebook will really need to focus on honing in on the e ectivness of its paid features, like advertising.There is a current study looking into the relevancy of click through rates for advertising campaigns. Some marketers cannow sign up for the study where two groups are used to determine conversions, one group is shown the business’s adand one is not.  The outcome of this study will be imperative in determining how Facebook can help aid marketers toshow the ROI of e orts and persuading marketers to invest more time, and money, into the platform.

COMMENTS

Email Address Choose your SMW City Yes, Please!

WANT MORE?

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

RELATED

Facebook social plugin

Add a comment...

Comment using...

Marketing

The Secret Weapons Every Marketer Needs

34

Marketing

The Global Guide To Twitter Mentions: Insights You Need To Know

34

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Business

Common Social Media Mistakes Made By SMEs

52

Marketing

Harnessing The Power Of On-Hold Marketing

22

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Marketing

Why Every Marketer Should Leverage Retargeting

49

Tech

3 Social Marketing Tools That Come With Super Powers

38

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Tech

Zuckerberg’s 3 Predictions For What Social Networks Will LookLike In 10 Years

72

Tech

Facebook Launches Facebook At Work

128

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Marketing

The Value Of Using Predictive Personalization In Your EmailMarketing

192

© 2015 Social Media Week is a registered trademark of Crowdcentric Media LLC.