Tag Archive for: Facebook

Understanding Facebook and Instagram’s New Verification Guidelines

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Getting “verified” on Facebook or Instagram serves as a badge of honor, signifying your place as a notable brand or individual on the platforms. However, it isn’t always clear who counts as ‘notable’ and who will be denied the blue checkmark – especially as Facebook and Instagram have recently updated their guidelines for who can be verified. 

To make it clear who can be verified, how to get verified, and what comes with the special badge, Facebook recently shared an in-depth post about the verification process on the Facebook for Creators page.

What Is Verification?

One thing that Facebook wants to make very clear is that being verified is not an endorsement from the platform.

It will not help your rankings or visibility in users’ feeds or earn you favorability in any other way on the platform.

Being verified is just a signal of notability and authenticity – nothing more.

What Is Needed To Apply for Verification?

Along with a typical application form, Facebook also asks for a number of details to confirm that you are a notable person or organization. This includes:

Proof of Authenticity

Facebook requires that you provide a form of official documentation proving that you are the person in question or a genuine representative of the organization applying. This can be done by providing one of the following:

  • A Passport
  • A Driving License
  • Tax Filing
  • NI Card
  • Articles of Incorporation
  • A Recent Utility Bill

Select Your Category

Applicants must identify themselves as one of the following types of profiles or pages which are ‘in the public interest’:

  • News/Media.
  • Government and politics.
  • Sports.
  • Fashion.
  • Music.
  • Entertainer.
  • Gamer.
  • Digital creator / blogger / influencer.
  • Business / brand / organization.
  • Other.

Additional Details

Applicants can also provide optional extra details which describe your audience, reasons why people follow you, and their related interests. 

Along with this, you can provide up to five links to pages or profiles showing that your brand is ‘in the public interest’. 

To be clear, Facebook states that links to clearly promotional or paid content will be disregarded.

Further Notes from Facebook

The post also details some of the basic guidelines and standards for verified profiles and pages, particularly that applicants must be:

  • For an account that represents a registered business or entity, or be a real person.
  • For a public account – with a bio, profile photo, ‘about’ section, and has a minimum of one post.
  • For an account that has a unique presence – pets and publications are also eligible.
  • For an account that represents a highly-searched for and well-known brand, entity, or person.
  • For one account per person or business – with the only exception being for language-specific accounts.

A Word of Caution

Lastly, Facebook warns that getting verified does tend to come with increased attention from bad actors, including hackers, scammers, and impersonators.

As such, it recommends that verified accounts enable two-factor authentication and be watchful for copycats impersonating them.

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Facebook Limits Ad Targeting For Minors and More

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Just days after Google announced sweeping changes to how it handles advertising and data privacy regarding users under 18, Facebook has revealed it is making similar changes to its ad platform.

The news comes along with the launch of new ad creation tools and placements this week by Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads to Remove Targeting For Minors

Facebook is notifying advertisers that it will be disabling many targeting options for ads aimed at minors starting August 23.

As the alert says:

“Starting August 23, many targeting options, including detailed targeting and Custom Audiences, will no longer be available to target people under 18 globally, 20 in Thailand or 21 in Indonesia. For new ads that include young people, you’ll only be able to target by location, age, and gender.”

New Campaign Ideas Generator

Having trouble coming up with ideas for an upcoming marketing campaign? Facebook has a new tool just for you. The idea generator allows brands to input their vertical and specify if they are running an evergreen or seasonal campaign. 

With this information, Facebook will then give you campaign ideas with data, insights, and resources for putting the campaigns into action.

Along with these ideas, Facebook’s campaign idea generator also creates draft organic posts to use and offers free assets like images for you to use.

New Ad Placements in Instagram Shops Being Tested

Lastly, an article from AdWeek disclosed that Instagram has been testing placing ads within the Instagram Shop Tab.

The ads appear on the homepage of the tab and can be expanded with a tap to show more pictures, product information, and related products – as you would with organic listings in the Instagram Shop Tab.

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Facebook Wants Your Opinion About Its Content

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Facebook is making major changes to its news feeds in a new bid to create a better experience for users in the near future. Before it can do so, though, the company is seeking feedback from users.

As the company recently announced, it is revamping parts of the news feed system to encourage four specific types of user feedback to better understand content. In the future, Facebook intends to use this information to create new ranking signals to directly decide what content users see.

Specifically, the company says it aims to gather answers to these four questions to get better at providing quality content in the future:

Is This Post Inspirational?

Facebook’s feeds have a bad reputation for highlighting negative content which can turn into a feedback loop of endless “doom scrolling.” With this in mind, the social network is looking to deliver more inspirational or uplifting content for users.

As the announcement says:

“To this end, we’re running a series of global tests that will survey people to understand which posts they find inspirational. We’ll incorporate their responses as a signal in News Feed ranking, with the goal of showing people more inspirational posts closer to the top of their News Feed.”

Is This Content Interesting?

Perhaps the most important factors for users scrolling through content is whether any of it is actually interesting to them. At times, it can feel like you can scroll for hours without seeing anything exciting or particularly relevant to their interests. 

“… we know sometimes even your closest friends and family share posts about topics that aren’t really interesting to you, or that you don’t want to see. To address this, we’ll ask people whether they want to see more or fewer posts about a certain topic, such as Cooking, Sports or Politics, and based on their collective feedback, we’ll aim to show people more content about the topics they’re more interested in, and show them fewer posts about topics they don’t want to see.”

Do You Want To See Less of This Content?

A huge part of Facebook’s reputation for negative content is the huge amount of political content shared on the social network. 

Since many turn to social media to connect with family, friends, and get away from the pressures of the real world, a large amount of political content can be tiresome and potentially make them less likely to check their feed regularly. 

Further, there are times where you might show an interest in a topic and start seeing an influx of tangentially related content that is not especially useful to you. Think clicking one particularly interesting headline and suddenly seeing tons of content on that topic, even though it’s not really that interesting to you.

To help with this, the company will start surveying users about content they have responded negatively to in order to create a ranking signal to deliver more relevant and positive content.

Was Giving Feedback Easy?

In some form or another, Facebook has given users the ability to deliver this type of feedback for several years. The problem is that finding the tools to do so was often a game of hide and seek. 

To make it easier for users to give feedback, the company is testing a new post design which will include a more prominent button to hide “irrelevant, problematic, or irritating” content and see less content like it in the future.

How This Will Affect Facebook Rankings

For now, it is unclear exactly how much this will change the content appearing in our news feeds every day. 

The company appears to know it has gained a nasty reputation for being overly political, sharing divisive information, and generally being a somewhat negative place to spend your time. 

Still, it remains to be seen whether this will lead to a massive shift or if these ranking signals will be too little to effectively change what gets highly ranked and what people are sharing on the platform in general.

“Overall, we hope to show people more content they want to see and find valuable, and less of what they don’t. While engagement will continue to be one of many types of signals we use to rank posts in News Feed, we believe these additional insights can provide a more complete picture of the content people find valuable, and we’ll share more as we learn from these tests.”

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Facebook Reveals New Content Scheduling and Management Features For Business Suite

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Facebook is launching a wave of new tools and features for businesses including the ability to schedule stories, manage photo albums, and better manage post drafts.

While some of the new Facebook Business Suite features revealed in a recent blog post are available to businesses everywhere now, the company also gave a peek into a few updates coming soon.

Schedule Your Stories on Facebook and Instagram

Facebook Business Suite already let brands schedule and manage traditional posts and content. Now, it is extending that functionality to Stories. 

Using Business Suite, you can start creating, publishing, and scheduling stories for both Facebook and Instagram from mobile and desktop devices. 

On desktop, simply click “Create Story” while using Business Suite. On the mobile app, you will find the feature by tapping the “Posts & Stories” tab.

Once you have opened the scheduling tool, follow these steps:

  • Select which platform (Facebook, Instagram, or both) you want to publish to.
  • Click Upload Media and select your photo or video.
  • Add text and stickers or crop your story.
  • Preview the content.
  • Click “Publish Story” to immediately share your story or click the blue arrow to expand the menu and select “Schedule Story” to decide when your story should go live. 

Edit Scheduled Posts

Along with scheduling your posts and stories, Business Suite now allows you to edit your scheduled content before it goes live. 

To make revisions or edits, go to the “Scheduled Posts” section of the “Posts & Stories” tab and simply select “Edit Post” on the specific content you want to change. 

Coming Soon: Create and Manage Albums

Soon, Business Suite will let brands create and manage photo albums within the “Posts & Stories” tab.

As the announcement says:

“Creating Albums is a useful and engaging way to showcase your business’ personality and share new products or services.”

Coming Soon: Save and Manage Content Drafts

The company teased that you will soon be able to create and edit drafts for drafts and stories and return to them later. However, it is unclear when this will roll out to the public.

With Facebook Analytics being shut down, Business Suite is becoming an essential tool for brands looking to manage their Facebook and Instagram presence in one place. Thankfully, it look like Facebook is similarly prioritizing making the platform as fully featured and versatile as possible before Analytics is gone for good.

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YouTube Is The Most Popular Social Network Among US Adults [Study]

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YouTube is the most popular social network among American adults according to a large new study from Pew Research Center.

The new report includes findings on social media use among adults from a nationally representative phone survey conducted earlier this year.

Overall, the results showed that social media usage has largely remained stagnant over the past few years, with just two notable exceptions.

“YouTube and Reddit were the only two platforms measured that saw statistically significant growth since 2019,” the reports stated.

Out of all platforms, YouTube had the highest usage with 81% of adults who used any kind of social media saying they used the video streaming service. 

Facebook unsurprisingly came not far behind, with 69% saying they use the platform. In third place was Instagram with 40% of respondents saying they use the social network. 

You can see the full list of social networks and the percent of US adults who use them below:

  • YouTube (81%)
  • Facebook (69%)
  • Instagram (40%)
  • Pinterest (31%)
  • LinkedIn (28%)
  • Snapchat (25%)
  • Twitter (23%)
  • WhatsApp (23%)
  • TikTok (21%)
  • Reddit (18%)
  • Nextdoor (13%)

As the report concludes:

“YouTube is the most commonly used online platform asked about in this survey, and there’s evidence that its reach is growing. Fully 81% of Americans say they ever use the video-sharing site, up from 73% in 2019. Reddit was the only other platform polled about that experienced statistically significant growth during this time period – increasing from 11% in 2019 to 18% today.”

Beyond these broad findings, the report also includes demographic breakdowns for each platform and other findings, which you can see below:

YouTube Usage Statistics

  • 95% of US adults ages 18 to 29 say they use YouTube
  • 91% of US adults ages 30 to 49 say they use YouTube
  • 49% of US adults ages 65 and older say they use YouTube
  • 54% of YouTube users say they visit the site daily
  • 36% of YouTube users say they visit the site several times a day

Facebook Usage Statistics

  • 70% of US adults ages 18 to 29 say they use Facebook
  • 77% of US adults ages 30 to 49 say they use Facebook
  • 73% of US adults ages 50 to 64 say they use Facebook
  • 50% of US adults ages 65 and older say they use Facebook
  • 70% of Facebook users say they visit the site daily
  • 49% of Facebook users say they visit the site several times a day

Instagram Usage Statistics

  • 71% of US adults ages 19 to 29 say they use Instagram
  • 52% of Hispanic Americans say they use Instagram
  • 49% of Black Americans say they use Instagram
  • 35% of White Americans say they use Instagram
  • 59% of all Instagram users say they visit the site daily
  • 73% of 18- to 29-year-old Instagram users say they visit the site every day
  • 53% of 18- to 29-year-old Instagram users say they visit the site several times a day

Other Usage Statistics

  • 46% of Twitter users say they visit the site every day
  • 65% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they use Snapchat
  • 2% of adults ages 65 and older say they use Snapchat
  • 50% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they use TikTok
  • Those with higher levels of education are more likely to use LinkedIn than those with lower levels of education
  • 51% of US adults with a bachelor’s or advanced degree say they use LinkedIn
  • 28% of US adults with only some college experience say they use LinkedIn
  • 10% of US adults with a high school diploma or less say they used LinkedIn
  • 46% of women use Pinterest, compared to 16% of men
  • Adults living in urban (17%) or suburban (14%) areas are more likely to say they use Nextdoor
  • 2% of rural Americans say they use Next-door

To view the full report, click here.

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Facebook Suddenly Announces It Is Shutting Down Facebook Analytics

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Facebook quietly revealed that it will be closing the Facebook Analytics service effective June 30th, 2021. After that date, brands and marketers will be unable to access their data. You can export your data to bring over to a new analytics service until then, though. 

Instead of releasing a wide announcement, Facebook is only informing users who are trying to access analytics.facebook.com and within an updated Facebook for Business help center article. 

As the announcement reads:

“Facebook Analytics will no longer be available after June 30, 2021. Until then, you will still be able to access reports, export charts and tables, and explore insights. To export data into a CSV file from Facebook Analytics on your desktop, click the arrow in the top-right corner of each chart or table.”

It is notable that the announcement did not explain the decision in any way. Instead, it simply pointed users to other tools which can replace some of the tracking and analytics features – though not all. 

Among the recommended tools Facebook directed users to are:

  • Facebook Business Suite allows you to manage your Facebook and Instagram business accounts and can show you detailed insights about your audience, content and trends. (This tool may not be available to you yet.)
  • Ads Manager lets you view, make changes and see results for all your Facebook campaigns, ad sets and ads.
  • Events Manager can help you set up and manage Facebook Business Tools like the Facebook pixel and Conversions API, and reports actions taken on your website, in your app and in your physical store.

The quick shuttering of Facebook Analytics will make it more possible than ever to track users’ behavior on the platform. Even more frustrating for many, the primary recommended tool, Facebook Business Suite, is limited specifically to small businesses and is not actually available to the public yet. That means that there is less time to learn the more narrowly-focused tool during the transition period.

For more information, you can read the updated Facebook Business Help Center announcement here.

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Facebook Overhauls Pages With New Goal-Oriented Features

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Facebook is launching a massive overhaul of business and influencer Pages, including new features and tools to better connect with your customers and drive conversions. 

For influencers or individual entrepreneurs, the biggest change will likely be how Facebook displays your audience size. Instead of showing the total number of likes your page has, you will see your follower count.

While some might be frustrated to seemingly have their audience shrink suddenly, most agree that a Page’s follower count is a more important and informative metric. This is because your follower count tallies everyone who is actually receiving your posts or updates. Likes, on the other hand, include people who may have opted-out at some point in the past and don’t see anything your share. 

As for Business Pages, there are a number of new things you might be interested in. 

New Facebook Page Features and Tools

In the announcement, Facebook highlights five new features being introduced to Pages:

  • Dedicated News Feed
  • Easy navigation
  • Updated task-based admin controls
  • Actionable insights 
  • Safety and integrity features

Dedicated News Feeds

In the past, News Feeds were exclusively available to individual users, making it difficult to keep your public and private interests separate. Now, you have an entire feed specifically for your Page, so you can easily discover the latest news and trends from your community and business peers.

Additionally, Pages are being tweaked to showcase connections with other major influencers. If any public figures comment on your content, their interactions will get bumped to the top of your comment section. 

Easy Navigation

Another step towards making it easier to swap between your personal profile and Pages on the go is a redesigned navigation menu. 

By tapping the three-line icon on the bottom left of the main navigation menu, you can quickly select between your personal profile and content or features specifically related to your Page. 

Updated Task-Based Admin Controls

Facebook is making it easier to achieve your goals with specific admin control based on tasks. 

Now, you can assign a user a task and grant them specific levels of access to manage that task. 

For example, an individual can be granted access to tools specifically for Insights, Ads, Content, or Community Activity & Messages.

Actionable Insights

Facebook says it is bringing pages more actionable insights and more relevant notifications, though it provides no details about how this is being achieved. 

What we do know, from a new help page update, is that “Updated insights will help you understand your audience and how your content performs.”

Safety and Integrity Features

Lastly, Facebook is continuing its efforts to create a positive environment to connect with your fans and customers with new tools to identify spammy, hateful, or violent content. The platform says it is also working to crack down on impersonation, which has been a widespread issue recently across Facebook. 

For more information about the overhaul to Pages, read the full announcement here or explore the new help page.

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WordPress Sites to Lose Facebook and Instagram Embeds October 24th

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On October 24, Facebook and Instagram plan to roll out a major change which has the potential to break content across millions of sites using WordPress.

On that date, the companies will remove functionality which allows sites to embed content from the social networks. 

The change does not only mean that publishers will no longer be able to embed this content on their websites. The change is retroactive, meaning that all content ever embedded on your site could potentially become inaccessible or broken. 

There is one exception – though it will likely be impractical for many out there. 

The change is removing support for unauthenticated Facebook and Instagram embeds, meaning that those with a developer account and a registered Facebook account will still be able to link content between their app and Facebook or Instagram. 

The Technical Changes

To get into the nitty-gritty – Facebook is deprecating the current oEmbed endpoints for embeddable Facebook content on October 24, 2020. oEmbed is a popular open format means of embedding content from one site to another. 

The Facebook integration of oEmbed endpoints has allowed pages to quickly and easily embed HTML or basic content from pages, posts, and videos on their own site or app. Unfortunately, that aspect of the Facebook API is being removed. 

In response, WordPress has also said it will be removing Facebook and Instagram as supported oEmbed sources.

What You Can Do

As expected, developers began work on ways to fix content or prevent losing access as soon as the announcement was made. 

So far, there are two major options for those wanting to keep support for embedded Facebook and Instagram content on their websites:

oEmbed Plus – Developer Ayesh Karunaratne has created an expanded version of the existing system for embedding content from Instagram and Facebook which provides a workaround. 

Even using the plugin, you will have to register for a Facebook developer account and “create an app”. However, you don’t have to actually develop an app, just register one with the site. 

You can see the guide for the plugin here for an idea what the process entails.

Smash Balloon Plugins – Developer Smash Balloon has provided a potentially easier option by updating their previous plugins to provide continued support – no developer account or app required. This is possible because Smash Balloon is effectively using its own API key to provide authentication for embedded content to users. 

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Facebook Introduces Monetized Events With No Fees

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As COVID-19 continues to be a major concern for people across the country, Facebook is introducing a new way for businesses and creators to monetize online events on the platform. 

Critically, the company says it will not collect any fees for paid events held on the platform to help businesses and individuals struggling during the pandemic. 

“Pages can host events on Facebook Live to reach broad audiences, and we’re testing paid events with Messenger Rooms for more personal and interactive gatherings.

In testing, we’ve seen businesses use Facebook to host expert talks, trivia events, podcast recordings, boxing matches, cooking classes, intimate meet-and-greets, fitness classes, and more.”

While Facebook is far from the first to offer a way to deliver paid events that are entirely streamed to attendees, their service is unique is the all-in-one nature. Facebook can handle not just the streaming, but payment, advertising, and organic word-of-mouth. 

To put it another way, a person can see the ad for your performance in their feed, make a payment, and view your event without ever leaving Facebook. The company is also one of the only services which does not take a cut of ticket sales. However, purchases made on Apple devices or through the iOS Store are still subject to Apple’s 30% fee. 

Prohibited Content

As with all content shared on Facebook, live events must stay within the Community Standards, Partner Monetization Policies, and Content Monetization Policies.

While these guidelines include the obvious things you might expect, such as banning hate speech, inciting violence, or “sexualized content”, the social network’s content policies prohibit some areas you may not expect. 

For example, promoting health products including medical masks and hand sanitizer is currently banned on Facebook. 

Other restricted categories include:

  • Debated social issues
  • Conflict or tragedy
  • Objectionable activity
  • Sexual or suggestive activity
  • Strong language
  • Explicit content
  • Misinformation
  • Misleading medical information
  • Politics and government

In addition to restricting these types of content, monetized events cannot include these some specific media:

  • Static videos
  • Static image polls
  • Slideshows of images
  • Looping videos
  • Text montages
  • Embedded ads

In the announcement, Facebook says the paid events will be available to brands and individuals for at least one year. After that, they may introduce new fees or even remove the service.

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Facebook is Loosening Their Restrictions on Selling Face Masks

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Following the appearance of COVID-19 in America in March, Facebook put in place a number of restrictions which entirely banned the sale of face masks. Now, as most states are reopening and chances of a medical supply shortage are lessening, the company is relaxing some of these rules on non-medical face masks.

Why Non-Medical Face Masks

While medical professions are still seeing a limited supply of face masks, demand for KN95 or other medical-grade masks has fallen. Instead, many are opting for cloth coverings which are considered acceptable by many health experts. 

This has created an increased demand for these non-medical face masks while reducing the overall demand for non-medical masks. 

Medical Masks Vs. Non-Medical Masks

Under these newly relaxed guidelines, advertisers can now start selling non-medical masks. According to facebook, these include masks which are:

  • Non-medical grade
  • Not promoted with medical or health claims
  • Handmade or fabric masks
  • Designed to be reusable
  • Made of refashioned materials

Phased In Restrictions

To prevent a tidal wave of advertisers all trying to sell face masks en mass or an increase in bad actors, Facebook is lifting the ban in phases. For now, advertisers wishing to promote their masks will have to meet a few specific requirements:

  • Advertisers must be in good standing with Facebook ads, having no violations or disabled ads due to policy violations
  • Ad accounts must have an advertising history of at least 4 months. This means those who created an ad account a year ago but have not used it would not be eligible, while those who have been running ads for at least 4 months will be. 
  • Ad accounts cannot be from a country with unusually high rates of ad policy violations for selling masks during the bad, including Cameroon, China, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

What Can Be In The Ads

Additionally, Facebook is still mandating a few restrictions to ensure that advertisers only promote non-medical masks. 

For instance, absolutely no medical or health claims can be made in the ad, including the mention of disease prevention or protection of the respiratory system. 

Any mention of community benefits of wearing masks can not include health mentions or overstate the benefits of masks.

To give an idea what this looks like in practice, Facebook provided an example in their policy guidance:

“‘We’ve pivoted our business to making masks to help keep our community healthy’ would be allowed, but stating ‘We’re stopping the spread of COVID-19 by making masks’ would not be allowed.”

Facebook Policy

Notably, while Facebook is reducing the restrictions on masks, they are still banning ads promoting hand sanitizers, surface wipes, COVID-19 test kits, and other related medical products.

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