Facebook has almost become synonymous with social media and its 2.6 billion users are a testament to this statement. It is one of the largest social media platforms in the world in terms of users.
Brands consider Facebook a marketing opportunity, especially now that 23% of its users are between the ages of 24-35 years.
This is the reason why businesses are always on their toes whenever there are new Facebook Updates. Brands look forward to leveraging the new updates and the same is the case in 2024.
2023 was full of new features, guidelines, and algorithm updates enrolled by Facebook that brands used around the globe.
So are you ready for the possible updates in 2024? Wouldn’t you want to know what’s new on Facebook for this quarter? You have reached the perfect page as we have summarized the top Facebook updates in 2023 and the last quarter of 2022.
We analyzed the previous updates and have also predicted what to look forward to this year.
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Top Facebook Updates to Get Excited About in 2024
Facebook itself has given many things to look forward to when it announced they are planning to offer subscriptions for no ads. This feature was already available to the European Economic Area (EEA ) in November and will soon be available worldwide.
To make the platform more appropriate for teens, Facebook has also started to hide certain types of content from kids.
Here, 30+ tools have been developed by Facebook to ensure that the platform is usable for teenagers. Facebook will automatically place its teen users under its most restrictive settings for content control on the Meta products.
Other announcements such as using generative AI for better user experience have also excited a lot of Facebook users. These features will also impact the Facebook marketplace and the business associated with it.
Here are some specific plans Facebook has hinted at for brands.
More Ways to Create Content on Instagram
Meta is majorly focusing on Facebook and Instagram to encourage its users to create content on their own. They are planning to roll out more features to make it easier for creators to create innovative content for better engagement.
With constant enhancements to help creators make content that attracts more users to their accounts. These enhancements are mostly done in reels, feed photos, carousels, and stories. The aim behind these enhancements is to encourage new creators to join the platform while making it easier to create content.
Following are some of the enhancements that creators and brands must look forward to as they foster marketing strategies.
1. More “Memeable” Content:
Facebook has made it very clear that it wants to help brands and influencers create viral content. This includes adding audio clings to reels, remixing and editing videos, etc.
Facebook has recently introduced 10 new English voices for text-to-speech features. This feature is currently available in selected countries and Facebook is planning to expand it in the future.
Features like these allow users to create more viral content that can be termed as meme-worthy. Facebook is also planning to make the 6 new fonts it introduced recently in selected areas, available globally.
Meta is also testing a feature allowing users to create their stickers to make the content more engaging and attractive. Brands can use such features to encourage user-generated content from their customers.
2. More Insights:
Another feature that can be very useful for the creators and is being planned by Meta is providing more insights. There are already a lot of insights provided for brands with which they can track the performance of the content they create for their Instagram or Facebook Feeds.
One of the most anticipated insights that are recently added to the metric is “Replays”. This has allowed the creators to check how many times the reel they’ve uploaded has been replayed. With this feature, brands can also find out exactly how accounts have played Instagram Reels.
The total and average time feature that was launched last year also helped brands understand the performance of the reel better.
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Facebook Updates 2023
As said in the previous section, Facebook ended the year with a bang by introducing subscriptions to selected areas. People using Meta products in Switzerland, European Economic Area and the European Union are now able to have this subscription. This subscription allows the users to experience Facebook and Instagram without ads.
The Power of Advantage+ Campaigns in 2023
Before understanding the power of Advantage+, it is important to understand what it is. Meta Advantage+ is a product introduced among the 2 products in the Meta Advantage Suite. Advantage+ is the enhanced version of the other product in the suite, known as “Advantage”.
The advantage suit is created to enhance a brand’s campaign strategies by automating them. Meta Advantage+ allows a brand to automate the entire manual campaign. With this product, you can keep some aspects of your campaign manual by specifying the ones you want to automate.
The defining feature of Advantage+ is the way it uses machine learning for simplification of social media ads. Machine learning empowers applications to analyze previous data and forecast future results based on them. Advantage+ offers a wide range of benefits such as enhanced efficiency, personalized ads, optimization of marketing efforts, etc.
1. Focus on Creativity:
Advantage+ manages optimization and allows users to focus on the development of creative campaigns. With most of the work automated, brands can put more effort into innovation while creating campaigns to attract more customers. This lets them enhance the other aspects of the campaign such as design, storytelling, themes, content, etc.
2. Meta Advantage+ Catalog Ads:
This is not a new product as earlier it was known as dynamic ads. Advantage+ Catalog Ads is a product that can leverage machine learning to adjust the ads as per the number of products a brand has to offer. Brands can scale their ad if they have a large variety of products to showcase in an optimized form.
Marketers need not create ads for individual products as they now can create a single campaign for the entire catalog. Whenever a user shows interest in any product from the catalog, the campaign will show them similar products with personalized ads.
3. Key Targeting Options:
Meta has always found B2B marketing difficult as there are already established platforms like LinkedIn, designed for the same. However, to tackle this, Meta released new features for B2B targeting options allowing brands to target the following types of audiences.
- IT Decision Makers: This is the segment that has the target ads based on job titles.
- Decision Makers in Business: Target ads in this section of B2B marketing use the interest of the corporate individuals and job titles to target decision-makers of the business.
- New Businesses: The ads created under this section allow the brands to engage with administrations of businesses established in the last few months.
4. Benefits of Using Advantage+ Catalog Ads:
Following are the major benefits of using Advantage+ Catalog Ads.
- Personalization: Advantage+ catalog Ads can deliver personalized ads to the target audience for better conversion rate and engagement. The creatives will be sent to the audience based on their behaviors and interests.
- Always Retargeting: This product also allows the brands to retarget website or mobile app users. This prevents a business from missing out on potential customers. The ads can be targeted to the customers who saw the ad but did not take any action. This works as a follow-up in the customer interest and can significantly improve the conversion rate. Retargeting reminds the customers about what they might miss and hence encourages them to buy the product.
- Targeting New Users: Catalog Ads allow broad audience targeting that eventually lets the brand reach new customers. Users having similar interests or searching for similar products can see these ads even if they have never visited your page.
- Organic Reconsideration: Brands can also increase the visibility of the catalog they are adding to the ads with Advantage+ catalog ads. The details about the product mentioned in the catalog can also appear in organic reconsideration experiences. This might impact the user’s decision and push them towards revisiting the catalog and buying the product.
Automation Tools Offered by Advantage+
There are multiple social media tools that Meta offers in the Advantage+ suit that help in the automation of the campaigns. Following are some of these tools explained in detail.
1. Advantage+ Creative:
Advantage+ has various products of its own that help marketers enhance their marketing campaigns. One such product is Advantage+ Creative which allows them to enhance the digital ads quality. With these products, brands can enhance ad images and videos by adjusting brightness, applying filters, changing aspect ratio, etc.
With this tool, brands can also test text combinations to make the ad visually appealing. Another important feature Advantage Creative provides is 3D animation. You can add depth to the image you uploaded in the ad, making it more attractive. This product lets you control every aspect of your creative to enhance its quality, resulting in better reach and engagement.
2. Advantage Audience:
This tool creates a personalized audience based on the product you usually sell and your frequent buyers. You can target your campaigns to this audience to increase the possibility of conversion. Advantage+ updates the audience as it learns more about your products and the type of people it caters.
3. Advantage+ App Campaigns:
This tool is specifically designed for users whose major business depends upon people downloading their app. The campaigns created with these campaigns aim to encourage users to download the app. The features of this tool include creative flexibility, 7-day click attribution, and detailed reporting.
Facebook Updates November 2022
Following are the notable Facebook updates from November 2022. These features had a huge impact on content creation on Facebook, attracting a lot of users.
1. New Brand Safety Milestone Achieved:
In the 5 years, Meta has put a lot of effort into improving the safety and security of the data uploaded on its platforms, be it Facebook and Instagram. In fact, in November 2022, the brand was accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for its content-level safety.
The safety features of Facebook were reviewed by Independent auditors based on safety policies, controls, and procedures. The following are the major aspects of security reviewed during the accreditation.
- Implementation of Content policies via machine learning as well as human review.
- Quality Assurance is the technique used for performance measurement.
- The controls Meta provides to the advertisers while they use different tools of the suites it provides.
- The methods used for reporting and brand safety disclosures.
The social media giant also announced that they are planning to implement a content-based inventory for Instagram and Facebook timelines. Facebook also plans to extend its accreditation with new safety features on a wider scale.
Bonus Read: How to Leave a Review on Facebook in 2024
2. Instagram Launches Music in Feed Posts:
In November 2022, Instagram allowed its users to add music to their feed posts just like stories and reels. Users were able to add music up to 90 seconds on any photo or video they posted on the platform. This made the feed more engaging, encouraging the users to post more photos.
While announcing these exciting features the platform acknowledged that Music is a huge part of expression on Instagram.
The feature has not been enabled for carousel posts yet and that has been the case in 2024 as well. However, single-feed posts that were earlier static have now become more engaging.
This feature rapidly gained popularity as millions of users uploaded posts with music just after it was rolled out. Brands could let users spend more time on their posts with this feature, resulting in a significant increase in engagement.
3. Meta Offers Small Business Support for the Holiday Season:
By the end of 2022, Meta also brought small businesses to relief with its announcement of supporting the same. This was extra special news because this announcement was made just before the holiday season in December 2022. Following are some of the major aspects in which Meta helped small businesses during the Holiday Season.
Meta Created a small business holiday marketing guide that they could use to maximize their sales during the holiday season. The guide had detailed insights from the year 2019-2021 helping the brands to create better strategies.
Another useful resource that Meta introduced for Small Businesses was Try My Reel which is a series of reel templates. Small brands can use these templates to showcase their products creatively. These templates were majorly created by fashion influencers and helped a lot of businesses increase sales during the holiday season.
Facebook Updates October 2022
1. New IP reporting API:
Being among the major updates in the last quarter of 2022 this helped businesses in protecting their intellectual property (IP). Meta Announced an IP reporting API that was specifically created to protect original content posted across the Meta Products. This allows the creators to report if someone posted some content that according to them violates their intellectual property rights.
Meta is also planning to improve its Brand Rights Protection feature in the upcoming year to help brands protect their products. The tool is already integrated with the Graph API, making it easier to submit the report forms. This protects you against identity theft and protects your brand from counterfeit products and copyright infringements.
If content is found to be involved in any of the above-mentioned activities, then it will be removed. There were several new features introduced in the Brands Right Protection rolled out in October 2022. These features included automated takedowns for brands with strong report history, automated recommendations of commerce listings, easier reporting, etc.
2. New Features for Brand Collaboration Through Instagram Creator Marketplace:
In October 2022, Instagram also started its Marketplace designed for creators. Being tested in July, this feature was rolled out with a few new tools for the marketplace. Meta has expanded access and introduced new tools for enhanced collaboration between brands and creators.
Brands could make projects discoverable to creators meeting specific criteria, while creators could express interest in various opportunities.
A prioritized partnership inbox allowed brands to message multiple creators efficiently, proposing projects with fixed offers for immediate acceptance.
Creator portfolios showcased their story and suitability for brand partnerships, featuring past work with partners.
In the future, creators will have the capability to offer brand partners unique codes for running creator content as ads, enhancing the platform’s marketing capabilities.
3. New Instagram Ad Surfaces:
Meta introduced new creative tools and ad surfaces, enhancing brand outreach on the platform. These Notable tools included music optimization for Reels Ads, offering free, high-quality songs for inclusion in Carousel Ads on Reels.
Ads could extend their reach to the Explore page and profile feeds, with the latter being tested for non-teen public profiles. Instagram explored revenue-sharing mechanisms for ads appearing in profile feeds.
The introduction of AI-powered multi-advertiser ads employed machine learning to present more pertinent ads to users engaging with content in their feed.
Additionally, the platform initiated an open beta for augmented reality (AR) ads, signaling its commitment to advancing immersive advertising experiences.
4. Instagram Tests Multiple Links in Bio:
Instagram tested the capability to add multiple links to user bios, although the feature was not widely released. Some creators have already utilized this option during the testing phase.
If implemented, the feature would significantly enhance the ability of brands and creators to share links to various core content. This results in eliminating the limitation of having to choose only one link in their bios.
This development could streamline the sharing of diverse content and improve the overall user experience on the platform. It is possible as Instagram provides more flexibility in directing followers to different sources of information.
The feature was ultimately rolled out in 2023 and is being used all around the globe.
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Top Facebook Updates September 2022
1. Growth-Focused AI, Messaging, and Video Features Coming Soon:
In September 2022, Meta introduced a comprehensive array of enhancements for advertisers on its platform. These updates include the provision of royalty-free audio for Reels Ads, offering a dedicated collection of free sounds for Reels ads. Meta is also testing short skippable video ads that play after a Reel concludes. This will be followed by the original Reel resuming and looping again.
Additionally, the platform is experimenting with image carousel ads on Reels. This might feature horizontally scrollable ads with 2-10 images at the bottom of Facebook’s Reels content. The Advantage custom audience feature leverages targeting automation, using an advertiser’s Custom Audience to reach new and existing customers. This eventually prioritizes delivery to individuals within the Custom Audience based on AI and machine learning.
Other notable developments include AI in Messenger, enabling brands to run click-to-messenger Ads targeting users likely to buy in communication threads. A new Lead Generation ad format guides customers to Messenger or a form based on their interaction preferences. Instagram introduces new ad placements and formats, with ads in Explore home and profile feeds.
2. New Call Ads Updates Announced:
Meta has introduced substantial updates to their Call Ads, enhancing the format’s effectiveness in reaching potential customers and generating high-quality leads. A notable feature being tested allows customers to request a callback from a business directly within Messenger, prioritizing customer time.
New optimization and integration features included the incorporation of Call Ads into the Sales/Conversation objectives, providing flexibility. Furthermore, businesses can now optimize ads to target individuals likely to engage in a sixty-second or longer phone call. This enhanced lead quality across Lead Gen, Traffic, and Sales objectives.
The Ads Manager introduces a pre-call business feature, enabling brands to offer additional ad context. These contexts might include links to websites or landing pages, providing potential leads with information before making a call. Additionally, the in-app calling feature, currently in testing, allows users to place calls to businesses within the app. This improved Facebook’s internal tracking and reporting options without capturing call content.
3. Local Delivery Option for Collaborative Ads Released:
Facebook globally introduced a new local delivery feature to assist grocery stores and restaurants in reaching local audiences effectively. Aimed at optimizing Meta advertising for these industries, the ads enabled local businesses to raise awareness about their products. Furthermore, consumers can easily order these products through a local delivery service directly from the ad.
This innovative feature ensured that the ads exclusively display products currently in stock, along with their current pricing. It provided a seamless buying experience, offering a straightforward pathway from discovering a product to making a purchase. By facilitating delivery options, Facebook supported businesses in maximizing their advertising impact while catering to customers’ specific needs.
4. Get Paid in Instagram DMs:
Meta introduced new payment options, enabling businesses to accept payments directly within Direct Messages (DMs). This feature streamlined the shopping experience for customers, allowing them to pay invoices without switching between apps or websites. Businesses with a Professional Account on the Instagram mobile app could utilize two methods to accept payments in chat.
This can be accessed by selecting “Get paid in chat,” or tapping the $ icon in the typing box within a DM thread with a customer. Setting up the payment option required entering personal information and bank account details.
Notably, there were no fees associated with accepting payments in such form and users had 24/7 access to customer support. Customers could make purchases using Meta Pay, credit cards, or PayPal, with their transactions safeguarded.
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Final Words
Meta has undergone substantial Facebook updates, marking a dynamic shift in social media trends. Notable changes include the introduction of ad-free subscriptions, generative AI enhancements, and local delivery features for Collaborative Ads.
Instagram, a focal point for Meta, has seen a push for content creation with features like memeable content options, expanded insights, and the testing of multiple links in bios. Additionally, the introduction of Advantage+ campaigns showcases Meta’s commitment to simplifying social media ads through machine learning.
Noteworthy efforts in brand safety, intellectual property protection, and support for small businesses during the holiday season further demonstrate Meta’s multifaceted approach. As we enter 2024, anticipation remains high for continued groundbreaking Facebook updates, emphasizing Meta’s dedication to user-centric and innovative advancements in the social media landscape.
