San Francisco – In a tempting offerings to marketers, the social media humongous on Wednesday announced several advertising developments at its first-ever Facebook marketing conference (fMC) that is being held in New York City, which consists of new ad offering for businesses and organizations, to make them more consistent with individual profiles and to help companies connect more effectively with customers.
Investors looking to get in on Facebook’s bandwagon are no doubt hungrier than ever today, but the recent Facebook’s marketing conference in New York brought big news for social media advertisers with a slew of new marketing tools for businesses. In addition to bringing Offers and new promotional tools to marketers, Facebook is also bundling “Sponsored Stories,” along with premium ads, now eligible for distribution in the Facebook newsfeed.
Addressing conference attendees, COO Sheryl Sandberg and Chris Cox provided the obligatory evangelism of social sharing, describing the new ad units and to entice businesses to add even more revenue to Facebook’s $4 billion bottom line. “What it means to be social is that if you want to talk to me, you have to listen to me as well,” she said, suggesting that businesses must interact online with their customers.
The rules have altered and one-way communication does not work anymore, Sandberg insisted. “Social media is beginning to transform companies,” she said, citing gaming companies like Zynga as the most compelling example.
While the renewed designs of Pages will grant businesses more control over how they address users on Facebook, new products called Offers and Sponsored Stories will have the biggest impact on Facebook revenue potential, as well as on user experience. The social network company said it will begin displaying premium ads and Sponsored Stories, or posts that have been paid for by advertisers, on mobile news feeds, and on the desktop log-out page as well. Previously, ads were only shown on the sidebar and desktop news feed.
Check out Pages six noteworthy features:
- Cover Photo: Businesses and organizations can now place a large image at the top of their Pages.
- Friend Activity: Visitors to Pages may now see recent posts from friends highlighted as friend activity and a list of friends connected to a Page. Larger Stories, Milestones, and Page Timeline: Thanks to a new layout, Page publishers can show larger ads, or in Facebook parlance, tell stories with larger images and with milestone designations that include a date and related content.
- Pinned Posts: Organizations can now keep posts at the top of their Page for up to seven days.
- Admin Panel: A new control panel for Page adminstrators provides data about Page metrics and tools for responding to private messages.
- Activity Log: Page admins now have a Page activity log to help with post management and tracking.
Additionally, Facebook discussed about its new “Reach Generator” a premium ad solution that lets large advertisers reach a higher percentage of their fans, according to reports. Normally, just 16 percent of a Page’s fans see a given post. With Reach Generator, Pages can reach 75 percent of their fan base over a one-month period, Facebook said.
Apart from the recent Facebook’s announcement, a new study from digital marketing technology company Upstream discovered that 67% of users do not want to see ads on their phone. The survey of 2,105 in the U.S. users found that 20 percent of respondents would in reality stop using a brand’s products or services if they feel subjected to too much advertising.
Nevertheless, sweetened by Pages, all that remains for businesses and organizations is to make the one-to-one model of friendship work at scale. All you need is a good story, Facebook suggests. At least, that is Facebook’s story and it is sticking to it.