The post 5 Facebook Updates You Need To Know About appeared first on HostGator Web Hosting Blog | Gator Crossing . Hate it or love it, Facebook is still one of the most effective platforms for social media marketing. As we’re all aware, they like to update things A LOT. Sometimes it’s the way it looks; for instance, they’re currently advertising a simpler layout with a bigger focus on posts appearing in the news feed. Other times they’ll add entirely new options on how to market the things you post. If you use Facebook to manage a business page, advertise events, or even just to garner some recognition for your craft, here are five recent updates you’ll find beneficial. 1. Objective Based Ads This is one of two big steps Facebook has taken in the last six months in trying to adhere to objectives of advertisers on Facebook. This change is said to have taken place for the purpose of focusing on the impact of advertisements rather than the type. Based on conversations Facebook staff had with “marketers of all types” they’ve come up with 8 objectives advertisers can choose from to meet their goals: Website Conversions Page Post Engagement Page Likes App Installs App Engagement In-store Offer Claims Clicks To Website & Event Responses After the user chooses the objectives and creates the ad, Facebook will place the ads where they’ll create the best impact. You can now see under the ads manager the results of your post based on the selected objectives. With a much simpler approach to getting your ads seen, you can focus on the content and what viewers are enjoying most. 2. Facebook Insights The new update to page insights makes tracking the performance of your Facebook page more ‘insightful’ than ever. Long-valued by strategic marketers, the data collected will support your goals when tracking the performance of ads and posts. Facebook has updated the web version of Insights that are presented in easy to navigate graphs that can be adjusted and customized to your preferences. Some new features include: Advanced filtering – Filter by Total Reach, Organic vs. Paid and Fans vs. Non-Fans. Best post types – Quickly determine which of your post types generate the highest reach and average engagement. When your fans are online – Incredibly useful for determining when to post, see things like: Number of fans that were online each day of the past week Average number of your fans who saw any posts per hour Benchmarking – Compare the performance of your page between time periods. 3. Auto-Play Videos In The News Feed It may be a lesser known fact, but videos aren’t nearly as engaged with as photos and status updates. That said, Facebook felt it was a good idea to have a way for users to engage with videos more often by catching the glimpse of it playing without sound. Straight from an article on Facebook’s business blog, “Compelling sight, sound and motion are often integral components of great marketing campaigns, particularly when brands want to increase awareness and attention over a short period of time”. While this may seem appealing to some (marketers especially), there has been a significant backlash from many of its users. Complaints like their load time slowing, distracting, unwanted, etc. Like other features people would rather not see, you can block this functionality for more distraction-free browsing. 4. Edit Your Posts That Have Already Been Published Have you ever posted something, only to notice a few hours later thatthere was a typo? While it is possible to delete these posts, sometimes it has already been paid for as an advertisement, or has received too much attention to make replacement an attractive prospect. For quite some time now, Facebook users have been requesting the ability to edit their posts, and now that option is here. For posts appearing on your personal profile you have the option to edit captions for photos and status updates that are strictly text. For business page administrators, the editing capability is still only limited to photo captions while Facebook tests the ability to edit posts as well. 5. Improvements To The News Feed Ranking (They’ve Made It Smarter) Like many other tech giants, Facebook has revamped their algorithms to make a more personalized stream of posts based on the individual user. Impressively, what posts appear are based of over 100,000 weighing factors, things like: Relationship Settings – Things like labeling friends as “close friend”, or “acquaintance” Post Types – Users that interact more often with photo posts are more likely to see more photos. Hiding Posts/Spam – Recent hides may be carrying weight as to whether a post shows in the news feed While those are just a few, it is clear that the challenge of making engaging and visible posts has become more difficult. The company’s advice is is to create and advertise a variety of interesting content that will attract clicks, shares, likes and comments. The best way to do this is by understanding your fans, and what they want to see. web hosting