I work with a lot of tourism businesses, teaching them how to tell stories effectively using creative writing, photography and video. Here’s a terrific video which illustrates the impact of great visual storytelling.
FlasheMe 24: It’s Now Easier To Run Competitions On Facebook
Very exciting news today! Up to now, Facebook required businesses to run competitions – known as Promotions – on (often costly) third-party apps (applications) with restrictions on how Facebook users could enter such competitions. Now Facebook has changed its Promotions Guidelines, making it easier and more accessible for small businesses to use competitions to attract and engage more fans.
The changes are reflected in Facebook’s revised Page Terms
Here are the main points (‘you’ refers to your Business Page).
- You CAN have users post on the Page or comment / like a Page post in order to enter a competition
- You CAN have users message the Page in order to enter a competition
- You CAN use likes as a voting mechanism
- You CAN’T run promotions on personal Timelines
- You CAN’T tag people or ask people to tag themselves in content that they are not depicted in (e.g. images of a new product) in order to win a prize
- You CAN’T ask people to Share a post as part of a competition
For more information regarding the changes to Facebook’s promotions policies, click here to view their Promotion Guidelines, which include FAQs and best practices for running promotions through Facebook.
This will make it much easier and more affordable for businesses to grow their fanbase and increase engagement on Facebook.
What do you think of the changes? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
FlasheMe 23: New Facebook News Feed Highlights Visual Content
Facebook has unveiled its new News Feed design, which is cleaner, more visual and filters content more effectively than before.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg identified Facebook’s goals for the new News Feed as richer story design, choice of different feeds, and a consistent look on mobile, tablet or web.
“What we’re trying to do is give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper we can,” Zuckerberg said. “The best personalized newspaper should be intricate, rich, and engaging.”
Vibrant Visuals
Facebook is emphasizing visual content like photos and videos in the feed, which provides brands with the opportunity to get creative. The size of images have been enlarged, making the quality of visual media more important than ever before. Because images will be featured bigger, Facebook recommends higher-resolution images, ideally 600 x 600 pixels (or a minimum of 200 x 200). Also, once a Facebook user has Liked your Page, the image that will appear in their News Feed is your cover photo, so ensure it tells your brand story and is eye-catching.
Feeds
Because we are all in an age of information overload, filtration is key to presenting consumers with the information that’s most relevant to them. Facebook’s redesigned News Feed includes additional feeds which facilitate better filtration and categorisation of content:
- All Friends – a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing
- Photos – a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and the Pages you like
- Music – a feed with posts about the music you listen to
- Following – a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like and the people you follow
This could be detrimental to brands if Facebook users spend more time on Friends feed but could be beneficial if they regularly visit their Following feed, which displays content from brands they’ve opted in to see.
Video Content
As he unveiled the News Feed redesign, Zuckerberg alluded to the fact that there will be more video in the News Feed, so there’s an opportunity for brands to display video. “So, historically, advertisers want really rich things like big pictures or videos and we haven’t provided those things historically,” he said, pointing out that news feed ads attract a higher click-through rate than sponsored ads on the right-hand side of the site. This gives brands an increased opportunity to promote themselves effectively through video.
This video gives an insight into the thinking behind the redesigned News Feed:
The changes are being rolled out slowly and it will take some time to understand the full effect it will have on the Pages of brands and publishers, but it certainly emphasizes the need for businesses to post more high quality visual content i.e. photos and videos.
How do you think the new changes will affect your brand?
(All images courtesy of Facebook)
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