By Mark Eting
Bullseye Strategy Special Correspondent
Some weeks, The Buzz is jam-packed with news about search engine optimization, digital media marketing & advertising, and new social media marketing trends. This week is not one of those weeks. Not only was the news all about social media, but it’s all about one company: Facebook. So please sit back and Zuck it up.
Facebook to Limit the Number of Ads
If you’re a Facebook purist, that headline might sound promising. Unfortunately for you, it’s not what you think. It’s also not what most social media digital marketers might think upon first glance.
Starting in February 2020, Facebook will limit the number of ads a Page can run, depending on audience size and dollars spent. The system can only optimize and machine-learn so many ads based on results, and often Facebook Pages are providing too many ads for the system to optimize correctly.
More ads don’t often translate to better performance. In reality, it can hinder it. But fear not. Those limits are still reasonably high. You can read Facebook’s announcement here.
Facebook Patent for Instagram Post Caption Links
It’s happening! Finally! Links in captions on Instagram! Not so fast there, digital marketing enthusiast.
The patent by Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, indicates that, yes, links are coming to captions. It also shows that there’s a per-link charge. So while it is, indeed, exciting that this change is likely on the horizon, it’s a revenue stream for Facebook and a wallet-watcher for marketers.
The good news is that it may not be tremendously expensive if used wisely.
Winds of Change for Instagram Navigation
While some social media platforms eek-out tiny changes, most people never notice that Zuck & Co. have been spending their social distancing time tweaking and testing new opportunities. Recently we’ve reported on both Instagram Reels and Instagram Shop, and it appears that Facebook’s Instagram has seen the need to make those two new features more prominent on the platform.
They’ve begun testing variations of the bottom navigation bar to include both Reels and Shop tabs. That means the ‘Search,’ ‘Activity’ and/or ‘Create’ buttons need to be moved to the top, alongside the ‘Direct’ tab, to make way.
It’s likely to cause some confusion initially as people figure out what icons stand for what and where everything has been moved to, but ultimately what often wins out is what’s best for Facebook: generating revenue and keep users engaged on the platforms.
We’re starting to test different versions of Instagram’s home screen – when you open the app you’ll soon see a Reels tab and a Shop tab in one of these three layouts. pic.twitter.com/WLmjAwYwFW
— Adam Mosseri 😷 (@mosseri) September 9, 2020
“Mark Eting” is the pen name of the Bullseye Strategy team. Check back with us next week for more news on what’s buzzing in the digital marketing industry.
