What in the Meta-verse are they doing now?

Keeping track of updates on Facebook and its entities in a timely manner is nearly impossible, but we’ll try to catch you up.

As marketers, we can appreciate an app and platform that continuously attempts to get better every day. But there are just some things they have to stop putting a price on.

On a relatively free app, Meta has been trying to push verification purchases for close to a year now. For $11.99 a month, you can get your blue checkmark on yet another app and some added bonuses as well. The potential new list of offerings includes:

• Original content protection (via human review)
• Faster ad reviews
• Better access to customer support
• Links in Reels (8 per month)
• Customer support case monitoring
• An alternative display for brand messages
• Alternative brand verification badge (like X’s gold tick?)

The links in Reels would be a major selling point for those posting organic content, but there’s not much more to be wow’d by. For those using Meta Business Suite and paid ads, this could be a potentially positive budget add-in considering your ads will be reviewed quicker and you’ll receive better support. They love to say that, but we want to hear it from the people who actually purchase it and use it to its full potential – Do they give you priority in your support messages?

Now with it being an election year, Meta is cracking down further on political content. They’ve been working on restricting the reach of political-related posts since 2021, but their newest update has gotten them the furthest so far. Users now have to opt-in to see political or social content. According to Social Media Today, “for Meta, political discussion is actually more trouble than it’s worth. The company has come under intense scrutiny, and has copped various fines, due to the role that it may or may not play in political campaigning.”

Whether they block politics on Meta or they allow it to continue, they get scrutinized either way. Welcome to being the biggest social media platform known to man! One way to distract the people: bring back poking. If you remember early days as a Facebook user, and how fun it was to poke your friends back to back. When Facebook ‘got rid of it’ they really just sent the setting to an island of misfit toys where no one went looking for it. They attempted to bring it back in March of 2024 but it just as quickly faded out. No more poking for us.

On a more serious note, while Facebook continues to adapt daily to life and its users, there will always be a place for businesses to grow on this platform. Through multiple analyses, Meta is the number one platform to do paid social with. While working with a platform to get what you need isn’t always sunshine & rainbows, you can guarantee delivery if used correctly.

Organic posting has been and will always be relevant to Facebook, even if you have to change your strategy over time to incorporate algorithm changes, etc. No strategy will be one-size fits all, nor should you keep it the same for years on end. But some key ways to ensuring you’re boosting engagement for your brand are:

• Making interactions meaningful.
  • Providing insight to questions or thanking loyal customers is a great way to keep people coming back to your page. Comments are a great way to understand what content might be missing, especially if you’re getting repeat questions. They also help you see what your brand is doing right – Getting praise and being able to respond genuinely will build a great relationship between you and your followers and make your brand more relatable.

No one likes to be ignored in the comment section. But that doesn’t mean you respond to everything!   There can be negativity and there can be plain ignorance. Regardless of what you may see below your posts, the best practice would be to not delete them. Respond when appropriate or take it to messages to understand any possible issues or concerns. You want to show you’re active, responsive, and not trying to hide anything, but not everything needs to be hashed out via “reply comment”.

• Embracing user-generated content.
  • The easiest content you can get is those of your customers and followers. When they post/tag you in their photos (assuming you receive permission to use it, which is easy to get), that’s a guaranteed genuine post to share. Whatever your industry, when you have loyal people in your corner sharing and posting about you, it’s helpful to fill in content when you don’t have any. Especially for timely events or launches, having people who already stand by your brand or even new people being introduced to your product & sharing their opinions can help spread awareness of your business or mission. Just another way to make your brand more relatable in a sea of others trying to get your audience’s attention.
• Optimizing/taking advantage of videos and playlists.
  • Videos will be a huge vantage point for the foreseeable future in social media, so using them to reach new audiences is key. Promoting them with organizing them in video playlists on Facebook and reusing content to make new stories are exceptional ways to get your followers interested and keep them on your page. Make sure the captions are key-word rich and around 60-90 seconds in length. Keeping people engaged without boring them for longer than 2 minutes is that sweet spot that could turn into more engagement for your brand and organic shares.

This is the platform we get the most bang for our buck. With over 3 billion users on Facebook as of 2024, you are sure to find someone that can relate or that enjoys your content. We just have to continue learning the new rules they set for us. Every. Single. Day. Other than that!