#10: Facebook Influencer Campaigns Mature
Jessica Kupferman
I think there will be a change in the way brands and influencers partner on Facebook. True brand ambassadorship will emerge and it will be seamless and transparent.
Brands will be able to create meaningful and helpful content alongside their biggest fans and advocates. As a result, audiences will have better and more choices because they’ll be better informed.
Marketers can adapt by choosing their influencers carefully and going niche: the “spray and pray” method of advertising is dying and talking directly to your customer is going to become necessary.
Jessica Kupferman, CEO of j/k media agency, the co-host and co-founder of the She Podcasts brand, and host of Lady Business Radio, has worked with small businesses and large companies including Comcast, Subaru, and Bank of America.
#11: Facebook Live Technologies Improve Broadcasts
Leslie Samuel
Facebook is investing heavily in getting people to use Facebook Live. As a result, there is (and will continue to be) a lot of noise there. Since Facebook Live is getting preferential treatment in the news feed, marketers will continue using it in increasing numbers.
The problem is that most Facebook Live sessions aren’t goal-oriented, don’t provide value, and add more noise to an already noisy news feed. Facebook users will get tired of this quickly.
However, this provides a golden opportunity for smart marketers who tell engaging stories, provide lots of value, and create engaging live experiences for their audiences.
In addition, new technologies will allow marketers to create live shows that are on par with what many professional news organizations have been doing for years.
The marketers who win will be those who strike a balance between creating a professional production and being approachable to their audience. These marketers will be the breakout stars in 2017.
Leslie Samuel, owner of Become A Blogger and host of the Learning With Leslie podcast, is the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society.
#12: Facebook Live Video Improves Brand Discoverability
Paul Colligan
Discovery in online media is difficult to achieve. Last year, however, Facebook pulled off something magical — and most marketers missed it. They brought “discovery” to online audio/video and with an audience of nearly 2 billion people.
I recently watched a client go live on Facebook one day. Within an hour, he had 87,000+ people watching his stream. Was it an ad campaign that brought them there? Was it a mass mailing? What social voodoo made it possible? He asked the audience to like and comment on the video. These likes showed up in the streams of their friends and the power of social brought them en masse to his stream.
It was almost scary how easy it was.
Great video content, streamed on Facebook, provides a discovery opportunity that no other platform could dream of. Producing live content for an audience that wants to consume it is the most powerful marketing opportunity in 2017. Discovery is back and smart marketers will leverage it.
Paul Colligan is author of How to Stream Video Live.
#13: Facebook’s Video is Monetized
Gini Dietrich
In 2017, Facebook is going to — you guessed it! — reward more video.
More video equals more reach. More reach equals more engagement. More engagement equals brand loyalists. Brand loyalty equals more money. And we all live in a capitalist economy where more money is a good thing.
Facebook will monetize video for its users.
Facebook looks to be moving toward a video-first position, which means you can expect video monetization and major improvements in how those videos are delivered to your friends, fans, and followers in 2017. But they aren’t just banking on video — and neither should you.
We also expect to see more artificial intelligence through Facebook Messenger. Any organization that works in hospitality, retail, fashion, or consumer packaged goods should look to using Facebook Messenger chatbots this year.
And last but certainly not least, Facebook will continue to expand their Shop section, which will allow you to sell directly from Facebook. I don’t really love Facebook owning all of our data like that, but it does give us a second platform from which to sell. And more money…well, see above.
Gini Dietrich is founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, author of Spin Sucks, co-author of Marketing in the Round, and co-host of Inside PR.
#14: Facebook Group Use Declines in Favor of Workplace
Mike Morrison
We’re going to see people moving away from using Facebook groups for their online community in 2017.
Having remained untouched for a while, the Facebook news feed algorithm is now in full effect inside groups, meaning questions and member contributions are more easily missed and harder for group admins to keep a handle on.
Couple this with the fact that Facebook is currently testing out ads in Groups, and the drawbacks of using the already limited Group functionality starts to massively outweigh the benefits.
At the same time, the options for self-hosting your own online community or discussion forum have become more accessible and infused with the social features that people have become accustomed to, such as user tagging, likes for content, status updates, and user profiles.
Smart marketers should be building on their own turf, where they have control of the platform and the data; and the changes coming to Groups this year will hopefully be the final shove to encourage them to do so.
Facebook Workplace may well replace Groups for online community building.
While Facebook Workplace is still invite-only, I do think that by the end of the year we’ll have a few notable brands using Workplace to create a community rather than just as an internal company tool.
Mike Morrison is half of The Membership Guys and helps run the Member Site Academy.
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