Facebook Marketing Predictions for 2017 From the Pros Part 3

#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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Facebook Marketing Predictions for 2017 From the Pros Part 1

Are you wondering what 2017 might look like for Facebook marketing?

If the Facebook changes in 2016 are an indicator, 2017 will be an interesting year for Facebook marketers.

To get a grip on what the near future may look like, we tapped the knowledge of 19 social media pros.

#1: Paid Ads Come to Facebook Groups

Ian Cleary

I think Facebook will reduce the reach that Facebook groups get and introduce paid ads for groups. I rarely interact with pages and quite often interact with groups. As we move away from pages toward groups, Facebook will reduce the reach. It’s a perfect opportunity for Facebook to grow an additional advertising revenue stream.

Ian Cleary is the founder of RazorSocial, one of the world’s leading marketing technology sites focused on social media and content marketing.

#2: Facebook Launches Messenger Video Stories That Publish to News Feed

Joel Comm

The release of Snapchat-like functionality in Messenger demonstrates that Mark Zuckerberg is taking Snapchat seriously. These tools allow users to embellish videos and images with drawings, filters, and text and are currently available only as direct messages to individuals, although that will change.

In 2017, Facebook will allow Snapchat-like stories to be created in Messenger and then posted as videos to a personal or page feed.

Look for video stories to come to Facebook Messenger and the news feed.

Their tools for live video continue to evolve as well. With scheduled live videos, broadcasting from desktop, and trimming finished videos for better replays all slowly rolling out, this is just a step toward Facebook’s overall video strategy.

Expect to see more studio editing and post-production tools offered to Facebook Live users with the app and on desktop. Facebook’s goal is to provide content creators with the tools they need to create professional and polished content that will receive many replays.

In addition, I expect Facebook Live to start appearing on Smart TVs next to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, as Facebook intends to position itself as a broadcast network.

Joel Comm is a live video expert.

#3: Facebook Develops End-to-end Sales Communication Tools for Messenger

Molly Pittman

Consumers now expect almost immediate communication with companies, and those who are willing to provide it will get the sale.

For example, I just signed a new apartment lease and guess what? All of my communication (setting up a tour to asking questions about amenities to signing the lease) was done through Facebook Messenger.

In 2017, Facebook will continue to develop and release products that facilitate the (almost) instant communication consumers are beginning to expect. The release of Facebook Messenger ads last November was just the beginning of the evolution.

Not only can these conversations be inexpensive to acquire, they also progress quickly because of the instantaneous nature of chat versus phone or email.

This Facebook Messenger ad campaign resulted in 300+ sales conversations for only $800.

Marketers who invest their time and human resources into educating prospects on these new touchpoints and overcoming their objections will be the ones who win.

Molly Pittman, VP of marketing at DigitalMarketer.com and host of the Perpetual Traffic podcast, is a leading expert on Facebook advertising and all things customer acquisition.

#4: Facebook Launches Its Own Cable TV Network

Mike Stelzner

With a news feed that’s nearly maxed out, Facebook will need to diversify into new media, much like Google has in recent years. Facebook has already indicated it will be introducing original programming on Facebook Live. All this is a setup for a much bigger media play.

I believe that Facebook will either purchase a major television network or start one of its own from scratch. They’ll target a high-profit niche like sports or consumer goods.

Facebook will develop a television channel.

If there was a Facebook channel on your TV, would you watch it?

Mike Stelzner is the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, founder of the Social Media Marketing Society, and author of the books Launch and Writing White Papers.

#5: Facebook Chatbots Centralize Sales and Customer Service

Alex Khan

More than one billion people are using Facebook’s Messenger every month, and my prediction is that Messenger bots will become a central part of customer service and sales processes.

Bots and AIs have typically performed a customer service role, answering queries and directing users toward helpful contacts and resources. Now they’re also used to facilitate or even initiate sales conversations.

In the near future, fans will only need to send a Facebook message on a company page to complete their purchase. For example, KLM Airlines uses a bot to help you book your flight, Fynd’s bot helps you buy clothes, and CNN’s bot gives you the latest news.

This Facebook Messenger chatbot helps customers find clothing to purchase.

Marketers should try to inform themselves about all that Facebook Messenger bots have to offer, and how to include bots in their customer service and sales strategy.

Furthermore, businesses should start convincing their fans to send them Facebook messages because as soon as contact is made, businesses are able to contact those people back at any time, and as often as they want. It’s similar to an email opt-in on a landing page, but the chance of someone reading a Facebook message is much higher than for opening a sales email.

To jumpstart the messaging process, brands should add a Message Us on Facebook button to their website or at least the contact page.

Alex Khan is CEO and founder of Attractive Media, a social and digital marketing agency based in Germany.

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