Facebook and Instagram Updates: What’s New on April 2022

Check Out These New Facebook And Instagram Updates!

You know what they say, “only 3 things in life are certain; birth, death, and change.” And doesn’t Facebook just keep on changing?

We’re back with another smattering of changes to the Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Stick around until the end and we’ll share some Facebook and Instagram updates and new announcements that we’re particularly looking forward to.

Let’s dive in (it’ll be a quick one today).

New Facebook And Instagram Updates: FB Changes

More changes are coming to the platform – but these should actually be useful to you. 

1. Brand Safety

Brands will have more control over where you appear (and near what content) on the platform, 

You’ll have tools allowing you to choose what you show up by. Facebook is also studying how well ads perform in the feed.

These studies will consider context, performance, and suitability next to content in the feed. 

2. Group Admin Tools

Managing a FB group is no simple task, and some of these new tools will help you manage your groups with less hands-on effort.

Some of the biggest tools are: 

• Automatically decline links declared false by third-party fact-checkers
• Mute has been expanded to “Suspend” so you can block reactions, enter rooms, etc. 
• Updated “Admin Home”
• QR codes to easily share the group link
• Admins can send group invites via email

3. Meta Advantage Suite

Now moving on with our Facebook and Instagram updates list is the Advantage Suite…

…which will utilize machine learning to help you see better results and save you time.

When Facebook surveyed automated ad users during testing in 2019, 77% of advertisers said they saved hours every week. 

Meta describes it as: “designed to optimize for desired outcomes and sustain those improved results overtime at the lowest cost and effort.”

a. Advantage 

This option will automate parts of your campaign, like detailed targeting that you used to set up manually. You’ll still be responsible for:

• Advantage Lookalikes (currently Lookalike expansion)

This will reach beyond your designated lookalike audience to find folks likely to take your desired action.

Preliminary results show a decrease in around 17% CPA when utilizing Advantage Lookalikes. 

• Advantage Detailed Targeting (currently called detailed targeting expansion)

This will reach beyond your audience details for better performance.

Internal Meta lift studies showed Advantage Detailed Targeting had a 37% lower median cost per incremental conversion than when not used.

b. Advantage+

This will automate your entire campaign from targeting to placement and creative combinations. 

You’ll have options similar to existing automated ads, including: 

• Advantage+ App Campaigns (currently known as Automated App Ads) will use real-time learning to drive app installs and engagement. 
• Advantage+ Campaigns (currently known as Automatic Placements) will place your ad in the best place for your desired action.

Facebook recommends at least 6 placements for your ad. 

• Advantage+ Creative (currently known as Dynamic experiences) will automate creative for campaigns.

This will show the best combination of text, videos, graphics, and CTA for each individual viewer. 

• Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (coming soon) While this product is currently still in Beta testing…

…we expect this to roll out to all customers before the end of the year.

Don’t just trust automated ads without proof. FB is not your new religion.

Take the time to compare results to your manual campaigns, always do A/B testing, and make sure the results make sense for you.

Speaking of A/B testing, check out our Facebook ad testing post next to learn more about it.

Now, moving on to Instagram. 

New Facebook And Instagram Updates: IG Changes

We’ve got some Instagram feed changes to cover today. Let’s jump in. 

1. Product Tagging Opens Up

On Apr 18, 2022, Instagram announced that Product Tagging…

…a feature previously only available to brands and collaborators is now available to everyone.

This means any of your followers or customers can tag your products in their photos. 

What should you do as a business? 

1. If you’re not utilizing UGC (User-generated content), it’s now past time to start doing that.

Your customer tagging a product and telling people to buy is more valuable than you saying your product is good. 

2. Use CTAs like “tag our product in your picture to enter the giveaway.”
3. This feature can only be used on Public Accounts.

Teach your followers how to add product tags.

You’ll need to educate your audience on the feature, but that’s a great opportunity for a Reel and Story.

Repeat the message every 4 or 5 days for a couple of weeks.

Now if you want to know how to use Instagram Stories for business, as well as Instagram Reels, then read these two posts next.

Here are the steps so you can teach your followers:

1. Create a post.
2. Tap to tag people.
3. Find the business name first.
4. Tap “Products”.
5. Tap the photo and find products.
6. Hit “Share” to publish your post.

2. Changes to the Feed

The main Instagram algorithm is not changing (we heard that collective sigh of relief).

But, IG has finally brought back originial IG users’ favorite thing; the chronological feed.

Your main feed will still be a big combination of accounts you’ve most interacted with, suggested accounts, and promoted posts or ads. 

But we have two new sub-feed options: Chronological and Favorites. Let’s look at how to use these. 

a. Chronological Feed 

For those of you who want that good old chronological feed back, IG finally listened.

You can find this by tapping the Instagram logo from your home feed. The dropdown will show you the Following and Favorites option.

Following will show everyone that you follow now, with their posts in order from most to least recent.

There’s not really a CTA for followers of your business accounts, but we do have a recommendation for using the favorites feed. 

b. Favorites Feed

Unlike the Followers feed, each Instagram user needs to manually select and add accounts to follow in their Favorites feed.

Only 50 accounts can be added. But accounts added to Favorites also start showing up more frequently in home feeds. 

We’re hoping that Followers and Favorites help increase engagement for small businesses accounts.

As you know, Instagram engagement has been a struggle as of late. 

But, you need to train your followers to use the feature for it to significantly impact your results. Here are some CTAs to start using:

• “Don’t miss a post. Add us to your favorites feed.” 
• “DYK: you can favorite us so you see our posts first.” 
• “Follow us & add us to your favorites so you don’t miss our giveaway announcement!” 

So those are the new Facebook and Instagram updates this April 2022!

Now if you want to learn more about our social media marketing services and maximize these new changes for your brand, get in touch with us today!

The post Facebook and Instagram Updates: What’s New on April 2022 appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog.