Facebook Changes in 2021 and Why They Matter

Facebook made headlines this year with its worst outage since 2008. Despite the multi-hour down time, Facebook remains the most popular social media site with more than 2.7 billion active users — a 12% increase from September 2019. If anything, the outage outrage and the days of memes and jokes that followed showed how prevalent Facebook, plus its properties Instagram and WhatsApp, are internationally. 

Here’s the latest on Facebook’s privacy updates, new ad offerings, varied audiences, and what it all means for expanding your reach with social media tools. 

How Privacy is Changing Facebook Ads

Consumers love social media, but they don’t love the lack of privacy that comes with many of the standard terms and conditions to join a site. Luckily, Facebook announced in August plans to revamp how it targets ads to its users without sharing data to third-party vendors. Hundreds of engineers across the platform are working to rebuild how Facebook ads will still be personalized to users without scraping as much data to target them.

For example, if people who click on ads for makeup also buy deodorant, Facebook can share that with advertisers without sharing personal information like email addresses.

“We definitely see that [ads] personalization will evolve very meaningfully over the course of the next five years,” Facebook VP Graham Mudd told The Verge. “And that investing well ahead of that will benefit all of our customers and enable us to help shape that future state of the ads ecosystem.”

The work to overhaul Facebook ads is in its infancy, but Google is making similar moves to protect consumer’s privacy while still tailoring the internet advertising experience to each user.

How Facebook is Helping Small Business Retailers

Facebook Analytics was removed in June, but the social networking platform is putting time and money into its backend business manager, Facebook Business Suite. Their goal with the remodel is to simplify digital management for content and communication in one easy-to-use portal.

Some of the most exciting features announced this year include:

• Quote requests on Facebook Messenger: This feature, currently in beta testing, allows businesses to pre-select a few questions to ask potential customers before starting a live conversation. Then, users can get a quote quickly and businesses can get as much up-front information as possible.

• Post Split-Testing: Ever wonder which version of the same content would perform better? Facebook is currently investing in new technologies for businesses to manage their digital presence without studying every post. Soon, post testing will be available in the Business Suite, comparing multiple versions of a post for higher engagement and click rates. 

• Emails in Business Suite: The addition of an inbox and the ability to manage messages and send remarketing emails through Facebook offers exciting possibilities. 

• Separation of Business and Personal: For years, Facebook Business pages have required a personal account attached to a business account. To simplify the clutter and help protect business assets, Facebook is rolling out Work Accounts. These employer-specific accounts would help increase Facebook Business Suite security and give corporations more control over enterprise-grade features such as single sign-on integrations. Look for this expansion in 2022!

Despite a turbulent year, Facebook still holds incredible power for digital marketers.

Understanding how to harness its advertising potential and adjust to the ongoing changes are necessary as consumers continue to increase their time on the social channel. If done methodically and with a fluid approach, Facebook still holds enormous advertising potential for brands of all shapes and sizes.