The Facebook Developer Conference 2019

• Transcript:

Mark Flavin: (00:00)
This week on the digital marketing Scoop F8 Facebook developer conference a redesigned Facebook App is on the way Instagram intends to downplay statistics such as follower count the Messenger App. We’ll be getting a facelift and a new payment feature which will be coming to whatsapp. That’s all ahead on this week’s episode of the digital marketing scoop.

Intro: (00:21)
[Intro Music]

Mark Flavin: (00:26)
Hey everyone. My name is Mark Flavin. I’m the director of 3B1 media and marketing. We are a web design digital marketing agency based in Cork in Ireland. This is the first episode of our new podcast. Our goal with this podcast is every week to bring you the latest news and the digital marketing space, how it’s going to affect your business and we’ll also be interviewing business owners, marketing directors on how they’re using digital marketing in their businesses. So you can implement those, those tips and strategies, into your own, into your own digital strategy. And My cohost on this podcast is Jen Bryan. Jen is digital marketing manager here at 3B1. She’s the one who’s really doing the research for this. I just, I just tag along. Uh, so basically let’s start off with, I suppose the first topic was, uh, you know, Facebook intending to become more privacy focused. What do you think of their announcements, Jen, around, around that after the conference?

Jen Bryan: (01:31)
Well, it was the biggest area of contention around it I guess for the most part it was very difficult to sense seriousness from Zuckerberg but the other side of it as well is that the plans are there, they’re in place well they’re there, they’re working towards it anyway. So maybe the actual doing will be better than saying something anyway in the long run. So it’d be interesting to see if it actually pans out that it’s a little bit more secure and privacy focused, but people don’t believe in that moment.

Mark Flavin: (02:03)
Yeah. The issue, we have a little snippet, which he kind of made a joke around it and it kind of dropped like a lead balloon will have listened to that.

Mark Zuckerberg: (02:11)
I get that a lot of people aren’t sure that we’re serious about this. I know that we don’t exactly have the strongest reputation on privacy right now to put it lightly.

Jen Bryan: (02:27)
It’s just the giggling and smirking. Yeah. That, that, that did not go down well. Do you think is that one of the, I actually just noticed this last night is when I clicked into an ad and I had the option to see why am I seeing this ad? Yeah. And for the first time ever, I noticed the actual breakdown of the targeting that whoever had advertised used. And I think that’s the first time I’ve seen it. Maybe it’s been there a little while, but may I thought maybe that was kind of an initial progress towards it. Yeah. See how your data’s being used.

Mark Flavin: (02:58)
And I know in of, you know, their issues with fake news and stuff like that, that they, with the, any ads related to politics that know you need to be verified. The ad owner , they have to actually know who’s posting the ads basically. Yeah which of course wasn’t the case back in 2016? No. Um, so if we take a look, so they talked about they’re going to be redesigning the Facebook app around groups and events and going to be downplaying the newsfeed. Um, so what kind of effects do you think that’s going to have, I suppose on the way people use the app on also, uh, from our point of view and a in targeting ads on the, on the platform?

Jen Bryan: (03:39)
Well, if I just think that the old method of just throwing something into a newsfeed for someone between the ages of 18 and 24 or 24 and 30, or it’s just not gonna work anymore, it’s going to be, if it’s a community focus and a group focus around why people are using the app on Facebook are good. If they’re designing it that way, that’s how people are going to use the App because that’s how they’re going to make it intuitive to the user. So people are going to have to start advertising in line with figuring out what their product does for the customer and why it does that and the groups that align with that. I use groups all the time for research purely for research. If, if I’m targeting a product, uh, join a few groups and see what they’re talking about in that area because it is, it is an underused gold mine of, of information but that being said, advertising in the newsfeed has got, I think stories are going to be where the adverts are most easily targeted on Facebook in the near future. Um, we don’t know yet if they’re going to have advertising features in the groups.

Mark Flavin: (04:46)
Yeah, I would, I would imagine certainly there, there will be an on stories they’ve had, um, a big uptake. There was, I remember there was worry that um, you have to wait going back, God is probably going back five, six years ago that they were worried about how um, they weren’t monetizing mobile as well as that they wanted to. Yeah. Um, and there were the same for years again with stories, but it looks like there’s been a huge uptake in advertisers. I’m using stories. Yeah. Um, which, which is, is good I think from, um, from an interaction point of view, be interesting and see how it plays out in terms of, uh, conversions versus let’s say more the more traditional news feed ads.

Jen Bryan: (05:24)
Yeah. I think at the moment for businesses though, if, if you haven’t nailed down your target audience and you don’t have a good idea of the psychographics around your audience, you’re already losing at this point. But if you’re going into the next phase of Facebook without us, you’re just going to be leaps and bounds behind.

Mark Flavin: (05:43)
Um, so the other thing they’re going doing is with Instagram, they’re going, they’re going to try and make Instagram less vain. Uh, which that’s a tough, a tough, that’s a tough challenge. So they’re going to start playing down kind of some of the followers

Jen Bryan: (05:57)
yeah. And the likes. Yeah. Um, they’re trailing it in Canada at the moment without the likes feature being viewed. Um, I just think it’s, it’s really good and it’s really bad from a whole different perspectives. From, from an influencer perspective, I assume that they’re not going to like it. The other thing is is that if I’m checking out influencers for a client or anything like that, I will straight away jump into likes. I’ll start kicking into profiles and see if those are both pretty quickly. Yeah. Um, the other side of it is, is if you’re an advertiser going to an influencer and you can see these likes or comments and you’re going into have a scroll through and kind of, it’s very difficult from just an analytics point of view to go, right, these are the analytics, this is their engagement rate because it’s so easily manipulated. Whereas you actually have to stand these things with a human eye, I think. Yeah. At the moment. Um, so that will impact there. But the other side of it as well is it’s great for, um, anyone who feels uncomfortable sharing and maybe it’ll bring about more creativity and that side of Instagram, which is great. Yeah.

Mark Flavin: (07:07)
It should’ve been more engagement I think. Yeah. Because if you’re going to have people who are, let’s say, uncomfortable only getting a few likes, so hopefully it’ll be an engagement is, you know, that’s, that’s the metric we look at more than what the total follower account as you say. I mean not the people who just go out and buy those followers. Yeah, yeah. 100,000 followers and 4 people engaging on a post you notice something up there. Um, so in order to change they discuss at the conference was um, Facebook messenger. So basically it’s going to get faster, lighter and more secure and they’re going to come up with a, a desktop app as well. Um, so be interesting as well if they’re going to run a messenger ads on the desktop application, I would, I would assume they will.

Jen Bryan: (07:56)
I assume they will. Yeah, I do. I think the biggest thing that messenger is going to bring to the table for businesses in particular in the next few months is going to be the lead gen stuff they have. Um, you can book appointments, you can, you can start taking in a lot of information through a chat Bot essentially, but you can essentially prescribed the pre write the answers that this is for to your most common questions at least. Um, and then you can always take over from him as the human element smoothly as well. Hopefully, I know it’s still in Beta testing and stuff, but this, the level of um, business tools through messenger is just going to increase more and more. And it’s the same with Instagram is doing it as well. I mean Adidas are the company at the moment trialing the direct purchasing from Instagram, no need to go to the website. Messengers likely going to end up with with a similar feature. It’s all being done. It’s being privatized in that sense as well where a customer DM and or private message and get either a chat bot response, either give us your payment details at this, that, and the other and purchased directly without going to a website is just taking away so many steps that is just going to increase conversion.

Mark Flavin: (09:08)
Basically. They want the whole customer journey to take place in the messenger platform. Don’t want people leaving any of the apps and you can see how do you go when you have your initial inquiries, you’re going to have your, all the way true to your purchase and even your customer service can then take place afterwards.

Jen Bryan: (09:23)
Well, it’s going to take for companies to move shift from seeing their website as the core of their sales to actually these platforms and to strike that balance right as well because you kind of just over rely on your website. You can’t over rely on Instagram, you can’t, you can’t over rely on any of the channels anymore. You’re just going to have to integrate them as best possible and just see where the conversions are working best.

Mark Flavin: (09:45)
Yeah. And the, the other announcement this, this one excites me a lot as well, is bringing payment functionality into whatsapp. And I know they’ve been in India, I think they had maybe a million people kind of kind of trading this, but, uh, the treasure trove of data that they’re going to get from this, if this takes off, that they’re actually going to be able to see people’s purchases. Um, you can only imagine how that’s going to affect targeting in terms of, of their ads.

Jen Bryan: (10:13)
Hmm. The Whatsapp is just very interesting with the payment side of things. I mean the, I read somewhere that more people will have access to it and have a bank account. Yeah. Particularly in India. Yeah. So I mean that’s crazy. You know, the other side of it as well is that whatsapp is something that we use everyday and, and it’s so easy to transfer payments. I mean, I use Revolut at the moment. People are breaking away from the traditional banks and if Whatsapp managed to do it right.

Mark Flavin: (10:47)
Got a huge foundation of people to work with. An instant marketplace. Exactly. And I, I think for Whatsapp payments will only be to start. Um, I think you’re going to be book go down the line. You’re going to be booking, your restaurants are going to be, it’s going to really I suppose as, and that’s the thing they want. They want to bring Messenger, WhatsApp and instagram DM#s essentially all together into one. That is, that is their goal. Um, and to have essentially your, your life take place there.

Jen Bryan: (11:15)
Yeah. I’d be interested to see how they merge this, the stories aspect of Instagram Messenger and whatsapp because at the moment if I’m using a story, I’m wanting to go and put it on Instagram, I’m not going to put it on Messenger or Whatsapp or definitely not whatsapp, but from the conference is something I learned that people actually use the whatsapp story or it’s called the status feature on whatsapp. I checked mine instantly to see if anyone in my phone book had and no one did. Maybe it’s just not something that’s taken off in Ireland, but I wonder will that become more prominent as the apps integrate because they are, I’m testing out adverts in the Whatsapp only the stories feature because of obviously the conversations are encrypted end to end and they can’t really pull them which information for targeting, but the stories is where they’re going to be able to figure out how to target on what’s up.

Mark Flavin: (12:05)
Yeah, yeah. No, it will, it will be very, very interesting. I mean, if you look at China and you look at how WeChat, um, essentially is a person’s life. That’s where they do all their messaging for a day or they’re buying their products. It’s where they’re paying for bills. It’s, you know, that is potentially what whatsapp could they come and because they purchased it for whatever, a billion or so, a couple of billion a few years ago and they haven’t really monetized at, at all. I really think they’re going to start accelerating the features, um, on, on what’s up pretty soon. But the payments one, you know, it’s only, it’s only step one, but it’s pretty exciting. Yeah. I think

Jen Bryan: (12:40)
Facebook will eventually, they’re going to definitely kind of incorporates our kind of buy out other businesses. I think they’re going to take a full circle approach to us. I mean, we chat you to do things like if the equivalent of Spotify as integrated into us, and then when one of the bands you follow has a concert nearby you, you can buy the tickets. True. Nothing moves from the APP where it’s Facebook hasn’t got that full circle approach. As you can see, they’re moving towards it. It’ll be whether people trust it or no.

Mark Flavin: (13:10)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s brilliant. Uh, so that was the first episode, so thank you for listening. Um, and we will talk to you next week. Bye Bye. Bye.

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