Facebook is evolving for the average B2B consumer. A little while back Facebook released their 2017 Q4 results. In them, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, said that “2017 was a strong year for Facebook, but it was also a hard one.” Zuckerberg and his team plan to focus on some new trends in 2018 to improve results and make “meaningful connections” to create a stronger platform.  

Here are a few updates to keep an eye out for so far:

• Third party app access

You may have seen that the platform experienced some backlash after the Cambridge Analytica scandal affecting 87 million users. To combat this, Facebook will be revealing an app control link at the top of news feeds on April 9 (pictured below). Clicking the link will give users the option to constrain what information is shared with the apps they use, or to eliminate access all together by removing the apps.

Photo: Vox

Facebook will also be eliminating the option to search for users by their telephone number. Although this often convenient to find a user, this search form can also be abused and make for an easier attempt to scrape data through IP addresses.

• More live coverage through Stories

Facebook Stories have been around since the first testing in Facebook’s Messenger in September 2016. Often criticized for being a mock of Snapchat or now Instagram’s Stories, Facebook is pushing for Stories even more in 2018 and has now teamed up with Instagram.

Photo: Buffer Social

Instagram stories can now be shared on Facebook too, allowing for both audiences to see your visual updates. How does this help marketers? Greater coverage and the more storytelling opportunities for your B2B audiences.

• Evolving news feed

You may have noticed that your feed has been over crowded with advertisements lately. Facebook wants to keep these, but they want to take a step back and make things more “social” by having more posts from those you have friended in your feed.

Photo: Kaufer DMC

To learn more about how this change may affect marketers, see Digital Marketing Coordinator Aly Ryan’s blog about this.