F8 ROUNDUP FACEBOOK’S UPCOMING CHANGES

FACEBOOK F8 2015Roundup

Facebook F8 is a conference held by Facebook, intended for developers and entrepreneurs who build products and services around the website

This year’s conference had surprises for both developers and digital marketers. Let’s take all the major announcements one by one

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FACEBOOK F8 2015Facebook Messenger - API

Developer access: After adding money transfer to its set of functionalities, Facebook announced that it is opening Messenger’s API to developers. What does this mean?Integration: Developers will be given the opportunity to create apps that integrate with Messenger. This means that users will get to use 3rd party features to enhance their communications

What to expect: GIFs, more videos, even more emojis and App Installations directly from the app. This last one could be a great opportunity for brands that want to push their app but also bespoke communications with their communities

FACEBOOK F8 2015

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FACEBOOK F8 2015Facebook Messenger - E-commerce

New Chat Window: Facebook Messenger opens a new ‘chat window’ between users and brands by facilitating ease of communication between two parties E-commerce ready: E-commerce sites will have the opportunity to integrate Messenger’s API to their sites. Customers will then receive updates from the brand through Messenger. Such updates could include order confirmations and shipping status updates

What to expect: Facebook starts testing the new feature with Everlane and Zulily. Brands will understand the importance of having a full-time special social media - customer service team on site

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FACEBOOK F8 2015Embeddable video player

It was a long wait: Deborah Liu, Facebook's manager of product marketing, announced the launch of the Facebook's embedded video player, a way for users to embed videos uploaded to Facebook across the web

Why It matters: With the new comments feature, users will be able to log in with their Facebook accounts and comment on a website; that same comment will be duplicated on the official Facebook-shared story. This means both big data and social spread

What to expect: Facebook has been favouring video for a while meaning this content will be enhanced across the web

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FACEBOOK F8 2015LiveRail

Goodbye Google Ads?: The company announced that LiveRail, its ad tech platform for publishers’ video, will soon support display ads in mobile apps alongside video

Facebook siad: “LiveRail will power native ad formats as well as standard display placements like interstitials and banners. The Audience Network, with its high performing native ad format and access to 2 million Facebook advertisers, is tightly integrated into this platform”

What to expect: The testing period starts soon meaning more targeting options and more creative options for advertisers

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FACEBOOK F8 2015VR-Ready 360-Degree Video for the News Feed

Goodbye YouTube?: One of these is 360-degree video support for the News Feed. It comes a year since Facebook announced that it bought Oculus Rift, a virtual reality technology company. It also comes a few months after YouTube announced 360-degree videos on its platform

Why Should We Care?: It opens up a whole new world of content!

What to expect: Not much soon. But brands should start assembling top-notch video production teams to enable 360-degree recording

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FACEBOOK F8 2015New Share Sheet

What is it?: New Share Sheets are designed to make posts more attractive and predictable, as well as target them to specific users. Moreover, they open up more places where content can be shared - groups, profiles, messages

Why Should We Care?: Share Sheet offers: a clear preview of the content their friends will see when they share, the ability to share to smaller audiences, including Groups and Messenger and the opportunity to share without having to log in to the app with Facebook

TAKEAWAYS

Facebook Messenger is now a platform and not a standalone app. Its open API will provide ample space for integration with 3rd party apps and it will be the field where e-commerce will have to test its customer services

Embeddable video players will take a big chunk of YouTube’s share and. Facebook reported over 3 billion monthly video views (Jan 2015) and we can safely assume that this number will go even higher

Monetisation on Facebook videos will attract even more publishers on the platform - it’s now clearer than ever that Facebook wants to be the hub for original content, a one stop shop for everyone

Virtual Reality will be a huge player in the following months and Facebook is gearing up to accommodate the latest trend, with VR gaming reportedly being its next step

Sharing on Facebook is improved in order to increase engagement and generate conversations

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