Facebook is shaking up their c-suite after the recent controversy and uncertainty between Facebook and their privacy policies. How does this effect your dental practice? New leadership may mean changes in the Facebook platform. From changing executives to updating metrics, in this post we will talk about all of the Facebook updates you need to know.
New Executives
Following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook has moved around, added, and subtracted top executives. Chris Cox, who has been with Facebook since 2005, began running the product division for Facebook’s family of apps a year ago. Now, he has announced he will be leaving. Mark Zuckerberg said in his announcement on Thursday that Cox had planned to leave for a few years. However, Zuckerberg stated, “he stayed to help us work through the issues and chart a course for our family of apps going forward”. So far, Zuckerberg said he will not refill Cox’s spot. Further, Fidji Simo will move to oversee all of WhatsApp. He previously oversaw just the video division of WhatsApp.
Updated Facebook Vision
Facebook’s new vision may not surprise you. They are focusing on six main pillars: private interaction, encryption, reduced permanence, safety, interoperability, and secure data storage. The main focus, as Zuckerberg stated, is to create a “digital living room”. Simply, matching people’s expectations of an everyday chat where data is not saved and advertisers are not the elephant in the room. Although most marketers agree that privacy is a move toward the future, they do acknowledge they will have to adjust their digital marketing strategies.
Can we Market Without Personal Information?
Previously, digital marketers capitalized on the magic of personalization. Add a name or a defining feature, like a reference to a birthday, and marketers quickly caught the attention of their target audience. Now that Facebook is focusing on reduced data permanence, how can marketers continue to catch the attention of their target audience without targeting their personal information?
First, without revealing personal information, marketers may still be able to market to the right customers at the right time with the right message through their online actions. However, the overarching strategy may be one-on-one communication. As we have mentioned in previous posts, chatbots will gain popularity in 2019. For example, a potential patient can talk to a chatbot about services, location, and hours of operation without your help. Another option is to integrate one-on-one messaging with the tasks of your scheduler. They can do this on the computer through messenger or third-party text messaging service like Weave.
Relevance Metrics
Starting on April 30th, the singular Relevance Score on Facebook’s ad reporting page will be replaced with three relevance metrics: engagement ranking, conversion ranking, and quality ranking. With these new relevance metrics, you may see your ad is gaining attention (engagement ranking) and graphic art is better than competitors (quality ranking). But, it is not driving potential patients to your website (conversion ranking). In this case, you may need to change the copy in the caption. Additionally, six other metrics that only provide a big picture view of your ad’s performance will be replaced with granulated metrics. The six metrics that will be replaced are: messaging replies, cost per messaging replies, offers saved, cost per offers saved, website purchases ROAS, and mobile app purchase ROAS.
It is safe to say that in many aspects of their business, Facebook is making monumental changes. From top leadership to the company vision to how everyday advertisers interact with the platform, changes are happening. Now, the best way for you to stay on top of your ad game and to continue to drive new patients with Facebook is to adapt to the changes. In the upcoming months and years, it will be the marketers that adapt the best that will be the most successful.