Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’… Facebook Rolls Out New Features
It’s been a BIG week in social media as Facebook rolls out new features and products – five of them! – all in one week! Let’s take a look at all the roll outs and announcements…
1) #Hashtags! Hashtags are such a great way to index conversations that are happening! It’s about time #Facebook (sorry, couldn’t resist!) got in on the act. Use them sparingly and in a meaningful way. In other words, don’t hashtag every word or every other word…just the key words in your post. Most importantly, hashtag words that other people are talking about (like hashtags, for instance) so that your post will show up in that conversation. Read more about hashtags in Facebook Studio’s post about it.
2) Photo Comments! What? Yep, that’s right! You can now add a photo to your comments on friends’ posts. This could be fun – or it could be annoying. But, mostly fun. I’ve heard some Facebook Page owners say that they’re seeing it on their Pages as well, but as of now it hasn’t been rolled out across the board to Pages. When, or if, it does go live for Pages it could be a problem if a fan posts an objectionable photo. Even worse, I think about restaurants…if someone gets a meal they’re unhappy with and posts a picture in the comments. Of course, unhappy customers already have to ability to post those same pictures all over the internet anyway.
3) Sort Comments by ‘Most Recent’ or ‘Top Comments’! Recently Facebook rolled out the option for Page owners to enable replies to comments, which meant that one could reply to individual comments on a post. Great idea! Except, oops, comments and replies weren’t displayed in chronological order, they were ranked by popularity. In other words, the comments that got the most replies were shown at the top. It was very confusing. So, rather than just allowing comments to display in chronological order, Facebook instead chose to allow users to sort the comments and replies by ‘most recent’ or ‘top comments’. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly an improvement.
4) Revamped Page Insights! Hallelujah!!!!! Looks like Facebook has finally realized that Page owners need more detailed information about how their Pages and posts are performing. Coming to all Pages by the end of summer are the following Insights improvements. The People Talking About This (PTAT) metric will be reported by each element, such as Page Likes, People Engaged, Page tags and mentions, Page check-ins, and other interactions. Virality metric will be called Engagement Rate and will include clicks, which is a key indicator of positive post engagement. Each post will now include detailed reporting on positive and negative interactions (see image below).
And finally, more detailed information about your Page’s fans (see image below)! You can read Facebook’s full post about the improved Insights here.
5) Video on Instagram! You can now make 15 second videos with Instagram. This feature is immediately available on iOS and Android platforms. Users can make videos clip-by-clip, with instant editing, 13 new cuts and filters, and can choose which frame to display as the cover frame. The videos will play once (no looping). Also added is a video stabilization feature called “Cinema”. Time to get creative, folks! Here’s a one-minute video and blog post from Instagram on the new video product. Note: scroll to the bottom of the page for a link to the actual announcement from Instagram co-founder, Kevin Systrom.
What do you think of these new features and products? Let me know in the comments below. If you have any questions about any of these features or anything social media, post them below or send me a message.
Carole Billingsley (@YouSeekSocial) is a social media consultant and trainer. Combining her social media expertise with her decades of experience in entertainment and education, Carole founded Seek Social Media in 2011. She is known for her ability to make technical and social media topics easy to understand for even the least tech-savvy business owner. Specialty areas: social media, customer experience, digital presence, crisis management.
