What’s Great About the F8?
Facebook hosted its annual F8 Developer Conference, a two-day affair in San Francisco, to share its plans and visions for the future with developers and investors. The conference aimed to inform developers how Facebook seeks to break out of the “social network” bubble. They plan on doing this with new technology rollouts like Augmented Reality glasses and drones. It also provided valuable takeaways that will affect business owners using the platform as a marketing tool. Here are four essential takeaways from Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference.
1. Messenger Bots
- Facebook’s new Bots for Messenger Platform can provide anything from customized communications to information like daily weather and traffic updates directly to those users who want to receive them.
- Businesses can opt to pay to send re-engagement (automated) messages to people who start a conversation with them (Messenger Ads).
Takeaway: Businesses can now respond to multiple messages at once without actually being logged on to Facebook. A better response rate and customized messages will lead to improved customer reviews and the ability to leverage interactive CTA’s.
2. Saving The Web
- Due to the overwhelming response to the “save this post” option, Facebook has decided to extend the functionality of its “save to Facebook” option to the wider web.
- Now, you can save any article/page from an external website to your Facebook saved links list.
- Quote Sharing is a new text-sharing feature. This will enable you to share highlighted text from a website directly to your Facebook page.
Takeaway: It is possible that a save prompt feature could become available to Facebook Pages. This could give brands an edge in a heavy content environment.
3. Social Virtual Reality (VR)
- VR is still in development. To prove that CEO Mark Zuckerberg will never miss the mark when new tech is involved, Facebook is investing in ways to make VR into a more practical, wearable option.
- You may not have to try on those bulky binocular-type headsets to experience virtual reality. You might even see Artificial Intelligence (AI) playing a key role in Facebook’s future.
Takeaway: Facebook’s AI development will improve image search, improve relevant content suggestions, generate captions for media, and more.
4. Video Rights
- Facebook announced a new Rights Manager tool to let publishers upload video content they do not want to be duplicated across the web.
- Publishers will be able to monitor their content, including how much of a video was copied, what pages have posted the content, and how many impressions it’s received.
Takeaway: Facebook will monitor for duplicate videos ensuring your page receives the credit it deserves.
In all, Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference demonstrated to the world how much larger and how much more of a threat the company is becoming to traditional tech giants. Facebook’s capabilities now range further beyond the spectrum of a conventional social network. They now are growing into a worldwide goal of expanding the population’s access to the internet. Facebook strives to be a resource for bringing nations, businesses, and leaders together. To stay up-to-date with the latest marketing news, check out our blog.
