Facebook Releases New Features to Benefit Businesses

By Minna Salmesvuo | May 6, 2016

Facebook has just rolled out some cool new improvement features which you need to consider incorporating into your communication and social media marketing strategies. As you know, social media is constantly changing, and as a business owner you need to keep up to date with the changes or fall behind!

1. Instant Articles Open to All

Instant Articles are a new way for anyone to create interactive articles on Facebook. They are a minimalist multimedia article exclusive to Facebook. Until recently only bigger publishers had access to Instant Articles, but now everyone does. You can create fast, interactive articles that load up to 10 times faster than the mobile web. Use powerful creative tools to bring your stories to life. Click here for more information on Instant Articles

2. More Configurable Facebook Pages (Especially for Mobile)

Facebook introduced more customisable Pages focusing on the mobile web to demonstrate their effectiveness. The “call to action” e.g. Call now, Send Email etc. button is more prominently featured in the page right under the cover image and the sections are configurable allowing businesses to tailor their page presence how customers prefer.

3. 360-Degree Video Support

Facebook has developed a 3-D 360-degree camera system with an eye toward the 260-degree videos it recently introduced. This system seamlessly combines the video from 17 cameras – 14 wide-angle cameras bolted to a horizontal ring, with one fish-eye camera on top and two more on the bottom. Click here for 360-Degree information

4. Shared Media

For businesses with multiple pages, Facebook has created ‘crossposted videos’ which allows one Page to share one uploaded video across multiple pages. This is a time saving feature for businesses with multiple pages.

5. Private Replies to Public Posts

Facebook has created a page button that allows businesses to respond privately to a public post to their page. This is especially good if you need to respond with specific details relevant to the public post rather than share it with everyone! Great tool for e.g. special pricing, responding to a specific query etc.

6. Message Me

If you type in m.me to your web browser, you will be redirected to Messenger. If you type in m.me/username (username being a page name), you will be redirected to a Messenger message directly to that business. Another time saving feature which allows you to directly message another business or create a link to use in emails etc. to directly message you!

7. Office Hours

Facebook is giving page admins the opportunity to turn off Messenger for periods of time to let customers know when you can respond and when you can’t. It keeps your customers informed so they know when you may respond.

8. Instant Replies

You can now create autoresponders in Messenger to notify your clients.

9. The Universal “Save” Button

There is now a “Save to Facebook” button which saves any webpage to a private portion of Facebook for your future reference.

10. Profile Videos

Facebook now allows users to update short videos from MSQRD, Boomerang for Instagram, lollicam, BeautyPlus, Cinemagraph Prof from Flixel and Vine into their profile picture. This is a really cool feature, not only for businesses but for personal profiles too. Why not try it out and impress your friends and customers!

So there you have it. The newly released Facebook features.

Which new Facebook features will you try in your business social media marketing strategy first?

(Source credit: Cision – 25 New Facebook Features Released Last Week. 18th April, 2016)