Here’s Why Facebook Is Worth The Investment

With 1.7 billion users, Facebook continues to be a top player in the world of social media, despite a few metric-counting mishaps. Despite the bumps in the road, Facebook has made a number of significant updates that add tremendous value to marketers both for ad spend and organic reach.

While Facebook continues to prioritize updates from friends and family, brands have found ways to stand out with the use of Facebook Live, 360-degree photos and videos. Users view 100 million hours of video per day—a testament to the sheer amount of content by users and brands alike, just waiting to be consumed.

Everyone’s A Star

According to July 2016 research by SheSpeaks, 32 percent of US creators who currently work with brands cite Facebook as the best platform for influence marketing, followed by Instagram at 24 percent.

“Facebook’s forays into video, particularly live video, have brought back younger audiences that have migrated to niche social apps,” says Erik Schmitt, social media strategist for Ayzenberg in the fourth quarter EMV Index. “Both the viewers and the creators are now coming back to Facebook.”

As demonstrated at Oculus Connect in October, virtual reality video, conferencing and gaming may soon become a major tool on the social network, as well. Purchased by Facebook in 2014, a major focus of the Oculus Rift, according to Mark Zuckerberg, is to support the ecosystem it helped jump start and of course, keep more people logged in.

Creative Freedom

With the recent addition of Creative Hub, marketers can browse ad options across Facebook and Instagram in a number of creative formats including 360-video, carousel, canvas and traditional video. They are testing mid-roll ads, as well, which will not only offer additional revenue for brands and creators, but encourage longer, more meaningful content to be uploaded. (The ads will only be available for videos 90 seconds or longer.)

Getting The Message Across

Now, more than a billion people use Facebook Messenger every month. For brands who use bots on the platform, updates also offers valuable insight into entry points and traffic.

Facebook’s latest roll-out of updates continues a string of moves by the social giant to seamlessly integrate social conversations into revenue for brand partners. The “recommendations” feature, for example, allows users to ask friends and family advice about where to go, what to do and what to buy. Those comments are then mapped out and stored in a special tab for later access.

If you want to get your brand in front of a ton of faces, don’t forget the obvious choice.  With continued updates and changes, Facebook has helped to bring a larger cross-section of demographics to its platform and pull both users and influencers away from networks like Vine and Periscope.