At Facebook’s 2015 F8 conference, the company made its intentions clear: the social media giant is looking to redefine itself as more than just a social network. Facebook no longer wants to exist as a single app on your mobile, but a number of apps that will fulfill various functions within the platform and protect each other from disruption. More importantly, there are a number of potential uses for the proposed changes within the business marketing realm, and more specifically to the travel and hospitality vertical.Here are the five most important takeaways from this year’s conference for brands and marketers:Facebook Messenger Platform
The rumors are true. Facebook has finally decided to open up its messenger platform to third parties. This means that with the newly unveiled Messenger is becoming a standalone platform, complete with a third-party app ecosystem. Brands and developers will now be able to reach 600 million Facebook members who use Messenger on a daily basis and provide a place for them to download branded apps within the platform.Additionally, the newest Messenger feature will allow businesses to communicate with their customers in a more intimate way than Pages. Businesses will now be able to send e-commerce information to customers on Messenger, as well as giving customers a more direct way to ask questions or express concerns. Now your customers will have a direct line to you, rather than watching their comment get buried on the comments section of your Facebook page, never to be seen again. The Messenger for Businesses feature will be publicly available in the coming weeks.Mobile Ad Exchange In 2014, Facebook acquired video ad tech startup and supply side platform LiveRail, and the company plans to begin using the technology to deliver display ads on the social network. As an additional gift to advertisers, Facebook is bringing anonymized user data to the table so that businesses can better target those display ads using this cornucopia of rich data.Now, hotels and resorts will be able to access real-time location data for potential customers, relevant likes and interests, as well as the usual suspects of age, sex, and hometown. This paves the way for social marketing to become even more of an important and integrated slice of the digital pie for hospitality brands.Video EmbeddingIn a not so subtle jab at YouTube, Facebook also announced its intention to allow users to embed videos directly onto external websites with a single line of code. Previously, users were only able to share Facebook videos on the Facebook platform, but this newest development will likely force YouTube to rethink their strategy. As for businesses, there is now new reason to consider how they use Facebook for video distribution, and potentially consider spending more time and energy in this realm.Hoteliers should take special note of this. In the past year, it has been reported again and again, that social media and travel research are two peas in a pod with travelers looking for inspiration in the form of “snackable” content i.e. videos and photos. Now that Facebook video content can move outside of the social media platform, it might be time for hospitality to react accordingly.Spherical Videos
You might have heard about Facebook acquiring a virtual reality company called Oculus Rift sometime last year. Many questioned what exactly the social media giant’s future intentions were for the technology, but F8 offered a few glimpses into what we should expect.The VR-friendly video format will make its way to your newsfeed in the form of 360 degree videos. For hospitality, the possibilities are endless to provide your potential guests with an immersive experience of your property, the surrounding area, or activities they might experience while on-site.Parse for Internet of ThingsIf you haven’t heard of the term “The Internet of Things” then expect it to start becoming very familiar in the coming months and years. We are moving towards a time in technological history when it won’t just be our phones, computers and printers that are online, but everything we own. Can you imagine your alarm going off in the morning and then sending a message to your coffee maker that it is time to start brewing a hot pot of your favorite Colombian roast? Those days might not be that far off.Despite the excitement surround the potential for this technology, not much has been done in standardizing how these objects will communicate or remain secure. During the conference, Facebook took a giant step in the right direction by releasing a set of Software Development Kits to act as the backend standard for developing these products.How will these changes affect your future marketing plans? It seems like there are a lot of potential uses for this technology, but obviously, a lot of it is still in its infancy. With social expanding its domain into things like 3D technology and The Internet of Things, we can only expect that Facebook has big plans for the future. But what are they exactly? I guess we’ll all just have to stay tuned.
At Facebook’s 2015 F8 conference, the company made its intentions clear: the social media giant is looking to redefine itself as more than just a social network. Facebook no longer wants to exist as a single app on your mobile, but a number of apps that will fulfill various functions within the platform and protect each other from disruption. More importantly, there are a number of potential uses for the proposed changes within the business marketing realm, and more specifically to the travel and hospitality vertical.Here are the five most important takeaways from this year’s conference for brands and marketers:Facebook Messenger Platform
The rumors are true. Facebook has finally decided to open up its messenger platform to third parties. This means that with the newly unveiled Messenger is becoming a standalone platform, complete with a third-party app ecosystem. Brands and developers will now be able to reach 600 million Facebook members who use Messenger on a daily basis and provide a place for them to download branded apps within the platform.Additionally, the newest Messenger feature will allow businesses to communicate with their customers in a more intimate way than Pages. Businesses will now be able to send e-commerce information to customers on Messenger, as well as giving customers a more direct way to ask questions or express concerns. Now your customers will have a direct line to you, rather than watching their comment get buried on the comments section of your Facebook page, never to be seen again. The Messenger for Businesses feature will be publicly available in the coming weeks.Mobile Ad Exchange In 2014, Facebook acquired video ad tech startup and supply side platform LiveRail, and the company plans to begin using the technology to deliver display ads on the social network. As an additional gift to advertisers, Facebook is bringing anonymized user data to the table so that businesses can better target those display ads using this cornucopia of rich data.Now, hotels and resorts will be able to access real-time location data for potential customers, relevant likes and interests, as well as the usual suspects of age, sex, and hometown. This paves the way for social marketing to become even more of an important and integrated slice of the digital pie for hospitality brands.Video EmbeddingIn a not so subtle jab at YouTube, Facebook also announced its intention to allow users to embed videos directly onto external websites with a single line of code. Previously, users were only able to share Facebook videos on the Facebook platform, but this newest development will likely force YouTube to rethink their strategy. As for businesses, there is now new reason to consider how they use Facebook for video distribution, and potentially consider spending more time and energy in this realm.Hoteliers should take special note of this. In the past year, it has been reported again and again, that social media and travel research are two peas in a pod with travelers looking for inspiration in the form of “snackable” content i.e. videos and photos. Now that Facebook video content can move outside of the social media platform, it might be time for hospitality to react accordingly.Spherical Videos
You might have heard about Facebook acquiring a virtual reality company called Oculus Rift sometime last year. Many questioned what exactly the social media giant’s future intentions were for the technology, but F8 offered a few glimpses into what we should expect.The VR-friendly video format will make its way to your newsfeed in the form of 360 degree videos. For hospitality, the possibilities are endless to provide your potential guests with an immersive experience of your property, the surrounding area, or activities they might experience while on-site.Parse for Internet of ThingsIf you haven’t heard of the term “The Internet of Things” then expect it to start becoming very familiar in the coming months and years. We are moving towards a time in technological history when it won’t just be our phones, computers and printers that are online, but everything we own. Can you imagine your alarm going off in the morning and then sending a message to your coffee maker that it is time to start brewing a hot pot of your favorite Colombian roast? Those days might not be that far off.Despite the excitement surround the potential for this technology, not much has been done in standardizing how these objects will communicate or remain secure. During the conference, Facebook took a giant step in the right direction by releasing a set of Software Development Kits to act as the backend standard for developing these products.How will these changes affect your future marketing plans? It seems like there are a lot of potential uses for this technology, but obviously, a lot of it is still in its infancy. With social expanding its domain into things like 3D technology and The Internet of Things, we can only expect that Facebook has big plans for the future. But what are they exactly? I guess we’ll all just have to stay tuned.
