There was a time when Facebook took the crown for being the leading social media platform, the place where everyone wanted to be. Flash forward to 2022, and the platform is currently trading at its lowest stock price since 2019. And Meta wants to fix this. 

In order to encourage advertisers to invest their digital video marketing spend into Facebook rather than competitors, Meta will be rolling out several new types of ads throughout this month in order to hit online shoppers ahead of the holiday season. 

The new range of ad types will feature on Instagram’s explore page, showing content based on user’s preferences, and on the profile pages of all public, non-teen Instagram users. Ads will also sit within Meta’s Messenger app, powered by the launch of a tool that uses machine learning software to show ads intended to “reach people who are most likely to make a purchase,” said Maz Sharafi, Meta’s vice president of marketing and growth for business messaging.

It’s all about Reels
Also, with Reels content becoming increasingly popular, the new ‘post-loop’ ads and ‘ad carousels’ at the bottom of Facebook Reels will present users with ads instead of looping videos, and while watching a Reel on Facebook, a carousel of ads will appear below the creator’s name and caption for the video from a single advertiser. 

With algorithms ensuring that the ads correlate with the creator’s Reels content, users will be able to click through the carousel of buttons to learn more about the brand or product from the video. Testing to allow select influencers to feature ads on their feeds could in fact be a potential source of revenue.

“The new ad products Meta announced on Monday for Facebook and Instagram are further signs that it’s prioritising creators. Of the five new ad products being trialled, three share revenue with creators.” commented Thomas Walters, UK CEO and Co-Founder of Billion Dollar Boy. 

“Both the ‘multi-advertiser ads’ – displays of products at the bottom of videos – and the ‘post-loop ads’ – short video partner ads in between creator Reels – will help to further shorten the consumer purchasing journey. Meta has announced that both formats will provide creators with 55% of the revenue, incentivising creators to adopt the format and also helping to attract and retain top talent on the platform.

“But, if post-loop and multi-advertiser ads are to be successful in driving adoption among creators and generating consumer engagement and conversions, they will need to ensure there is a strong affinity between the creator and the brand. Otherwise, the adverts could run the risk of becoming too disruptive to the user experience.”

Facebook is certainly making the effort to get in line with its competitors, and time will only tell when it comes to discovering whether these new ad roll-outs, plus the company’s emergence of virtual reality and the Metaverse to drive growth, will give Meta the boost in revenue that it is striving for.