Facebook’s New Pay or Disappear Model
It’s been a few weeks, so of course Facebook has made some changes. What’s new this time? FB is rolling out a new Newsfeed called “Explore.” In most markets, Explore has updates from pages that you don’t follow. But in a few cities, Facebook has bumped brand content to this secondary feed. Only those who pay to promote posts appear in the main Newsfeed. Look for a follow up soon with metrics about what this means for organizations on Facebook (aka everyone).
The Facebook vs. GA Saga, the Final Word
Ever wondered why Facebook and Google Analytics are different? Yes, it’s a topic that’s been covered before here. But I had to give this article a shout out for falling squarely in the category of “I’m happy they did this, so that I never have to.” The TL;DR version: this article is very kind to Facebook, telling you to add 20% to whatever Google Analytics conversations you attribute to Facebook.
Those Lucky 15 People in Florida
Yeah, yeah. It’s another piece about politics and Facebook ads. Epolitics boiled down the 60 Minutes interview with Brad Parscale (“the first pure-digital consultant to run a major presidential campaign”) to a few gems about the Trump campaign’s savviness with Facebook ads. In one spot, Parscale said the Trump campaign used Facebook to reach clusters of rural voters, such as “15 people in the Florida Panhandle that I would never buy a TV commercial for.”
Talking to My (bot) Self
Half creeped out and half fascinated by this episode of my new favorite podcast: Note to Self. A woman creates a chat bot after her boyfriend dies suddenly in a car accident. She programs it with his entire written life (texts, emails etc.), using the patterns in his writing to replicate his voice. Feeling left out? Don’t worry: You can get the app, and train it to become you too. Here’s the article that a reporter wrote for Quartz about his experience with the app.
And in Other Links…
I love sharing the M+R Nonprofit Benchmarks study when it is released in the spring. Want to participate in next year’s edition? Register here.
Advice of the Week
Making it Visual
Fall is bagging leaves, carving pumpkins and gearing up for year-end donation pushes on social media. For me at least, choosing photos for these campaigns is always major time investment, um, I mean joy. Need some tips to get started? I liked this blog post on how to pick the best images for your campaigns.
Cool Visualization of the Week
When are We Born?
Well, Scientific American figured it out for us and put it in this beautiful graphic. To boil it down: scheduled c-sections and winter holiday sex give us a lot of early morning babies born in late summer.