Keeping Up With Social Media Changes and Why it’s Important

Brace yourself… Because here’s a look at a few of the social media changes and updates we saw in 2019. Seemingly, each week social media brand managers were hit with a new round of “now this, no longer that.”

Feeling a little overwhelmed?

It’s no secret that social media is constantly evolving and changing. But the pace of change is definitely increasing. New platforms, breaking updates, just-added features and functionalities are not easy to track sometimes. Yet, as a marketer, you’re expected to be the first one on your team to know about an important social media update or development, to test and learn new techniques, and to master the latest platform changes.

But, you’re most likely asking yourself: “How am I supposed to keep up with everything that’s changing- AND STILL DO MY JOB?!

We don’t blame you. It’s not an easy task. Quite frankly, learning and implementing changing techniques could be a job on its own. That’s because keeping up with the ever-changing online landscape requires continuous adjustment. It takes a lot of time to repeatedly fine-tune your social media marketing strategy to best leverage these changes and updates. So, marketers simply have to find smart ways to keep track. But, before we discuss how to keep track of this onslaught of information, let’s talk about why.

Being aware of changes and how to utilize the latest updates from top platforms will keep you competitive and ensure that your brand gets the greatest return on its investment from every social media marketing dollar spent.

Here are some of the top reasons why we believe it’s important for marketers to stay on top of social media changes: 

• To maximize ROI of your social media ads

Social media changes influence the performance of your ad, and whether it runs successfully or not. In fact, some changes can even result in your ad not running at all.

• Changes can affect your design and content development 

The size and format of copy of your images, videos and stories is a major aspect to the performance of brand social campaigns. The unfortunate fact is that ad image and video dimensions and requirements are always changing. So too is the allowed amount of text copy in ads. If you don’t stay on top of these changes, your team could be wasting valuable time designing and developing ad copy, images or videos that will not be approved to run.

• To  stay on top of social media ad policies

According to Adespresso, social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, are increasing their level of scrutiny into the content users and advertisers promote. Social media ad guidelines are more strict than ever before. As a result, you need a solid grasp of what is permissible to ensure your ads get approved quickly. 

• Changes can influence your KPIs/metrics and reports

Certain changes can have a direct influence on your marketing results. For example, a recent change regarding hiding likes on Facebook and Instagram will require a change in how you measure the performance of your campaigns. This will also push your brand to focus more on engagement metrics, and therefore, you will have to find ways to increase engagement with your audience

• To ensure that you take advantage of new features and opportunities  

Just looking back at some of the social media headlines we saw in 2019, it’s clear that if you stay on top of changes and updates you can take advantage of new features. One example is the ‘Shoppable Instagram’ update we saw last year allowing brands to sell their products on Instagram. 

Two ways marketers can keep up with social media changes and updates:

Amid several moving targets, it’s not impossible to handle the chaos that is social media. We recommend two solutions that will help you wrap your head around it.

1. Subscribe to social media blogs and newsletters

We suggest that you subscribe to a few blogs and newsletters that write content about social media. If there’s a new change or update, it will be prominently discussed.

Hubspot recommends the following blogs: 

• Social Media Examiner
• Social Media Today
• Simply Measured
• Social Media Explorer
• BuzzSumo
• Buffer
• Bitly
• Adweek’s SocialTimes

Be sure to follow the above profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn as well. 

Our newsletter has a special section “The Latest News in Social Media Marketing” where we help our subscribers keep up with all the changes and updates to social media marketing. Now isn’t that convenient?

2. Partner with a marketing agency that specializes in social media marketing and can provide expertise.

With the right marketing partner, your brand can take full advantage of all aspects of social media marketing. If you partner with the right agency, you can be confident that your campaigns will leverage the latest changes to your brand’s advantage. Your partner can provide proven guidance on when to get in on a trend, when to ignore a trend, what updates and changes to make to your content and how to optimize the performance of your social media ads.

Remember change is constant, so learn to incorporate change to the benefit of your brand.