In this digital age, change is constant. That is why it is not surprising to find out that social media giants such as Facebook and YouTube are upgrading and expanding some of its features. And advertisers are the ones that will be affected by these new features.

Here are some of the upgrades that you need to know from these two social media giants.

Facebook Ad Break Expansion

Facebook continues to dominate when it comes to ads. Over the years, it has improved its ad system to better help marketers find their customers as well as for customers to only see ads that they want to see. Facebook’s technique and strategy proved to be effective as many brands and services continue to use Facebook advertising as one of their digital marketing strategies.

But despite the good things about Facebook’s ad system, there is still a lot to improve. And Facebook itself knows that. That is why it keeps on testing new features to better serve marketers. One of the features that they have been testing out is their Facebook Ad Breaks on videos.

Facebook has been encouraging advertisers to focus more on producing ad videos. This is because videos are more visual and engaging as compared to 2D images and other graphics and plain text content. Aside from that, videos are easy to consume. In just one click on the video, you get to see everything.

Facebook ad break is a good way to encourage advertisers and even Facebook users to produce more videos for the platform because Ad break is the process of earning money from videos. Videos will play and a break from the video will occur to give way to a short ad. Ad breaks are automatically added to Facebook videos you recently uploaded.

Facebook ad break is only available in certain countries. And now that they see its effectiveness, Facebook decided to open it to other countries. Now, Facebook added 14 more countries that will benefit from the ad break.

These 14 countries are Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The History of Facebook Ad Breaks

You will be surprised that Facebook has over 75 million daily watch visitors. With this engagement, it is only right to use this opportunity for advertisement. People are watching so you need to use this to promote brands and services. That is why Facebook decided to test ad breaks in February of 2017.

Then, they expanded, and in August of that same year, they tried testing it on Facebook pages. However, not all Facebook pages get to experience ad break. Only Facebook pages with over 10,000 followers and that have generated over 30,000 one-minute video view. This is reasonable since some Facebook pages do not have videos that Facebook can put an ad break on.

Also, the ad break was only available in five countries before. The first five countries to experience ad break are the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia.

Then, to be able to gauge its effectivity, they introduced ad break to more countries in different continents such as in Europe, Central and South America, and Asia. There were 21 countries in these continents that get to experience ad break that happened in September 2017. And now, Facebook decided to open it to more countries.

Why do you need to care about this? If you are an advertiser, it is a clear indication that Facebook wants advertisers to produce more videos.

YouTube: Ditching Call-to-Action Overlays

YouTube is still the king when it comes to videos. It’s also one of the social media giants that get tons of advertisements just by putting ads on most watched videos. But YouTube is not just about putting ad videos at the start of the video. It also has other ways for advertisers to market their product.

One of the traditional promotional strategies of YouTube is the call-to-action overlays that have been with the platform since 2009. These calls-to-action overlays pop in the corner of every YouTube video. While people are watching they can see these overlays and they can click it to see the website or the product being promoted.

And now, YouTube is ditching this ad feature and replacing it with a more engaging and clickable ad feature.

You won’t see any overlay on YouTube videos now, but instead, you will see a solid ad banner below the video with a call-to-action button. The new ad feature contains a logo, a title, a subtitle, and a call-to-action button. Advertisers can be creative in thinking of the best call-to-action button, to ensure that viewers will check out their website or their products.

However, this new ad extension will only be available for the TrueView in-stream ads. YouTube will soon apply it on bumper ads and discover ads.

This new ad extension is a good opportunity for advertisers and marketers. Because this new ad extension is said to have a higher conversion click.

This change may be a minor one and won’t really affect your overall YouTube or digital marketing strategy. However, this change can be a way to more upgrades and features when it comes to the advertising system of YouTube. And YouTube users and creators should watch out for more upgrades on the platform.

These are just some of the minor social media changes that you need to know. Whether you are a user. an advertiser,  or marketer, these new features and upgrades, minor or not, can affect your overall digital marketing strategy. That is why it is only right to check your digital marketing strategy every now and then to see if it will be affected by the new changes from these social media. Also, whether you like to use it or not, it is not up to us. Rather, Facebook and YouTube have the power to change their platform whenever they want and however they deemed it to be.

So if you are a marketer, better to watch out for these social media updates to make necessary changes to your digital marketing strategy or your social media plan.