MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS WITH STABLE INFRA

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1 FACEBOOK f8 Developer Conference What do Facebook s f8 announcements mean for your brand? Nick Burcher Head of Social Media, MediaCom EMEA San Francisco, 30th April The f8 Developer Conference saw Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook leads announce various new initiatives that covered both Facebook and the wider marketing ecosystem. Although primarily aimed at developers and Facebook-centric businesses, f8 was also used to unveil new advertiser offerings, including further tools and features that will improve insight, enhance content and offer new types of advertising. The f8 announcements therefore have the potential to give mobile marketing a real boost and advertisers need to ensure that they are prepared to take full advantage. BACKGROUND The f8 event reflected Facebook s coming-of-age; indeed in his keynote Mark Zuckerberg spoke of how Facebook s 10th birthday and his impending 30th (!) have made him stop and reflect. Echoing our longstanding MediaCom mantra of People first, better results, he spoke of how Facebook now needs to put People first in everything it does, whether that s thinking about what effect changes will have on the developer community or giving Facebook users more control over their own data. The f8 conference was unashamedly focussed on mobile, and for good reason: Facebook told the audience that 20% of all mobile web time is now spent on the Facebook app, with 59% of Facebook ad revenues coming directly from mobile. Furthermore, 60% of the top grossing apps on itunes and Android Market have used Facebook mobile app install ads, with Facebook processing over $3 billion of payments for app owners.

2 MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS WITH STABLE INFRA Facebook is now a publicly traded company with a huge user base and a substantial developer community who rely on it working 24/7/365. The admission that Facebook s previous slogan, Move fast and break things needs to evolve was greeted by applause from the audience. In its place, Move fast with stable infra was presented as the new mantra, backed up with technical promises including guaranteed bug fixing within 48 hours and a two-year guarantee on all APIs. The announcements applied to one of three areas: 1. Things that will change on Facebook itself 2. Things that link desktop and mobile together 3. Things that take Facebook functionality to a wider audience/ecosystem. Addressing issues specific to Facebook, the conference also discussed the wider digital system that Facebook plays a key role in. At MediaCom, we optimise the system not just the silo and it struck a chord when Mark Zuckerberg spoke of his ambition for Facebook to become the cross-platform platform. This is big-picture thinking and he hopes developers will use Facebook technology to build apps once and be assured that they will work across all mobile platforms from ios, to Android, Windows and mobile web - with unified data fed back accordingly. HOW ADVERTISERS SHOULD THINK ABOUT THE f8 ANNOUNCEMENTS The f8 conference aimed to grow trust with the developer community and recruit them into the Facebook Audience Network. As a result, the conference tracks were mapped against themes of Build, Grow, Monetise. Build, Grow, Monetise works well for the developer audience, but how does this translate for advertisers? Advertisers should look at the f8 announcements through a different lens and the MediaCom approach of Social Insights, Content and Community and Paid for social media projects aids understanding here.

3 SOCIAL INSIGHTS APPEVENTS DATA By integrating Facebook into a mobile app (technically, integrating the Facebook SDK ), app developers can now get 14 different AppEvents data points from Facebook about their apps. This enables app owners to understand what people are doing with their apps (install, activate, spend) and who is using them. In short, this rich data can inform campaigns and be used for ad targeting. 4 NEW PUBLIC APIS Trending, Topic Insights, Topic Feed and Hashtag Counter all provide near-real time information about the things that are happening on Facebook right now (What are the most discussed topics? What are the most used hashtags?) These new data feeds allow additional Facebook data to be pulled into client dashboards. This data can provide deeper insight into audience behaviours and preferences. MOBILE LIKE AND MESSAGE DIALOG There are now 10 million different sites using the Facebook Like button on the desktop web and Facebook have now introduced a mobile Like button for mobile. There is also a new Message Dialog sharing functionality which enables content to be shared with a small group of friends directly through Facebook Messenger. This fuels mobile sharing, enhances the power of Facebook to distribute content and also provides new data points for marketers.

4 CONTENT & COMMUNITY ANONYMOUS LOGIN Facebook announced that they are allowing users to edit what they share through apps and then took this one stage further by announcing Anonymous Login - allowing users to try apps without needing to submit their personal data to them. Anonymous login is good PR for Facebook while it also bucks the trend of forced user integration and removal of anonymity that others have been pursuing. Using Facebook login makes it easier for users and will potentially increase user adoption of Facebook powered apps. APPLINKS This is a new Facebook-backed initiative that offers open source code through applinks.org and allows users to now jump from one app to another without having to go via the mobile web. For example, a user could click on a song posted to Facebook and click the link to go straight into the Spotify app, returning to Facebook immediately afterwards. If this is adopted widely then mobile ad opportunities will start to focus more around ad units in apps. M-COMMERCE AUTOFILL Facebook announced that they are integrating with leading ecommerce companies so that consumers can more easily purchase via their mobile device using card and address data that they have previously stored on Facebook. In a further development, clicking on an ad with a coupon can now have the coupon code from the ad automatically added to the basket. This could start to enhance Facebook conversions and boost Facebook powered m-commerce. 3 examples of Audience Network native ad placements content has been adapted to suit the environment (Coca-Cola, Target and Beats Music) PAID ADVERTISING FACEBOOK AUDIENCE NETWORK Unofficially referred to as FAN, this will see Facebook advertising introduced into third party mobile apps in banner, interstitial or native formats. Developers opt-in to the program and Facebook bring them the most relevant advertising identified through their targeting technology. Facebook and the developers then share the revenue. Advertisers access the Audience Network through their normal advertising interface and set bids/parameters accordingly (opt-in or opt-out.) This opens up new, targeted advertising opportunities for advertisers and offers developers enhanced revenue potential. MOBILE ENGAGEMENT ADS Mobile install ads have been very successful for Facebook and the advertisers using them. However, Facebook stated that while the average mobile user has 41 apps, 66% of apps are used less than ten times. Facebook mobile formats will now help to increase engagement and usage around apps; new mobile engagement ads will be available to target lapsed users and will feature call to action prompts such as Book Now, Play Now, Buy Now and so on. This increases the return on investment of mobile apps as lifetime value is enhanced and updating or introducing new app features is more viable. NEW TARGETING Facebook s custom audiences feature, which allows highly detailed targeting and segmentation, can now be used for mobile advertising formats. Mobile engagement ads can now use the enhanced AppEvent data to target users, through in app actions, by demographics or through the use of detailed custom audiences. This new targeting will fuel further opportunities for advertisers on mobile, which will continue to grow Facebook mobile advertising revenue accordingly.

5 CONCLUSION On the surface f8 was all about mobile and developers, but the underlying narrative was about the system. Facebook s cross-platform platform play was more than Facebook trying to make Facebook work better, it was about Facebook trying to make everything work better across all devices. The lion s share of Facebook advertising revenue now comes from mobile and Mark Zuckerberg displayed an innate understanding about how everything is connected. The f8 presentations had something for everyone from developers and advertisers, to users and the watching press. f8 announcements now see Facebook sitting above and beneath the mobile app ecosystem with the corresponding data used to fuel Facebook s new ad formats and advanced targeting. The promises of stability (the infrastructure guarantees) and support (such as Facebook Start, a new fund that help support developers in starting out or accelerating existing work) are all designed to encourage the development community to support the Facebook platform, further backed by initiatives such as AppLinks and a cheaper, stronger package from Parse (Facebook s development unit that presented early in the day.) If Facebook can make the f8 announcements stick there is a win-win-win for them here. Happy developers = a more vibrant platform = more engaged users = more potential for advertising revenue. This three way see-saw is a delicate balancing act, but f8 had something for everyone. Developers have been offered a package that will help them Build Grow Monetise, users have been offered more control / better privacy and advertisers have been offered enhanced data insight, new ad formats and new inventory with enhanced targeting options all the while improving the overall potential of mobile as a marketing and advertising platform. Nick Burcher Head of Social Media, MediaCom EMEA Nick Burcher oversees social media at MediaCom EMEA where he is responsible for both developing the social product and for social media execution. Prior to this Nick led teams in different areas, including Search, Display Advertising and a range of offline media. This varied experience has given Nick a unique multi-channel perspective and integration was a key theme in his book Paid Owned Earned: maximizing marketing returns in a socially connected world. f8 was an event that attendees couldn t help but be impressed by slick, well organised and lots of things announced. Facebook have already announced that there will be another f8 event next March 2014 was all about mobile, perhaps 2015 be all about video?