Author: DTW Agency

Facebook has unveiled (another) set of changes to drive us all to use its publishing tools as opposed to third party applications like Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

As of the 15^th September, 17 post formats on Facebook will no longer be available to boost. They are apparently post types that are rarely used (see below for a full list) and are not tied to any advertiser objectives, meaning that nothing will change in the main Power Editor/Ads Manager interface.

However, one thing to note is the removal of the ability to boost a post from an app posted to a page’s timeline. This MAY affect any page managers using third-party publishing tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Buffer. As of yet, Facebook hasn’t been clear if it sees these tools as an app or as a separate functionality altogether.

Facebook has always preferred managers to use Facebook’s own scheduling functionality instead of using publishing tools like Hootsuite, so there is a possibility this is another move by the network to try to curb the use of those applications.

If you do use Hootsuite et al, the best way around this news is to post any posts that have a budget planned for them directly to Facebook and boost from there.

Alternatively, you could start scheduling from Facebook. We do this already as it means we have full control over how a post will look on the platform without risking any ‘quirks’ that many of these tools have (like funny URL strings, or misshaped images).

In short, its Facebook’s latest trick to get us all using its publishing tools, so watch out if you don’t, they’ll be coming for you.

PS – The following post formats are the ones being removed:

• Boosting share of products from shops
• Boosting the share of a story about a for-sale post
• Boosting a check-in on a map, at a restaurant, or in a city
• Boosting the share of a note
• Boosting the share of a poll
• Boosting place recommendations
• Boosting the share of cultural moments
• Boosting the share of comments
• Boosting change of a profile picture
• Boosting a file upload or share
• Boosting a sports event
• Boosting of a video or image uploaded through the Facebook camera
• Boosting of attendance for an event
• Boosting the share of a video playlist
• Boosting the status of watching a television show, movie, or other types of programming
• Boosting a post from an app posted to a page’s timeline
• Boosting a political endorsement

Nomophobia. We’ve all been there, whether it’s because we’re running late or you were thinking about something else – you’re in a situation where you realise: you forgot your phone. There’s a sinking feeling, a panic. Can you go home to get it? Who’s been trying to get in touch? How will you check Facebook? Or get to the next level of Candy Crush (just me?..Ok).

You see the usual social media posts “it’s like losing an arm! I’ve forgotten my phone – contact me on here” and you get the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) in the pit of your stomach.

This is called Nomophobia – the fear of being anywhere without your phone. A phobia you may smirk at, but, in reality, probably have to some scale. Phones are used by people as a tool to browse content and fill idle time. When waiting for a bus, or an appointment, we instinctively get our phones out and subconsciously look for interesting things to enlighten, educate and entertain us.

We shouldn’t be surprised there is a term like this – as of 2016, 71% of UK adults owned a smartphone. A study showed that UK adults spend an average of 66 hours a month browsing on their mobiles – that’s just over 2 hours a day. It all adds up.

Facebook’s mobile-only active users has surpassed 1 billion worldwide, and as a result they are introducing mobile specific algorithms in their news feed; they even use bandwidth to dictate the sort of content you consume. For example, did you know if you’re in a 2G area, you won’t see as many videos in your news feed?

The fact that there is a name for the fear of being without your phone just shows the importance of mobile in content discovery.

So why should marketers be mindful of Nomophobia?

As the internet becomes more mobile focused – marketers need to think about the content they are publishing on social. Catch your audience’s attention in those idle moments; make your creative thumb-stopping, think about how that video will look on a mobile device, does the link you’re posting go to a mobile-optimised website?

And whilst Nomophobia sounds a bit daft – we marketers should be nomophobic when it comes to our strategies. There should be a fear that without mobile in our plans, we could be missing out.

There’s nothing we love more than working on a stunning new infrastructure project, especially when we get a chance to get some amazing drone footage.

Our video team has been out and about recently – capturing some incredible drone footage on two really important transport projects we’re involved with – the Mersey Gateway Project in Halton and the New Wear Crossing in Sunderland.

The Mersey Gateway film follows the route of the new bridge from north to south – starting at the north approach viaduct as it crosses the saltmarsh and Widnes and moving across the River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal to the construction of the new Astmoor Viaduct in Runcorn.

For the New Wear Crossing, we’ve used drones to get some incredible footage for a series of set piece events for the project – culminating in the raising of the centrepiece of the bridge – a 300 foot pylon on site.

The results are amazing, but you don’t get them without proper planning.

Here’s our top tips

• Keep safe and don’t break the law – CAA licenses, landowners’ permissions, an understanding of what you can and can’t do is critical – the dronesafe website is a good place to start.
• Tell your story – make your footage meaningful and make sure the visuals reflect the story you are trying to tell. If you are flying from multiple locations or it’s a ‘blink and you miss it’ event, camera angles and flight paths really matter. If you just ask someone to turn up and say “please film that”, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t live up to expectations.
• Remember the context – you know every last detail about whatever it is you are filming – your audience probably doesn’t – remember to give them some context.
• Check the weather and have a contingency – if it’s raining, you’re not flying. If your event is taking place anyway, what’s your back-up plan? Ground footage can add value too.
• Go social – you can plug in Facebook Live and broadcast direct from the drone via your Facebook channel – but it has risks and needs planning.
• Share the joy and build your own comms infrastructure – it’s lovely to have great footage but you need to be able to share it – don’t be shy – provide it to the media and use your own channels.
• Think strategically – how can you use the exposure this can create for you to get your messages across to your audience? For example, for Mersey Gateway we need tens of thousands of people to register with the tolling provider this summer – so we included relevant links. At some level your organisation will be trying to influence perceptions or shape behaviour – don’t lose sight of that.

Finally – a big thumbs up to Mark at I-sky – our drone pilot of choice. These are all two-person operations – a pilot and a camera operator. Mark – we couldn’t do it without you – thanks.

If you want to talk to us about drones, or any other filming requirements, we’d love to chat. Please call Pete Whelan on 01287 610 404 or email pete@dtw.co.uk.

Communications professionals from a wide variety of regulatory organisations gathered in London yesterday for the first ever Social Regulators Roundtable.

DTW and Digital Allies were honoured to be invited by the hosts – the Solicitors Regulation Authority – to help facilitate the day. Collectively, we explored the issues and challenges facing regulators on social media, including senior management involvement, employee advocacy, engaging stakeholders, tone of voice, measurement and social media policy.

The purpose of the day was to share ideas and issues commonly faced by people in a team or on their own, working at the sharp end as communicators for regulators. And certainly, by the end of the day, connections had been made and smiles were on faces.

It was a great day of discussion following introductions from SRA Chief Executive Paul Philip and Executive Director, External Affairs, Jane Malcolm.

Attendees from the SRA, ASA, RICS, BSB, PSR, FRR, ARB, Ofwat, CAP and the Homes and Communities Agency discussed the challenges they faced and what they hoped to learn from each other.

Key takeaways from the day included:

• There is a real desire and a drive from regulators towards engagement and away from using social just to broadcast – and that means posting content that is suitable for a social media audience (including light-hearted content) without compromising the authoritative voice of a regulatory body.

• Employee engagement and advocacy is seen as a very exciting area – but one with pitfalls and there is a need to prove to senior management teams that the risk is worth it. Social media policies are often placed in the disciplinary sections of staff handbooks – is this the right place for it? It adds a negative tone to the use of social.

• Evaluation and measurement is very important, but determining a significant ROI for a regulator is very difficult as there is no key conversion or call to action. As ever, the key with evaluation is focusing first on identifying what is REALLY important and understanding WHY you want to measure it.

Everyone recognised and sympathised with each other and we all enjoyed and learned a lot from the day.

Really interesting, insightful and engaging discussions. Thanks @sra_solicitors for hosting! https://t.co/4QzsFaoZy9

— ASA (@ASA_UK) December 6, 2016

We received great feedback from attendees with talk of further meetings and of course some social networking and online sharing to back it up.

A huge thanks to John Rieger and the Digital Communications team at the SRA for organising an excellent day.