What’s Changed with Facebook?

Facebook has been dominating the headlines within the world of marketing for a few months. In response to the negative media attention Facebook has been getting from the US government and many Facebook users, they will be cutting ties with third-party data partners and taking steps to ensure custom audiences built with email addresses were built with consent.

Facebook will phase out and eventually eliminate all information shared to those third-party companies, like Acxiom, Epsilon, Experian, Oracle. 

This means a significant portion of the behavioral targeting capabilities within Facebook will be severely limited or go away completely.

Facebook is changing the way people advertise and access their application in response to the Cambridge Analytica incident. While this changes the way advertisers build custom audiences for Facebook, it doesn’t change the ability to reach qualified buyers on Facebook.

So with all this hullabaloo, what exactly does that mean for new home sales?

First off, don’t call your local newspaper for an ad just yet. We’re not going back to marketing circa 1983. Advertising on the internet didn’t go away, Facebook just changed the way we target users.

What Does That Mean For New Home Facebook Marketing?

The biggest change this will have on new home marketing is building a custom audience from scratch. Because most of the behavioral data is going away, we’ll have to rely on including and excluding users based more on demographic data. Behavioral data from these third-parties includes purchasing behavior in a few different industries like automobiles, retail, and - you guessed it: home buying.

But we’re still able to target anyone that visits your website or interacts with your page. Facebook continues the option to target email lists and CRM lists. They’re also keeping lookalike capabilities tailored directly to a unique data set, which is much more than other standard marketing platforms.

Does This Change Marketing in the Tech Age?

Marketers have their “secret sauce” of blending certain behavioral data, like the kind from these third-party partners, with demographic data that is native to Facebook. We’re no exception.

But social media is not a one-trick pony. Facebook is just one part of an effective, diversified social media strategy. That strategy relies on custom audiences and creating the right content for the right customers for our clients. With all these recent Facebook changes, the increase of users on other social media platforms will likely increase. So, where do you want to be when your potential buyers skip one social media service for another? Our hope is that you’re right in front of them as the log into their social media accounts.

Any good social media campaign is also part of a larger overarching campaign. So as long as your content is good, and you aren’t relying on one place for your marketing efforts you should still be just fine.

It’s also important to remember digital marketing goes beyond social media. When you view your Google Analytics account do you see a diverse set of referral sources? Is your website traffic actually coming from various sources or are you only relying on a few? As the unknowns of the tech world increase, the likelihood any traffic medium could change also increases. This is why it’s essential to your marketing strategy to create a healthy mix of website traffic sources.  We have experts in SEO, Adwords, broadcast email, and not to mention the websites themselves are powerful marketing tools. 

We want our clients, and potential clients, to know that we’re on top of these changes in this topsy-turvy world of digital marketing. It’ll take a little more than a hiccup in social media data to throw us for a loop; like maybe if our espresso machine breaks.

If you have any questions about the changes in social media, let us know!

Matt Riley VP of Sales and Marketing	Brooke Choquette Social Media Specialist	Brandon Barelmann Social Media Specialist