Facebook Partner Summit EMEA – Event Recap
The week of September 22nd, Facebook hosted its first-ever partner summit and yellowHEAD was happy to take part. The event was created from the need for their partners to connect and collaborate. More than 50 Facebook employees were in attendance to help connect any possible dots.
The event was chock-full of information, and yellowHEAD was able to get the scoop just for you!
On Day 1, Julien Lesaicherre, Director of EMEA (Europe, Middle East, & Asia), acknowledged the diversity among partners and their difference in size. This sort of variety offered great opportunities to collaborate with other partners, big or small, to come up with new ideas. EMEA’s business saw an increase of 25% in 2019 from 2018.
Julien signed off with a recommendation: Go to places you don’t know about. These present the greatest opportunities.
Following Julien was Gene Alston, VP of Marketing Partnerships, who spoke about how diversity in communities, which has doubled recently, presents a variety of solutions and companies.
It’s no surprise that everything is starting to go mobile, so it only makes sense that things are moving towards mobile-first creatives.
500M people are using stories daily, and businesses have hopped on the bandwagon. 66% of users engage with e-commerce content. With this data, e-commerce is expected to hit $6.5 trillion in sales by 2023.
Gene’s talk transitioned nicely into Tewfik Cassis’, Product Marketing Manager, discussion of how approximately 50% of users follow a business on Instagram. These businesses can utilize Influencers to educate shoppers about products since they have a large audience on social media.
With so many people window-shopping on social media, the next logical step would be to make products available for purchase right in the app itself, right? Well, the lovely people at Facebook had that same thought. Soon you will be able to buy that pair of jeans you’ve had your eye on straight through Instagram! They are also currently testing a beta version for consumer payments on WhatsApp in India.
Tewfik added that Facebook will begin to optimize ads for you, displaying them on the right platform for the right audience. However, you will have creative control over the placements. Meaning that you can choose which type of ad creative you want to show on which platform (i.e. video on Instagram, static image on Facebook, etc.)
With over 70 million advertisers, you want to make sure you stay relevant. Always keep the 3 A’s in mind: audiences, agility, analytics.
The second day was a day for creativity. We had the opportunity to optimize campaigns based both on platforms and budget. With the customization of asset placement, we learned how to adjust creatives in an ideal way for the platform they are being displayed on, and maximize each specific creative on each platform.
After the workshop, Facebook spoke about Augmented Reality and its future. AR presents opportunities in many scenarios by adding visuals, sounds, and styles. Even art galleries and museums are beginning to use them. It shouldn’t be over-complicated, but rather it’s a matter of experimenting and measuring the reaction of your audience.
Overall, the event was an informative, great experience. The future of advertising on Facebook’s platforms is very exciting and robust with new opportunities!