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Social Media Marketing Talk Show
Facebook Updates: Account Recovery, Ads, Monetization Opportunities, and More
00:22:53
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- [00:01]
Laura Kashla
Before we get started with today's episode, I thought I'd share a special recipe for cooking up marketing success in 2025. Here's the ingredients. Two cups of AI marketing know how. One heaping portion of Instagram growth strategies. A generous serving of Facebook ads mastery. 3 tablespoons of networking opportunities. A pinch of San Diego sunshine. Mix all the ingredients together at Social media Marketing World 2025. Here's what Laura Kashla said. This was honestly the best conference I've attended in my professional life. Save your seat at the table today by visiting social media marketing world.info.
- [00:52]
Jerry Potter
Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Talk show, your guide to the ever changing of social media. All right, welcome to the show. Lots of Facebook updates that we need to talk about today for marketers, including Facebook stealing another Instagram feature continuing to make the two platforms less distinguishable from each other. Also, Meta Ads has a feature called Automatic Adjustments, which seems good in theory, but it's got a lot of marketers confused and some marketers mad. And we'll talk about how to make sure this is turned off in your ad accounts if that's what you want. And some great news for you and your clients if you've ever gotten locked out of any of your Facebook accounts. My name is Jerry Potter, host of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a production from Social Media examiner, where we break down all the latest social media news and what it means for marketers like you. Today I'm joined by Tara Zuercher. Tara is a Facebook ads expert and founder of the Successful Ads Club, a membership site designed to help marketers improve their Facebook and Instagram ads results. Tara, welcome to the show.
- [01:55]
Tara Zuercher
Hello. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
- [01:58]
Jerry Potter
So let's talk about the first update, which is new content tabs that Facebook is testing. And right now I have none of these, so I don't know how they look. But what are the new tabs that Facebook is playing with right now?
- [02:09]
Tara Zuercher
Yes. Okay, so they're rolling out some explore tabs that are going to be like the for you or the Explore page tabs or pages that we're used to with TikTok and Instagram. And then also they're rolling out a locals tab. So this is going to pull in content from Marketplace from local groups and local events. So it's going to be kind of Facebook's version of Nextdoor, which is pretty cool. I think that will be interesting to see. I also don't have access to these. They're rolling it out in the big cities right now.
- [02:35]
Jerry Potter
Yeah. The Local tab is interesting because Facebook over the last few months have been doing more stuff around this where they're using the vast amount of data that they have access to to really improve the ability for local businesses to do ad targeting and things like that. I've done a lot of traveling this year though, and I can tell you that I get retargeted for stuff for places I'm no longer there for all the time. Obviously. Still, improvements that could be made in the Explore tab. Look, it looks like it's just going to be another replication of what's on Instagram.
- [03:05]
Tara Zuercher
Yes, yes, I think so. You know, it's interesting you just said that because Meta used to be you could target people who just lived in certain geographic areas and with privacy policy updates and whatnot, they rolled it back. And so now it's anybody who's been in or lives in those areas. So that's why you're getting all those targeted ads from other places. And it drives me nuts as an advertiser, I must say.
- [03:26]
Jerry Potter
I'm sure it does. As a marketer myself, like, sometimes I'm like, oh, sorry I cost you money. I'm not in LA anymore. Or, you know, whatever, whatever it might be. So I'm definitely one of those people that emphasizes, like, if I Google search something, I'll skip the paid ad link at the top and go to the one that I know they don't necessarily get charged for. So. Well, as all of us as marketers are putting up content and Meta is now looking to use our content in more places, they are asking for permission, which is nice. What's this update about, Tara?
- [03:55]
Tara Zuercher
Okay, so I think people feel mixed feelings on this one, but basically MET is asking for any of your tagged content to be able to distribute it more widely. So it could be used in ads, it could be used on other platforms or in other placements. And so I think that a lot of people feel like, hey, Meta, you're just going to use all of this content and there's no, like, compensation reward. But Meta is saying like, hey, if you allow us to do this and they are seeking permission first, then you'll get more reach and more visibility. So I don't know, we'll see how creators respond to it, but it seems like there's mixed feelings on it.
- [04:29]
Jerry Potter
Yeah. Do we know anything right now about, like, would you be able to see how it was used?
- [04:34]
Tara Zuercher
I don't know that. I don't know that that was rolled out in the update.
- [04:39]
Jerry Potter
I didn't see anything either. I just was curious if you did, because sometimes I agreed to speak at this online summit last week, but they had this legal agreement and it was just like basically once we record you, we can do whatever we want. We can change it, we can, you know, and I'm like, this is a little too. Let me. I know the person. So I'm sure it'll be like, I feel like it'll be fine, but it's scary when they just say, hey, we're going to take your stuff and do whatever we want with it. Like give us a thumbs up, you know? So. Well, I'm excited Tara's going to be joining us again at Social Media Marketing World. And being there in person is definitely the best way to experience the conference. Sometimes travel isn't an option. Right. So in case you weren't aware, you can go to Social Media Marketing World or more specifically have it come to you with a virtual ticket. Stream all the keynotes and sessions live, plus get access to the recordings of every keynote session and workshop so you can watch them when they're convenient for you. I still go back and watch stuff from this last year's conference that I didn't get to see cause it was so good. So it really is the next best thing to being with us in San Diego. Plus, you skip the headache and hassle of traveling. Isn't it time you experience the life changing content from Social Media Marketing World? If you're ready to attend virtually or come in person, just go to socialmediamarketing World again, Social Media Marketing. All right, before we started the show, Tara told me that this next feature has been frustrating and made you a little bit mad. And you're one of the happiest people I know, so that's substantial. Right? Talk to us about Automatic Adjustments. What Facebook is saying this is around ads and what we can expect with it.
- [06:08]
Tara Zuercher
Yes. Okay, so I actually just talked with Mike on the Social Media examiner podcast about this and we were calling it Autopilot. I'm like, listen, Facebook is rolling out this thing. I don't know what it is, but I'm seeing on accounts all of these like adjustments that they're making. They're consolidating audiences, they're adjusting spend. You know, we just agreed to call it kind of this Autopilot thing. Well, finally they rolled out what it is and it has been driving me nuts, by the way. So Automatic Adjustments is the title right now for this little thing. And basically, and I had suspected too, because I had Seen this roll out on a ton of our members accounts and our own accounts. And I was thinking, like, I don't think anybody's opting into this. I don't remember opting in. They don't remember opting in. It is just happening. And so the system can pause or activate campaigns, adjust budgets up or down, consolidate ad accounts, make changes without notifying advertisers. Oh, my gosh, so frustrating. And consolidate audience segmentations and more. And this is without your approval. It's just happening. This is just part of kind of the, you know, Facebook gaining more and more control. And here's what I'm seeing on it, Jerry, is a lot of these adjustments that it auto, you know, does for you. They're actually really, really good. In the beginning, I'm like, oh, okay, well, maybe I'll just. This is going to roll out and I'm going to let it see, you know, see how it does and looks really nice for a few days. I'm going to tell you that much. But as time goes on, it's too much. And you're going to see that those costs generally right now are going up versus going down. So, for example, let's say they're consolidating audience segments. It might look really good for even a week or two where, you know, they're like reducing spend on certain segments or they're turning off certain segments and. But eventually they're pushing too much budget to one or two ad sets, and you can see that the costs go up. So I don't love it. You can turn it off. You can opt out. You go to All Tools. I recommend everyone does this. All Tools. Select automated rules, then click See automatic adjustments. Now, the only one that I would say to leave on right now is the creative, because that turns on all of your enhancements automatically. And those are good, by the way. But turn everything else off. Like, there's several of them. You want to just turn them all off, accept the creative, and then there you go. So if you're experiencing this and you're getting frustrated like I was or am on certain accounts, then go opt out.
- [08:26]
Jerry Potter
Okay, so just to clarify a couple of things that you said. One, it will tell you what changes it makes. Like, there's a log.
- [08:34]
Tara Zuercher
Well, there's a log. You have to kind of dig in, though. So what you're going to see is things are happening on your account. And this is what happened to me. I was like, what? I don't remember turning that off. Did I have a team member turn that off, like what in the world? And you go in and you would see that there was an automated rule put on your account that you had no idea about. And I was trying to find where are these rules? Who's turning these on? You can clearly see in the logs that it's meta, but I'm thinking I didn't select into this what setting? And so I was digging around trying to find where these rules were turning on and off. Like, what was the source? I couldn't find anything. Well, it's just happening kind of globally, account wide for everybody.
- [09:11]
Jerry Potter
Okay. And then the second thing for now, you recommend going in, turning it all off, except for the creative that will adjust your creative to fit devices and things like that.
- [09:21]
Tara Zuercher
Yeah, I like that. I like that. And I like that it does it automatically. So you can look through each of those and decide if you want to turn them on or off. And some people, maybe your budget is so low you're really not noticing a crazy difference or you are noticing that it's affecting your account positively. Just think for accounts that are spending a little bit more, you're going to see that these are not refined enough for us to be loving them yet.
- [09:44]
Jerry Potter
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One of the things that's very frustrating when you do run Facebook ads because you're targeting a cold audience is the comments can get ugly and unpleasant or not. What you'd ideally like to show up below your paid campaign. So they announced limited test, have a new control for this. So what do we know about this so far?
- [10:03]
Tara Zuercher
Okay, so this is going to be at the ad set level and it's going to allow you to turn comments on or off. So really simple to find as you're creating a new ad, you can choose at the ad set level again, if you want comments to be turned on or off. I think people are going to absolutely love that because sometimes it's just a lot to keep up with and sometimes it doesn't really add to your results. It just creates a lot of admin burden.
- [10:25]
Jerry Potter
Yeah, I feel like I'd be suspicious of an ad that had the comments turned off. Like, it's kind of. It's bizarre to see, but we'll see where that goes and then a few other things to make sure that your ads are kind of showing in the right places. Right. Making sure that it's appropriate for a brand. What are these updates?
- [10:40]
Tara Zuercher
Yeah. Okay. So Facebook for a long time now has been allowing us more transparency into where or has been more transparent into where our ads are being placed. And You've been able to have block lists and things like that. Well, now they are enhancing some of those controls. So basically you can block your ads from appearing, you know, to certain categories. So you can select more at a categorical level. And then also you can upload a big old list of public profiles that you don't want your ads to appear next to, and that will put a block list on your account. So just a lot more control in terms of, like, where your ads are being seen and placed and things like that.
- [11:19]
Jerry Potter
All right, and you can do all this from the overview Dashboard, it sounds like. So, all right, video, obviously, I remember when Mark Zuckerberg said, oh, in five years, Facebook will be all video. And I think that was about eight years ago. So he wasn't quite right. But it obviously continues to be a massive thing and we're kind of getting into some really amazing tools. So what are the new video ads tools that Meta is rolling out?
- [11:42]
Tara Zuercher
All right, so we're all probably familiar with the, at least in ads, right? The image expansion tools that have come out in the last little while where basically you can pop in an image and it's going to generatively fill the space basically for you. They're going to do that with video Jerry, which I think is very, very cool. So you can upload a video and if it is not the right size for whatever placement, it is going to automatically adjust it, including, it can expand the video for you. So I think that is awesome. And it certainly will allow us to reanimate perhaps some of those videos that were top performers. But we, you know, haven't edited them to the right placement size for a while. You can do a lot with that. So that's very cool. And then, I mean, oh, there's a lot more with video. I think that we're going to cover a little bit later on. But the meta AI tools for video that are coming out are just unbelievable. So, yeah, some really good stuff.
- [12:33]
Jerry Potter
Really, really crazy. Let's jump into that right now. So they're calling it MetaMovieGen. And we've heard about Sora, which is OpenAI chat. GPT is like video clip thing. So what is Meta saying that their metamovie Gen is going to be able to do?
- [12:46]
Tara Zuercher
I mean, so cool. You could create a video based on a text prompt. So, you know, give me a video of a koala, I don't know, climbing a tree, you know, something like that. And it's going to generate a video that's very realistic. So that's very Cool. But then also maybe you want to upload a video and you want to add elements to it. So you could upload a video of yourself. I mean, maybe you're jumping up and down and you say, put pom poms in my hands or put a sign in my hand. So you can. It's going to generate that for you. I mean, how crazy is this? I think it is so cool. So you can use yourself, you can use an object that you already have, or you can generate completely from scratch using text prompts and other things. So very, very cool.
- [13:26]
Jerry Potter
That was the thing that, yeah. When I read that, it said, yeah, you can add your face into existing footage. And we think about the years that we've had these like animated greeting cards where they put your face in a music video, but it's very poorly, like, chopped together. Right. We've kind of gone from where early on with smartphones, it was like pics or it didn't happen, then it was video or it didn't happen. And now it's like video still means it may not have happened. Like, that's really where we're going. The other part I really like about this is they've said that the footage can still have sound, which is newer for video AI. And then the other part too is, you know, some of these, like, they're creating all these tools, but Meta is kind of giving us to these to us for free. Now they're using the data like, we're not free free, but I think it's really cool if you're a startup or you're bootstrapping or anything like that. So. All right, let's talk about some of these other Meta AI updates that we are getting as marketers.
- [14:20]
Tara Zuercher
Oh, so many. Okay, so I think they are. I mean, where do we even start?
- [14:24]
Jerry Potter
I, like you just said, I have to sigh first. This is such a. There's so much happening. There really is.
- [14:29]
Tara Zuercher
Oh, there really is. Okay. So you can set up little AI bots to chat with your customers inside of messenger and WhatsApp. You can use your voice to talk to Meta AI and it'll respond back to you out loud. You can share your photos and chats with Meta AI and it will now it has a better understanding what you're looking at. You can ask questions about it and you can also tell, like upload an image and say, hey, can you add this or edit this? I mean, imagine. I think it's just making all of these creation tools so much easier. Right. One of the ones that I'm a little bit freaked out about. You can, based on your preferences, based on like what it knows about you. It's actually going to start generating social media prompts for you and it will generate the content to go with it. So it will generate an image and like actual content, like a caption to go with that. So I don't know about some of this stuff, but you know, this stuff is rolling out. Like if you upload, for example, a video, it can suggest captions to go on it. Like it's just, it's taking our content and I feel like enhancing it. But I'm a little bit freaked out about the. Okay, now it's going to actually just generate content and all we have to do is click like approve and post and it does it. I guess that's cool as long as it's quality. But you can just imagine the dark side of that, the wave of content that's just being AI generated, which is already happening. Right. But just at mass level with this, with tools like that.
- [15:55]
Jerry Potter
Well, this is where I think as marketers, personal brands and faces for companies and that authenticity I think is going to become more and more powerful because we are not that far away from where a company could be built on a AI Persona. Right? Like it looks like a real person, sounds like a real person. And then the other thing, there was a report a couple of months ago about how I forget which platform it was, but they talked about this someday where they'll just be content, all generated from AI. And our friends and family may barely even be in the feed. So that's a little scary, I think for us as marketers. One update I do like is they are talking about testing these meta AI translations where they will automatically change you speaking to another language, but keep it in your voice. Have you seen this demoed on any platforms or anything?
- [16:44]
Tara Zuercher
Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And I think, you know, even a few months ago it seemed fairly clumsy. You could kind of tell. I mean it is getting really, really good, these dubbing tools and whatnot. And of course meta wants to follow that particular feature, but basically you can, you'll have the speaker's voice and another language. It will sync to their lips so it all matches. And they're rolling these out in small tests, right. They're translating some creators videos just to kind of test it out. But you know that this is going to be global pretty soon. So I mean, I guess it's cool. It gives you different ways to connect with your audience for sure. Especially if you have like a Global audience. But yeah, it's nuts. And it's getting very realistic as well.
- [17:29]
Jerry Potter
Yeah, well, and you'd obviously have to. For it to be helpful as marketers, you'd have to have a product that, you know, whatever your offer is, would also have to be able to serve in other languages, which is not true for everyone. But, yeah, it's, as you described, bizarre, but pretty amazing where all of this stuff is going. Well, so some brands, and I remember talking to people at Social Media Marketing World about this, where they're creating their own marketing content to grow their business or their client's business. But then they also have gotten paid on top of that from Meta. But Facebook has really gone back and forth over this, over the years. They've never really established a consistent creator Reward program like YouTube has. Now they have a new one. It's in beta. It seems like the 28th iteration. But what is this latest content monetization opportunity they're testing out?
- [18:15]
Tara Zuercher
Absolutely. Well, they've had about a million creators sign up for it already, or they've rather extended the invitation and they have a waitlist for anybody that's interested that's a creator. But essentially, before you could opt in only to a single program, like, you know, they had a few different monetization programs. And so now it's all under one roof and they, they want to increase, I think, the footprint of it and make it larger so that more creators can monetize their content. I thought one of the cool things about this is it's going to break down for you. Like, if it's long content reels, et cetera, like, what type of content is earning you what revenue? So I thought that was a nice feature, and I think we'll just see how it rolls out. I mean, the biggest complaint from creators, of course, is it's hard to monetize your content like you do, for example, on YouTube, which is very generous, or far more generous, I should say, than the other platform YouTube's.
- [19:09]
Jerry Potter
They're getting their pie. They're getting plenty too, right?
- [19:11]
Tara Zuercher
Oh, they're getting plenty for sure. And I guess there is plenty of people who say it's not even enough for creators, but it is far more generous than any other platform you can make a living. And you'll see these creators with massive followings that show their results monetizing with Facebook. And it's, you know, sometimes barely enough to cover groceries for a month or something. So it's just like there's. I think there's enough pushback from creators that meta is trying to respond to that and give more opportunity and improve their programs, which is a good response.
- [19:40]
Jerry Potter
Okay, yeah. If you're already making content for a brand, yours or a client brand, you might as well sign up for the wait list and see if you can, you know, make some extra profit from it. So if you do a search for Facebook content monetization, it'll probably come right up as well. All right, messenger communities. I saw a notification for this pop up on my phone today, and I'm like, am I in that? I don't know what's going on. So what are we seeing about these? This is kind of a new level. Like, we've had group messenger for a while, and we've had messenger chats in groups and in events, but what exactly are they rolling out here with? Messenger Communities?
- [20:15]
Tara Zuercher
Okay, I'm excited about this and I can't wait for it roll out for me so I can experiment with. But basically it's supposed to replicate more of like a Slack experience. So, like what you would experience with slack. So you add a bunch of people to the group and you can have different topics. And I haven't seen necessarily, like a deep dive on how this looks. I think it's just starting to roll out, but I think it's going to be really cool. So the example that was used here is like, imagine a college class or something. They could have different chats with, like, announcements, campus news, student clubs, or it could be, you know, just for a particular class where it's talking about assignments and test dates and things like that. So I think there's a lot potential there. I'm actually kind of excited about it. I would love to get it sooner than later so I can test it out myself.
- [21:02]
Jerry Potter
Yeah, well, I think we all have a list of those things that meta said was coming that we're like, yes, I'm waiting for the meta AI in Facebook groups where it'll help answer people's questions based on previous posts. I think it's been a year or more since they announced that. So. All right. And then if you've ever gotten locked out of an account or a client has gotten locked out of an account, it is a just stoppage of everything. Right. Very, very frustrating. And so as long as you're freaked out by the privacy around this, a very cool tool that they are now testing to get back into meta account. So what have you seen about this, Tara?
- [21:36]
Tara Zuercher
Oh, I'm so, so happy. This is long overdue. So much of our work is helping clients get back into accounts that have been hacked or just all sorts of problems that come with ads. So this or meta in general, just meta in general. But this is going to allow people to upload a video selfie and it will basically match it to other, you know, other photos and videos that have been that you've like organically posted historically on the platform and if it matches, you should be able to get your account back. So hallelujah. This is huge. And especially with hacking activity being at an all time high, I feel like everybody knows somebody who's been affected by a meta hack or they themselves. And you know, I'll just always plug, Remember, turn on your 2fa and make sure all of that is in place. But if you do get locked out, this is going to be enormously helpful.
- [22:25]
Jerry Potter
This is of course assuming that meta's new generated, you know, metamoviegen can't mimic the same thing like we talked about before. But yeah, I definitely think it'll be hopefully a very helpful update that we'll finally get with this. So. All right, quick reminder. Learn more about a virtual ticket to Social Media Marketing World. Check it out right now. While you're thinking about it, go to SocialMediaMarketing World, SocialMediaMarketing and Tara. Where can we discover more about you?
- [22:51]
Tara Zuercher
Thank you so much, Jerry. You can find me on Instagram at Tara Zircher if you have any questions. And then if you want to learn more about doing successful ads, particularly for small business owners and marketers spending less than 5,000 per month, you can get our ad kit@your ad kit.com that will give you a really cool kit of like templates and tools and AI formulas to use to get ads up and running. And you'll be able to learn more about us as well.
- [23:15]
Jerry Potter
All right. And if you want another podcast to add to your listening lineup, a couple for you to check out wherever you get your podcasts, the Social Media Marketing podcast as well as the AI Explored podcast. Until next time, may you be wise with your marketing decisions. Thanks everyone.
- [23:30]
Tara Zuercher
The Social Media Marketing Talk show is.
- [23:33]
Jerry Potter
A Social Media examiner production.
- [23:35]
Tara Zuercher
For more social media insight, visit socialmediaexaminer.com.
- [23:44]
Laura Kashla
Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting Social Media Marketing World dot info.