News from Facebook and Instagram (+ Madonna and Mark Zuckerberg are going ape $hit)

Hope you are doing well and getting ready for a fabulous 2021!

In the meantime, here's some news you need to be aware of as a business owner and marketer.

You may have already heard the back to back news from Facebook, Apple, and Instagram. I've been getting questions if this will impact YOUR business, so I wanted to let you know what is happening and what you can do.

Let's start with Instagram (and Madonna) and end with Facebook (and Apple).

INSTAGRAM

What happened:

Instagram just rolled out their new privacy policy which is normal for a social media platform to do. But a couple of people got a hold of it plus Madonna (yep, the singer) and they went ape $hit.

The new policy doesn't have much new stuff in it, so nothing has really changed. All this uproar for (almost) nothing.

Most of what's in the privacy policy that people are concerned about is in the Data Policy which has been active for the past couple of years, but people are now just paying attention to it.

What you need to know about:

There is one thing that is new in Instagram's Terms of Use.

When you request to delete any sort of content on your account it now could take up to 90 days for that information to actually be deleted off of their servers. While the content won't be visible on your account, it will be subject to Instagram's terms of use and data privacy policy.

The only weird part that a lot of people don't like is that they won't delete it at all if it fits into one of these categories:

1. investigate or identify illegal activity or violations of our terms and policies (for example, to identify or investigate misuse of our products or systems);
2. protect the safety and security of our products, systems, and users;
3. comply with a legal obligation, such as the preservation of evidence; or_
4. comply with a request of a judicial or administrative authority, law enforcement, or a government agency;_

What you need to do now:

Nothing. Nothing you can do. This is in Instagram's hands. You could delete your account, but I don't suggest doing so, I won't be deleting mine. I still love Instagram just the same! This is nothing too out of the ordinary or in my opinion to be upset about. 

FACEBOOK

What happened:

Facebook's feud with Apple has escalated over Apple's new privacy policy that limits Facebook ads targeting.

This is directly from Facebook: "Apple’s policy will prohibit certain data collection and sharing unless people opt into tracking on iOS 14 devices via the prompt. As more people opt out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, ads personalization and performance reporting will be limited for both app and web conversion events." You can read more here.

My hubby is thrilled, he hates Mark Zuckerberg and loves all things Apple. Me, not so thrilled.

I think this will make Facebook ads targeting a bit harder for us.

What you need to know about:

Apple's iOS 14 release will impact how Facebook Ads Manager will receive and process conversion events from the Facebook pixel. Businesses that have mobile apps are hit the hardest.

What you need to do now:

Not too much you can do here besides this below that I recommend. 

• If you plan on running Facebook ads with conversion events (my favorite! And I teach this and will continue to have my students do this), then you should verify your website's domain. Here's how to do that.
• For app business owners, you should update to Facebook's SDK for iOS 14 version 8.1. Here's how to do that.

And this news has been brought to you by 2020! Cause everything is whacky this year!

XOXO,

Andrea

PS: this is still the time to run Facebook ads, check out Facebook Ads Mastery to learn more