Each year, Facebook hold an annual gathering of developers at their F8 conference. This year’s event featured over 40 sessions came with some major product announcements in a keynote talk by company founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
While previous F8 conferences have only had a minor effect on the property marketing industry, this year’s has seen major announcements that could really matter to you. Here’s our top 5 list of announcements you need to know about.
1. Messenger Platform
Facebook is now letting brands tap into conversations through the messenger platform. They’re doing this with AI chat bots, meaning brands will have the ability to solve customer queries entirely by automation. This is a great way to engage followers and answer their questions about properties in an instant manner.
2. Bot Engine
To coincide with the new messenger platform features, Facebook has launched a bot engine, called wit.ai. This will allow developers to create AI chat bots so that you can make the most of the new feature. While it may require some developer investment, we’re betting you’d be one of the first property marketers to be using the feature, so it is worthwhile! Speak to us if you need help.
3. Surround 360
Facebook have launched a physical product, with the new $30,000 Surround 360 VR camera. This camera will allow marketers to take full 360 videos of a property so that potential customers can have a full virtual reality experience. Find out why VR is so important to property in our post here.
4. Live video API
You may have seen notifications from media brands informing you of their live broadcasts on Facebook. Until now, only select outlets had been given access to the feature, but now they’ve opened up the API to allow you to use this too. If you run webinars, this will be a great way to engage your audience. We have a dedicated video team, find out more.
5. Quote Sharing
Facebook new ‘quote sharing’ feature allows people to choose specific pieces of text to share, within a piece of content. This means that your content strategy will now need to make sure that you’re highlighting key messages in such a way that makes people share using this feature.
Want to see the full keynotes for day one and day two on F8? Enjoy: