Top 6 Facebook Updates You Can Prepare For NOW!

Facebook To Post Amber Alerts To Help Find Missing Kids Blog-NPR (blog)-Jan 13, 2015
In January the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in a partnership with Facebook, started sending out Amber Alerts on your Personal news feed. The alerts will include a photograph of the missing child and the location where the possible abduction took place. Facebook has 185 million users in the U.S., and the notices will be tailored to location — so users will receive alerts about missing children in their area. Click through for more...

New Privacy Policies and Terms of Service
Privacy Basics gives you tips and a how-to guide for taking charge of your experience on Facebook. Includes an update of the terms of service, data policy and cookies policy to reflect new features.These updates take effect on January 30, 2015

At the end of 2014 Facebook rolled out an updated look for the right hand column on the Home page. Facebook for Business says, "An eye-tracking test conducted by Millward Brown1 shows that the new right hand ads are significantly better at attracting and maintaining people’s attention."

Another last minute change in 2014 - Facebook announced a new call-to-action feature to help Pages drive business objectives.
Designed to bring a business’s most important objective to the forefront of its Facebook presence, call-to-action buttons link to any destination on or off Facebook that aligns with a business’s goals.

December saw the introduction of the Ad Preferences Tool to users' Timeline...it enables people to take action to see better, more relevant ads (much like book recommendations on Amazon).

Facebook for Business on Ad Preferences Tool: Accessible from every ad on Facebook, ad preferences explains to people why they’re seeing a specific ad and lets them control which interests influence the ads they see. Ad preferences allows people on Facebook to tell us the things they are interested in, as well as those we are not inwhich means advertisers are more accurately reaching people most interested in their ads.

...and finally - Facebook is planning another Business Page upgrade, this one is video-centric - it may be the most important of the current batch of "upgrades"....especially for Jewelers!

Take a moment to contact your vendors and get branded videos for each brand. This will become a playlist for your store. You know the power of video - it establishes a "lifestyle" for a brand and in the age of mobile and online shopping it offers a 360 view of your jewelry.

The other way this works is you can put together a topical playlist - Holiday - your ten favorite wedding proposals - introduce your staff - in-store events...the ideas for playlists are endless.