X
Business

Watch it live: The first Facebook Marketing Conference

The first Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) is happening today from 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM EST. The first part of the event is available as a livestream, which you can watch here.
Written by Emil Protalinski, Contributor

The first Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) is taking place today. The company has booked the American Museum of Natural History in New York for the six-hour, invitation-only event. I've embedded the livestream for you above.

Here is the official agenda:

  • Keynote: 1:00 PM to 2:15 PM EST (Livestreamed) – four Facebook executives will be speaking.
  • Breakout Sessions: 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM EST (Livestreamed) – Sessions outlining key solutions and success stories.
  • Fireside Chat: 4:15 PM to 5:00 PM EST (Livestreamed) – Sheryl and Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express, on serving customers in a connected world.
  • Cocktails & Conversations: 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM EST
  • After Party: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM EST

The fMC invitation is very vague: "Join us as Facebook leaders, along with product and marketing experts, share our newest solutions, actionable insights, and proven strategies that demonstrate how you can use social technology to drive business growth." Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook vice president of product Chris Cox, Facebook Director of Global Business Marketing Mike Hoefflinger, and Facebook vice president of advertising David Fischer are the four executives listed for the keynote. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not mentioned, but he could of course still make an appearance.

So, what can we expect will be announced? Well, Timeline for Pages is already out, so that rumor was correct. There are two other possibilities: mobile ads (rumor) and new premium ads (leak). Both are very likely, although if only one is to be unveiled, I would bet on the latter over the former. Oh, and there's also real-time Insights.

Still, Facebook building a mobile ad platform is one of those rumors that is just completely expected, so it makes sense that it keeps showing up. Mobile ads could be revealed today and rolled out as soon as next month. One of the rumors suggested Facebook will be inserting Featured Stories into people's mobile feeds.

As for Facebook upgrading its premium ads, the leak is very telling. The company is expected to tell advertisers they can expect a 40 percent increase in engagement, 80 percent gain in retention, and a 16 percent increase in fan rate, according to the leaked documents.

The documents reveal that Facebook will allow marketers to take any type of content posted to their Facebook Page and turn it into an ad. Content posted on a Page is currently only viewable to those who have Liked a Page, but once turned into a Premium Ad, that content can be targeted to any Facebook user. That's right: those ads in your News Feed are about to get a whole lot more encroaching.

It won't be long now before we know what ads Facebook has up its sleeve!

See also:

Editorial standards