In an attempt to make it easier for businesses to create a Facebook ad, the company announced a deal with Shutterstock on Thursday that will provide free access to millions of images for use in ads. The photos will be available in Facebook’s ad creation tool.

“This is important especially for small businesses who may not have resources for sourcing quality images,” Facebook noted in a blog post.

In addition, businesses can use multiple images in different ads to test which ones work best and then place their buys accordingly. Ben Pavlovic, founding partner of VineSprout, a Chicago-based PR firm, says adding such functionality will help small businesses. “Before you had to take your own [photos] or find your own free service,” he says. “I also think you have companies out there that wouldn’t think twice about pulling a Google image.” Pavlovic says photos are an integral element. “Just in terms of engagement, finding the right image can make or break your ad,” he says.

As part of the announcement, Facebook also updated its Android and iOS Pages Manager apps. Users can now upload multiple images from their mobile phones and edit existing Page admins and add new Page admins to Pages they manage.

The upgrade comes after Facebook announced in June that more than 1 million advertisers are using the platform.

Image: Flickr, Orin Zebest

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In an attempt to make it easier for businesses to create a Facebook ad, the company announced a deal with Shutterstock on Thursday that will provide free access to millions of images for use in ads. The photos will be available in Facebook’s ad creation tool.

“This is important especially for small businesses who may not have resources for sourcing quality images,” Facebook noted in a blog post.

In addition, businesses can use multiple images in different ads to test which ones work best and then place their buys accordingly. Ben Pavlovic, founding partner of VineSprout, a Chicago-based PR firm, says adding such functionality will help small businesses. “Before you had to take your own [photos] or find your own free service,” he says. “I also think you have companies out there that wouldn’t think twice about pulling a Google image.” Pavlovic says photos are an integral element. “Just in terms of engagement, finding the right image can make or break your ad,” he says.

As part of the announcement, Facebook also updated its Android and iOS Pages Manager apps. Users can now upload multiple images from their mobile phones and edit existing Page admins and add new Page admins to Pages they manage.

The upgrade comes after Facebook announced in June that more than 1 million advertisers are using the platform.

Image: Flickr, Orin Zebest

The post Facebook to Provide Free Photos for Businesses to Use in Ads appeared first on Digitrock.

Facebook will conduct a review of ads on the social network beginning next week and said it will remove ads from all groups and pages that contain “violent, graphic or sexual content” by the end of that week, even though that content does not technically violate Facebook’s community standards.

“We know that marketers work hard to promote their brands, and we take their objectives seriously,” Facebook representatives wrote in a blog post. “While we already have rigorous review and removal policies for content against our terms, we recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups.”

This move comes about a month after more than a dozen companies pulled ads from Facebook in response to a boycott campaign over the amount of domestic violence imagery on the social network.

Facebook said its effort to restrict ads from controversial pages will be manual at first, but in the coming weeks it plans to build an automated feature to handle this process.

Image by Stephen Lam/Getty Images

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Reps from the company confirmed that hashtags are off limits to marketers right now. However, there doesn’t appear to be any reason why Facebook would block hashtag buys in the future. Facebook is, however, encouraging marketers to use hashtags in advertising and arguing that Facebook will now amplify a hashtag’s influence. A rep stresses thought that “using them and buying them are different.”

For Twitter, hashtags can be hot properties, especially during big events like the Super Bowl, the Presidential Debates and various awards shows, when marketers like Oreo get to display their real-time marketing chops. However, Facebook’s use of hashtags is trickier since most posts on the network are private, not public.

Advertising Age speculates that hashtags might ultimately bolster Facebook’s Graph Search since hashtag mentions might provide a clearer expression of interest than Likes: “Likes are flawed signals, since users sometimes click on them arbitrarily or to satisfy a social obligation. But posting with a hashtag could be seen as a more tangible expression of affinity and could thus help to make graph search into a useful product.”

Image via iStockphoto, hh5800
Source : Mashable

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