Intelligence - Changes in Facebook Search: FB Customer Owned Data Store
Facebook has changed one of their policies and now dictate a move from a global data store to a customer-owned data store.
What is the new change?
Facebook’s latest policies dictate that we have to move from a global data store to a customer-owned data store.
Intelligence is structured in a way which allows us to index and source data from public pages. Whenever a new search term (previously unindexed) is searched, a new source is created in Intelligence. So far, the results from these were made available to all our customers (i.e., from a global data store). If you were running a search on Intelligence (with Facebook as a source channel) for specific keywords or terms, you were getting results from this global pool of tracked public pages.
To comply with Facebook’s latest policies going forward, each customer will have to specify upfront the public pages that they wish to track. This is similar to Intelligence’s Instagram model; in a sense, each customer will be creating their own data store. The results Intelligence will serve will be from within their own data store. The data store will be at a customer account level (and not at a user level).
When will this new change kick in?
- To minimize the impact of these changes, we will phase out the global data store and fully migrate you to a customer-owned data store in two phases - Phase I and Phase II
- Phase I: Kickstarts on 14th February, 2022.
- As an Intelligence customer, you will see a new Tab labeled “Pages” under the Facebook channel on Intelligence (reference picture below).
- You should go there and start adding pages to start sourcing content for your own data store in preparation for Phase II.
- During Phase I, we will continue to serve you search results from the global pool.
- Phase II: Kickstarts on 15th June, 2022.
- When Phase II kicks in, you will be transferred to your own pool (i.e., results for Intelligence facebook searches will be served only from pages you’ve tracked).
- Even though we encourage you to add pages as early as possible, the indexing and sourcing of all data of pages of interest will begin together at the start of Phase II (when Phase II begins you will notice a short period of time where you see lesser search results as your own data-store gathers the data you wish to track).
FAQs:
- Which products do these changes affect?
- The changes only affect Khoros’ social listening platform, Intelligence.
- Where will I have to specify which public pages I want to track?
- Within Intelligence, if you go to the Facebook channel, a new tab called “Pages” will be visible. You can add new sources (public pages) from here by clicking on the “Track Pages” button. You can also view which pages you’ve added as well as delete pages you no longer want to track.
- Are there any limits in the number of public pages we can track?
- There are no limits in the number of public pages you can track.
- What are Phase I & Phase II? When do they begin?
- Phase I is the kickstart of the first wave of changes to Intelligence Facebook search. Starting 14th February, 2022, users can start tracking Facebook Pages that will become their primary pool of results when Phase II begins. We will run migration scripts that automatically add facebook pages used in your saved topics and leaderboard. However, it is recommended you consciously start adding pages of importance (your brand, competitors, influencers, detractors, industry, audience, etc) to your list of tracked pages. During Phase I, search results will be served from a global pool of results. However, once Phase II begins on 15th June, 2022, results for Facebook searches on Intelligence will be explicitly from customer tracked pages.
- Is the setup around tracking public pages a one time activity or would I require some manual intervention? i.e., do sourced pages ever expire?
- When Phase I begins, users must specify up front a list of pages that they want to track. When Phase II begins, results will be served only from tracked pages. Setup of an individual public page is a one-time activity. One can continue to add more pages on an ongoing basis. Pages that are added as sources don’t expire.
- What are some examples of pages users might want to track?
- Depending on the use case for searches on Intelligence, you might want to track competitor pages, industry pages, influencer pages, special interest pages (celebrities, brands, institutions).
- What does this change mean for the “Experiences” product?
- There won't be any impact of these changes on Experiences.
- What happens when Intelligence Facebook search queries overlap periods that fall at the end of Phase I & start of Phase II?
- During this transition, Intelligence will store Facebook data in two different data stores, one pre-June 15, 2022 and one post-June 15, 2022. Only one data store will be able to be active for any search. Since your search query’s dates intersect both periods, your query will be modified to reflect data from the data store having the most recent data (from the data store post-June 15, 2022). To get data pre-June 15, 2022, users can write a new query with the end date as 14-Jun, 2022. Note: If your date range crosses the June 15, 2022 boundary, you may see decreased results as data will be served only from pages you’ve sourced. To notify customers about this change, a pop-up will appear whenever a user lands on Intelligence Facebook Search during the transition period. (Sample screenshot below).
- Queries that require data for periods overlapping Phase I and Phase II will have to be framed as two separate queries.
- Will this change have any effect on the “Compare” searches feature?
- No. The “Compare” feature compares two saved search queries. Once in Phase II, this feature will be affected to the extent of the results they fetch (fetching only results from sourced pages).
- What happens to all my saved “Topics” after we move to a customer owned data store?
- Topics are saved searches and can be of two types (rolling searches & finite duration searches). Rolling searches (default to 7 days), but can be set to the most recent (1d, 30d, 90d and custom options). Once Phase I kicks in, we will execute a migration script that automatically adds all facebook pages from existing saved topics as pages for tracking. These will go back only for pages tracked in the last 1 year. Beyond that, nothing much changes till the end of Phase I. You will continue to get results as you have always been from the global pool of search results. Once Phase II kicks in, all saved topics will be only sourced from the most recent data (entirely from the customer owned data store). Refer Question 7 above. The same holds true even for searches which have finite durations. During the transition phase, when the rolling period overlaps both Phase I and Phase II, we will default to showing data only from the customer owned data store. To make things a little less inconvenient, we will add all Facebook pages that we find in saved topics
- Why should I start sourcing tracked pages at the start of Phase I? What will happen if I don’t start?
- Starting to track Facebook pages early on in “Phase I” will help ensure that you face minimal inconvenience once “Phase II” kicks in. If you don’t track pages actively in Phase I, it is possible that once you run searches after Phase II begins, you won’t have a big pool of sources. Since your results will come only from pages you’ve tracked (at an account level), your search results will yield suboptimal results.
- Will we always see low results when pages are newly added?
- Initially, yes. Whenever a new page is added, there will be a short window of time they will not have enough underlying data (due to recency of adding them as tracked pages, the indexing and sourcing of these pages would have just started). However, with each passing day, the added sources will collect more data and this issue will go away. Note: The indexing and sourcing of all pages will begin together at the start of Phase II. This is why we encourage you to start adding Facebook pages of interest early at the start of Phase I (so that when Phase II begins you will be able to start indexing and sourcing for underlying data as quickly as possible).
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