BPR’s social and digital media team recently ventured to San Diego to join nearly 4,500 other content marketing and data-analysis professionals at Social Media Marketing World, a three-day conference focusing on the past, present and future of social media. Offering more than 100 sessions geared towards social media strategy, ROI, emerging platforms, advertising tactics, trends and more, it was the perfect place for our resident social media mavens to geek out over the current state of the industry – and all the exciting things to come – with social media peers.

Despite recent headlines claiming digital marketers are in the midst of experiencing a Facebook apocalypse, the “Book” is likely not going anywhere anytime soon: Yes, the algorithms continue to make it increasingly difficult for businesses to get their messages in front of their target audience, but no, businesses should not throw in the towel and give up on the channel entirely. Instead, businesses and their social media teams need to invest in building a strategy that works alongside the (ever-changing) algorithm. If you’re worried about investing money on a platform that your target audience may be jumping ship from, think again.

We’ve laid out some key learnings about Facebook’s latest changes, why the platform is shifting its focus to promote meaningful interactions and how brands can make the most of the updated user experience without wasting valuable time (or money!):

Experts predict there will be more changes to the world of digital marketing in the next two years than there have been in the last 20, with the largest impact stemming from the use of messenger Chatbots. So, what are bots and why are they important?

Until next year’s Social Media Marketing World, we invite you to stay up to date on the ever-changing social media algorithm patterns, best practices and more by following some of our favorite resources: