What is iOS 14 Update? How Will It Affect My Business?

On September 16, 2020, Apple launched its newest iOS update, the iOS 14. This update aims to improve the user’s experience and the application’s usability. But more importantly, it aims to improve the privacy and security settings of Apple users. Here’s what you need to know about it and how it can affect businesses. 

What is Apple’s iOS 14 Update? 

Apple’s iOS 14 update offers redesigned widgets on Home Screen and more organized apps on the App Library. But more than these features, it offers new privacy measures that allow users to control other apps’ access to their information and data. 

Privacy settings update in iOS 14 

1. Users will know when an application uses the camera and microphone

Once downloaded, some apps can access your camera and microphone even without you knowing. With iOS 14, users can set their privacy settings by not allowing certain apps to access some of your phone’s accessories like camera and microphone.  

2. Location services settings can be controlled 

Certain apps can access your location and this is called geo-location. With the iOS 14, users can allow and disallow certain apps to access their location. 

3. Limited app tracking

In iOS 14, users will also receive pop-up permissions when certain apps ask for data or information. With this, users have the power to turn off data tracking. 

How can these privacy settings affect my business?

Social media platforms like Facebook collect users data such as gender, age, location, interests, preferences, among others, to provide audience insights to social media and page business managers. By getting these types of data, marketers can have a better understanding about their audience and followers that can help them create more targeted advertising campaigns. 

If marketers create more targeted campaigns based on the insights provided by social media platforms like Facebook, this will help them to target only specific people who are interested in their services and products, rather than targeting thousands or millions of people –  a more cost-effective way of converting leads into sales.

What do I need to do?

In response to this, Facebook released some actions to take for marketers in preparation for this update. 

For Delivering Ads Optimized Events From The Business App:

• To help personalize ads Facebook encourages updating to Facebook SDK for iOS 14 version 8.1. That will enable them to continue receiving app conversion events reporting. The user should be an app admin to set this up from the Events Manager. 

For Delivering Ads Optimized For Conversion Events From Business Website:

• Keep out from future disruption by verifying the user’s account in your website’s domain. For the effective top-level domain plus one (eTLD+1), there should be a domain verification first. 

To know the rest of Facebook recommendations, we encourage you to check their Business Help Center here.  

Other things that you can do

With over 1.5 billion active apple users, the iOS 14 will surely affect many marketers who are relying on Facebook or digital advertising. But there are still other ways, aside from Facebook’s recommendations, that marketers can do. 

1. Learn to use other marketing strategies

Social media marketing is just one of the many digital marketing strategies that you can use. Don’t focus too much on it. Learn to diversify. You can use other digital marketing strategies like content, email, SMS, influencer marketing, among others. 

2. Produce relevant  and valuable content

When it comes to social media marketing the effective formula is 80-20. 80 percent of your content should be informational and educational while 20 percent should be promotional. By producing valuable educational and informational content you will be able to establish your credibility in your industry so when people need help, you will be the first one that they will think of and will go to. By producing relevant and valuable content you are increasing your chances of getting more qualified followers. 

3. Grow your page organically

Nothing beats organic growth. It is free and it increases your social media page quality. Some of the best ways to grow your page organically is to produce content consistently and publish them on the best time and day. 

Conclusion

For us in DG Strategists, the iOS 14 is meant to happen. Companies like Apple and other technology providers out there will create more ways to make their users have a better experience with their products especially when it comes to privacy and security matters. And this is something that we users (whether you are a marketer or not) cannot control. We are mere consumers of these products. 

As an advertiser and marketer, we think that too much clamor was given to this topic. Marketers before don’t have access to users data and yet they were able to create effective and results driven ads. So in the end, it is not about the users data, alone. It is also about the value that your ad will offer to your audience. The key point is create better ads that provide value. 

If you need help when it comes to creating valuable content for your brand whether it is for your website or social media page, we can help. Simply contact us.