Social Media News – Week of 11/10
When it comes to your online marketing strategy, one of the most important things you can do for your business is set up social media accounts. While most other aspects of digital strategies involve a publish-and-wait sort of model, social media is much more immediate and involved. To ensure that your social media endeavors are successful, you need to be on top of your game, which means constantly staying in the loop of what has changed in the world of social. Luckily for you, we’ve rounded up the major changes to the biggest platforms so that you don’t have to!
The like-gate is officially over. Prior to this, you could invite your fans and potential customers to like your Facebook page for an incentive, whether it be a free sample, contest entry, personalized image, or more. As of November 5th, companies can no longer incentivize users to like their Facebook pages. While this is a setback for social media managers, it doesn’t mean that you can no longer share contests on your Facebook page – you just can’t offer entry-by-page-like, though you can still ask your audience nicely for likes.
Have you noticed a change in your Facebook feed recently? If you’ve logged on in the past few days, it’s likely you’ve noticed posts showing up differently. Facebook has begun bundling posts together in user news feeds. This doesn’t just apply to pages either; do you have a friend that posts frequently? Maybe you’re a member of a group that is very active. No matter what, these posts are getting bundled. How does this affect your social media strategy? It may be too soon to tell, but this does mean that your pages posts will begin getting bundled together instead of showing up separately like they used to. Stay on top of your page’s analytics to see how this affects your reach and engagement.
In case you haven’t heard, Twitter recently formed a partnership with IBM. This new partnership promises in-depth analytics generated by IBM via data harvested from Twitter feeds dating back to 2006. IBM plans to use this data to offer premium packages for businesses, giving these businesses insights into the best way to use the platform to promote their brand. Right now, IBM is still in the process of preparing this new feature, but we’re interested to see how it will be used once it becomes available to the public.
In a seemingly random decision, Twitter has moved its tweet box to the top of your feed. The box now prompts you with a question (“What’s happening?”) when you go to type a new tweet. This is just one change in a series of small changes that are making the platform look and feel more like Facebook. Previously, the platform changed the way that user profiles look, making it more like a typical Facebook page than usual. What does this mean for your strategy? Probably nothing now, but keep an eye out for future changes, as the two platforms are becoming more like the other every day.
You can now edit Instagram posts!
Instagram has officially introduced a new way to find people to follow. The explore tab has always existed as a way to see recommended content, but now the app allows for you to quickly browse recommended profiles as well, which is great for both regular users and business accounts. Regular users will now get to easily scan content to find new people to follow (so post great content!) and business accounts can quickly see which accounts would be beneficial for them to interact with. Watch this platform closely because it’s quickly rising up to the ranks of Facebook and Twitter when it comes to benefitting businesses.
FINALLY: you can now edit captions on Instagram! This arguably small change has users everywhere singing its praises. No longer will you have to repost photos with typos, because typos are no longer an issue! We’re incredibly excited about this change, and you should be too, because its made this photo sharing service one step closer to being a power-posting platform for businesses. The future looks bright for Instagram!
Snapchat
Snapchat seems to really like ads lately. After posting the first ad on the platform (a memorable albeit frightening spot for the horror film Ouija) the platform has already begun searching for other ways to use this newfound advertising power. They are now looking at incorporating ads into the live-events section of the platform (which came about in June) called “Our Story.” This is pretty big news because it appears that Snapchat is considering offering businesses the chance to sponsor their own ads and live event coverage. While this option isn’t available yet, we’re interested to see how much it will cost to post an ad, seeing as how the Ouija ad was considered “competitively priced,” versus TV spots.
Social media is a huge aspect of digital marketing, so staying in the loop with these platforms is essential. Keep up with all of the latest and greatest news by visiting our blog (or social media platforms!) each week for our social media roundup!