Lately in Social Media – 2/2/18
Well, January sure gave us an eventful start to the new year with lots of big changes on the social platforms marketers use most. Let’s start at the top, shall we?
- You might have heard about that big change to the news feed algorithm? We broke it down in this blog post and focused on how small businesses can adapt to stay visible.
- Some publishers and advertisers are viewing the change as the final straw to end their toxic relationship with the platform, while others are doubling down on their influencer partnerships. Maybe 2018 will truly be the year of influencers?
- In any case, time on the platform is already dropping.
- Brace yourself for those ad prices to rise. Most brands expect they’ll have to pay more to stay visible, and many marketers are using this justification to ask for bigger budgets.
- And speaking of branded content: Here’s what that means now.
- Facebook really isn’t sure how to best handle the news: Rank publishers by how trusted they are? Ask users what’s real? Section it off into it’s own area of the app? (Which probably won’t solve the fake news problem.) So far we know that local events get priority in the new news feed.
- Don’t discount chatbots just yet. They may be unwieldy now, but Facebook is learning how to make them sound more human. And be on the look out for upcoming changes to Messenger, which could include a streamlined redesign, improved chatbots and more customer service tools.
- More music deals make it okay to use covered songs as background music in all your video content.
- Get acquainted with your privacy rights here, and stay tuned for an updated privacy center later this year.
- Don’t launch any ads promoting cryptocurrency, because Facebook said no.
- What are Community Boost events and are they coming to Richmond?
- Finally, take pride in conducting your marketing activities on a platform that admits it’s bad for democracy.
- If your brand was one of the 1.4 million users who unintentionally liked a tweet from a Russian troll account, Twitter will let you know. Hey, at least they’re being upfront about it. Learn more about their updated reporting tools here.
- Rumor has it that Twitter is developing a “camera-centered,” “Snapchat-like” feature for simpler video sharing.
- Turns out brands get the best engagement by live-tweeting during games. Keep that in mind during the Super Bowl this Sunday.
- Thanks to new changes to the Instagram Graph API, business pages can now schedule organic posts ahead of time and view public posts that they’ve been mentioned or tagged in.
- Advertisers can now publish up to “three pieces of content,” or three segments, within their Stories ads.
- Feeling verbose? Tell a story in your Story with the new “type” format.
- Instagram continues its tradition of stealing copying Snapchat’s most popular features, and even the snitchiest ones. Now users receive alerts when others try to screenshot or record their Stories.
- Enjoy shaming your friends for their inactivity, now that you can see the last time someone logged on. Happy stalking!
- If you thought Stories really needed GIFs, you’re in luck.
SNAPCHAT
- Wanna buy some Snapchat merch? Maybe this is a sign of ecommerce ad features to come?
- Maybe the recent layoffs at Snap mean the redesign didn’t go over so well? Story use has stopped growing, and Snap Maps aren’t catching on.
- Will brands get more bang for their Snapchat bucks if they can share Story content outside of the app? Snapchat wants to find out, but new tools like this aren’t encouraging many brands to spend more on the platform.
- On the bright side, maybe the brands with the most to lose on Facebook will be tempted by Snapchat’s ad offerings instead.
- Those pesky white borders that appear on uploaded Story images are no more.
- New features make app-install ads more targeted.
YOUTUBE
- Facebook wasn’t the only one who had a rough year. The world’s biggest video platform struggled to regulate its content creators and reassure advertisers concerned about brand safety. They kind of apologized for some of their worst missteps, but then we can’t really expect them to control all their users, can we?
- In hopes of shaking out “bad actors” and protecting advertisers, YouTube introduced new policies that force content creators to reach a higher “popularity threshold” before they can start seeing ad revenue. This change shows that YouTube has a clear preference for larger creators, at the expense of small ones. And it will also impact the brands and advertisers who partnered with smaller scale micro-influencers on the platform.
- Bonus: We like these tips for optimizing your YouTube presence.
Got questions about social media marketing? Not sure how social tools could benefit your business? Let’s talk!