Lately in Social Media – 6/1/18
Winston Churchill once said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” If that’s the case, then our favorite platforms certainly inched closer to perfection in May!
It was a big month of changes, and that’s not even counting updates from companies scrambling to “get ready” for GDPR. Even the ones who said they were ready haven’t been spared, so it sounds a little chaotic across the pond at the moment. Count your lucky stars if GDPR isn’t something your company actively needs to worry about right now. Here’s what else has been happening:
- No more trending news! I know it’s an objectively terrible feature, but I’m still going to miss checking it every day. Don’t @ me.
- The word is out: Users are aware that Facebook is tracking them on roughly 8.4 million websites so that marketers like us can use that data on them.
- Plus, those Russian ads weren’t even good!!
- But Facebook really wants you to know how many efforts they’ve made to clean up the platform, from deleting spam posts, suspending apps for misusing data, providing resources for teens, letting users clear their history and asking the rest of us what constitutes as hate speech. Oh and that TV commercial was a total brand-saver! They deserve a gold sticker for all this effort.
- Speaking of stickers: Messenger Stories, which I still struggle to accept is a thing, now have the same poll stickers we all enjoy on Instagram. This is a fun tool for user engagement, assuming anyone follows your brand on Messenger Stories.
- Actually Zuckerberg believes that the future of social media will be strictly in Stories-form, so here, have all the same Stories features and stuff you’re already using everywhere else! You know what to do.
- And I stand corrected, because Facebook Stories now has 150 million daily users (who are you??), so it will inevitably become a new space to run your ads, too.
- Group admins work hard, so hopefully these new tools and resources can make their tasks a little easier.
- If your ads are remotely political, get familiar with the new rules for election-related and issue ads, and prepare to verify your identity and location. But also anticipate some hiccups and ad rejections as Facebook figures out how to block the real offenders.
- Pay attention to which of your favorite targeting options might get the axe as Facebook phases out Partner Categories.
- If you’re in the home services industry, get ready to take advantage of advertising opportunities through Facebook Marketplace!
- And if you sell products, why not use AR to promote them to users via Messenger?
- Take a few minutes to customize your Ads Reporting platform to better focus on the metrics that matter to you.
- Use these new tools to enhance your Facebook Live videos.
- And finally, you KNOW all the single marketers can’t wait to MARKET THEMSELVES on Facebook’s upcoming dating app, amirite??
- Twitter has always enjoyed designating public officials with the blue verified check, but now the platform will also label the accounts of candidates for state governor, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Also, advertisers running political campaign ads for federal elections will have to identify themselves and confirm that they’re in the U.S., as opposed to on a Macedonian troll farm.
- Twitter is also using behavioral signals to identify harassment and make those trash tweets less visible to the rest of us. And thanks to recent algorithm updates, you shouldn’t encounter quite as many bots and trolls. Personally I’m glad their taking action, especially since hardly any of us questioned the fake news – yikes.
- At long last, a mute button!! Maybe if they’d released this earlier I wouldn’t have had to unfollow my cousins…oops.
- What you wanted was a native Regram button. What you got was the option to share a post as a sticker inside of a story. But hey, that’s something you can’t do in Snapchat!
- Even more engaging than poll stickers: The emoji slider!
- It looks like a native payment feature is finally on the way.
- If the app says “you’re all caught up,” you should probably go do something else. Or just follow more animal accounts.
- Problematic ads are a problem, well, everywhere, but Instagram doesn’t seem to catch them. Please don’t be evil, guys.
- Set yourself up for a nicer day by turning on the new filter that “hides comments containing attacks on a person’s appearance or character, as well as threats to a person’s well-being or health.” Good deal!
- Are we getting closer to a point at which only professional content creators are posting to Instagram anymore? Stories seemed to change the game for everyone who’s not getting paid to post.
- Still waiting for the video chat we’ve been promised.
SNAPCHAT
- “You hated the redesign, so take this new redesign and please just shut up about it.” – Snapchat
- This new AR mask responds to sounds, so come up with some creative ways to use it before Snapchat releases even more filters like it.
- Better yet, ask an app developer to take Snapchat’s best tools and build something cooler with those AR camera features.
- Snapchat copied a Facebook feature that allows marketers to buy Snap ads for a set CPM if planned in advance, TV-buying style. The tables have turned!
- If the Snap Map feels too thirsty, you can still let people know where you are by quietly sending them your location or requesting theirs. Perhaps users really wanted this feature, to spare them the trouble of typing “where u at”? (I can’t think of a reason why a brand or business would want to use this ability, I just think it’s odd and hilarious. But then again, that’s how I feel about Snapchat in general.)
- Is this platform becoming a ghost town? You tell me – I’m not on there anymore.
YOUTUBE
- If the youth are your target audience, rest assured that YouTube is definitely their preferred platform – as opposed to Facebook, where their parents and grandparents run wild.
- YouTube channels are experiencing a recent viewership surge for live video, so hurry up and get in on that live action!
- Here’s a good feature for both personal and professional use: Turn on a reminder to take a break after awhile.
- Get your best video content ready, because Pinterest is currently testing a promoted video format that will span across the two-column feed of the mobile app, available in 16:9 and 1:1 ratios. Paramount is testing it now, but no word yet on when the new format becomes available to the rest of us plebes.
- The Sales Navigator tool claims it is GDPR-ready – unlike everyone else!
And just as a bonus: Have a laugh at all these GDPR fails.
Got questions about social media marketing? Not sure how social tools could benefit your business? Let’s talk!