Lately In Social Media – July 2018
When Japanese scholar Kakuzo Okakaura said that the art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings, he probably wasn’t talking about the realities of social media marketing. Either way he turned out to be right, because there’s a whole lot of adjusting going on in our little world right now. Let’s dig in:
- Q2 was not so kind to the big Book, where user growth has slowed, stalled or reversed in the U.S. and Europe since the beginning of the year.
- Just a thought, but perhaps taking a truly proactive approach to ridding the platform of incendiary fake crap could help those numbers.
- Have you scoped out your competitor’s Info and Ads yet? This tool will be huge for market research and ad inspiration.
- Along those lines, Facebook will no longer allow advertisers to exclude ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals and other protected groups from seeing ads. You can probably (?) still target them directly, though. Marketing finds a way.
- If you make ads on your phone (bless you), the ads manager app has new tools to help you out.
- Start a Watch Party within your Facebook Group…so you can all comment on the same dog video together? It could be cool for sharing live updates, but I’m curious to see if this will evolve into something brands can utilize through Pages.
- Do you love Marketplace as much as I do? (Great source for patio furniture, btw.) Well, turns out it’s just another space we can fill with our ads, so have at it.
- Speaking of ads, have you played with any of the new AR novelties yet? Start brainstorming how you brand could use this feature, because it sounds like AR ads are totally going to be the next big thing.
- P.S. Facebook wants you to know they’re just as worried about their content moderators as you are, but everyone is doing just fine thanks!
- P.P.S. Stop trying to make China happen. It’s not going to happen.
- The bot purge has claimed more than one million user accounts over the past few months, and that number is still climbing. But as that user count deflated, so did Twitter’s second quarter earnings ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- While they’re cleaning house, Twitter is also changing the rules for how app developers can access their API platform and limiting how many tweets, retweets, likes, follows and DMs an app can perform.
- Shadow banning ain’t happening, but watch out if Twitter thinks you made your account while underage.
- The verification policy is still in flux, but by all means do not pretend to be Elon Musk.
- P.S. Your old tweets really are embarrassing.
- If you think you’ve spent too much time scrolling, you’re probably right.
- Open-ended Questions stickers are a great engagement tool for brands and influencers alike.
- Removing followers from your public account sounds more like low-key unfriending than blocking.
- P.S. It turns out that less polished videos get better engagement on Instagram Stories, so quit stressing yourself out over quality.
SNAPCHAT
- In their push to attract brands, Snapchat has created a private marketplace where advertisers can book ad space in specific shows created by big-time publishers. Expect the pricing to be a little higher than what we’ve seen lately in the self-serve ads platform.
- Tired of your same old silly lenses? Refresh your summer look and explore some new ones instead!
- Major influencers might be more tempted to stay on Snapchat if they’re making money through commerce.
- On that note, it looks like Snapchat is trying to move in on both Pinterest’s visual search plans and Amazon’s inevitable global takeover.
- P.S. If you have Venmo, or PayPal, or Zelle, or literally any other app that can transfer money, you probably don’t need that feature from Snapchat.
- Rejoice, because Campaign Manager got a refresh! Now if only we could export our performance data for more than the past 30 days…
- LinkedIn knows it’s not the most fun platform to use, but these new posting tools and features can make the drudgery a little easier.
- The messenger feature got a little more sophisticated too, so at least you have more features to work with while replying to those robotic recruiter messages.
- You guys asked for voice messaging, right? No? Well here it is anyway, enjoy!
YOUTUBE
- The only social media platform left without an Explore tab is now getting an Explore tab.
- If a video description contains hashtags, YouTube will display the first three as clickable links above the video title.
- If you’re not using Pinterest for collaborating, what are you doing??? With these new tools for group boards, it’s even easier to coordinate plans for a party or design ideas for your living room. (In case you’re wondering, I’m guilty of both.)
- Save yourself two whole clicks when you’re pinning from your desktop! You’ll be counting those precious seconds next time your boss looks over your shoulder while you’re perusing medium curly hair style inspo. (Also guilty.)
Got questions about social media marketing? Not sure how social tools could benefit your business? Let’s talk!