What’s New This Week Facebook Rolls Out Ability to Broadcast Live From Desktop: Facebook shared several new tools and improvements that “give publishers more control, customization, and flexibility over their broadcasts.” These updates include the ability to go live on a Facebook page through a web browser from a desktop, video metrics for public videos for profiles with 5,000 or more followers, comment pinning, and more. Instagram Rolls Out Insights to Instagram Business Tools and Ads in Stories: Instagram announced that Instagram Stories now boasts more than 150 million daily users and with 70% of Instagram users following a business, “one-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses.” Instagram also announced that “in the coming weeks,” Instagram Business Tools will include analytics such as reach, impressions, replies, and exits for individual stories. Facebook Experiments With Ad Retargeting Based on Web Searches: Facebook is gradually “expanding the [dynamic ad] format to let advertisers target more Facebook users based on their web activity.” In the past, marketers could only reach customers who had “specifically looked at a product on their website or mobile app.” However, this recent update allows advertisers to target a broader audience beyond those who have already engaged with their website or app. A small group of U.S. brands is currently testing this new ad format, but Facebook plans to expand it to other regions “in the coming months.” Adweek reports that “online furniture retailer Wayfair has been testing the format and claims that the ads are 20% more effective than other types of acquisition advertising.” Facebook advertisers now have more ways to create retargeted ads: https://t.co/pA3IStcdEW pic.twitter.com/dYLINZ3y1Y Our Take on Top News This Week In this week’s show from Friday, January 13, 2017, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include Facebook Live from the desktop (2:55), updates coming to Instagram Business Tools and video ads (18:40), and the shutdown of Twitter Dashboard app (30:00). With this update, users from anywhere in the world can submit their snaps to be featured and Snapchat will be able to create Our Stories based on submission trends. Snapchat Tests Deep-linking and Web Auto-fill for Ads: Snapchat is testing two new features for Snap ads, deep-linking and web auto-fill. While an official public launch date for the new list-making tool has not been announced, Google confirms it’s “always experimenting with new features in Google Maps” and “the decision to launch to all will be determined by user feedback.” Google Map’s Foursquare-like lists feature is getting closer to launch https://t.co/H8uU2VEv0Z Facebook Experiments With Mid-Roll Video Ads: Facebook is testing a new mid-roll ad format that will allow publishers to insert ads into Facebook videos. Some Interesting Studies to Note: The State of Social Advertising Q4 2016: The latest social media advertising report from 4C Insights reveals that spending on social advertising is on the rise. Using aggregated data from over $150 million in media spending for more than 900 brands managed through the 4C Social Ads product on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, the report shows an overall 43% quarter-over-quarter increase and a 65% year-over-year gain in paid media spend.
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news.
To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week
Facebook Rolls Out Ability to Broadcast Live From Desktop: Facebook shared several new tools and improvements that “give publishers more control, customization, and flexibility over their broadcasts.” These updates include the ability to go live on a Facebook page through a web browser from a desktop, video metrics for public videos for profiles with 5,000 or more followers, comment pinning, and more. Social Media Examiner notes that the ability to go live from a desktop is currently limited to the Chrome browser and extends to Facebook groups as well.
Facebook also introduced a new Live Contributor role in pages, which allows admins to “designate specific individuals to go live on behalf of a Page” and “gives contributors the flexibility to stream great live content from a mobile device… whenever it happens.” This functionality eliminates the need to grant broadcasters admin access before they can go live on your Facebook page, which maintains “security and control” over your page.
Instagram Rolls Out Insights to Instagram Business Tools and Ads in Stories: Instagram announced that Instagram Stories now boasts more than 150 million daily users and with 70% of Instagram users following a business, “one-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses.”
Instagram also announced that “in the coming weeks,” Instagram Business Tools will include analytics such as reach, impressions, replies, and exits for individual stories. In addition, businesses will soon be able “to run immersive, full-screen ads in stories,” which will utilize Instagram’s targeting, reach, and measurement capabilities. Instagram is currently testing the new story ads with a limited number of global brands including Airbnb and ASOS.
Twitter Shuts Down Twitter Dashboard App: Twitter will shut down its business app, Twitter Dashboard, effective February 3, 2017. Twitter stated in a tweet that it “hope[s] to bring the best features from Dashboard to the broader Twitter community” in the future. Twitter launched this tool for the web and mobile last June. It was “designed to help businesses connect with their customers and community” and claimed to offer marketers and owners “a clear picture of what’s being said about their businesses, lets them schedule Tweets and offers insights about their Tweet performance.” All previously scheduled tweets will be posted as planned and can be monitored or updated from TweetDeck.
Facebook Experiments With Ad Retargeting Based on Web Searches: Facebook is gradually “expanding the [dynamic ad] format to let advertisers target more Facebook users based on their web activity.” In the past, marketers could only reach customers who had “specifically looked at a product on their website or mobile app.” However, this recent update allows advertisers to target a broader audience beyond those who have already engaged with their website or app. Ecommerce brands and retailers will be able to “hone in on folks who may be interested in a product but have not necessarily looked at it online” or have browsed multiple websites looking for an item.
A small group of U.S. brands is currently testing this new ad format, but Facebook plans to expand it to other regions “in the coming months.” Adweek reports that “online furniture retailer Wayfair has been testing the format and claims that the ads are 20% more effective than other types of acquisition advertising.”
Facebook advertisers now have more ways to create retargeted ads: https://t.co/pA3IStcdEW pic.twitter.com/dYLINZ3y1Y
Our Take on Top News This Week
In this week’s show from Friday, January 13, 2017, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include Facebook Live from the desktop (2:55), updates coming to Instagram Business Tools and video ads (18:40), and the shutdown of Twitter Dashboard app (30:00). Subscribe to future shows here.
More News to Note
Snapchat Launches Universal Search Bar and Our Story Submissions: Snapchat is making it “easier to find friends, groups, Discover publishers and Our Stories” with a universal search bar that’s always accessible at the top of every screen of the app, including the camera. This new improved interface is “designed for speed” and helps “dig the best content and conversations out of Snapchat.” TechCrunch reports that this new feature is currently only available to “some people on Android” and will be rolling out “soon” to all iOS and all other Android devices.
TechCrunch also reports that Snapchat now allows “people anywhere at any time” to submit their snaps to the Our Story feature. Snapchat’s Our Story was built “so that Snapchatters who are at the same event location can contribute Snaps to the same Story” and the slideshows were initially highly curated and themed based on pre-selected holidays, events, or locations. With this update, users from anywhere in the world can submit their snaps to be featured and Snapchat will be able to create Our Stories based on submission trends.
Pinterest Applies Deep Learning to Related Pins: Pinterest is now “applying deep learning to make Related Pins even more relevant” and shares that in testing, this technique increased engagement with related pins by 5%. Pinterest reports that related pins are “one of the most popular ways people find ideas on Pinterest.” The Pinterest Engineering blog details how deep learning allows it to provide more accurate and relevant recommendations based on the “context of a Pin,” rather than just the signals from all of the boards to which it’s saved.
Facebook Introduces the Facebook Journalism Project: Facebook announced a new program “to establish stronger ties” between Facebook and the news industry. Facebook will collaborate with news organizations “to develop products, learning from journalists about ways we can be a better partner,…
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