This Week in Social (Week of July 13)
This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.
Facebook Working on Personal Assistant (Read more at The Information)
Siri, Google Now and Cortana, look out. Facebook has its sights set on you.
The social network is reportedly working on its own virtual digital assistant called Moneypenny. Moneypenny is being built specifically for Messenger as a way to ask people for help researching and buying products and services. So Moneypenny is less personal assistant and more human-based information resource that connects you with real people to solve a problem.
The feature is currently being tested internally at Facebook.
Messenger is slowly becoming a commerce hub. It allows users to send each other money, and Facebook has plans to allow businesses to tie it into how they communicate with consumers. A service like Moneypenny could bring all of that full circle by allowing users to request and pay for products curated by this human-run engine. And if there’s any platform that can overcome the expenses involved in building something like this at scale, it’s Facebook.
Social Networks Gain Larger Share of News Consumption (Read more at Digiday)
Pew Research Center has found more people are getting their daily news from social networks. 63% of Facebook and Twitter users say they get news from those services and don’t look at them as just platforms to connect with friends, family and celebrities.
These findings aren’t too surprising because both Facebook and Twitter have made themselves news destinations thanks to algorithm updates.
Twitter has long been known as the place to follow breaking news. But Facebook has also taken steps with trending topics as well as highlighting content from publishers.
This is huge news, especially for Facebook, as we enter campaign season. Facebook knows so much about its users, and this finding makes it even more attractive as a political advertising platform.
Google Launches Its Beacon Technology (Read more at Google’s Developers Blog)
Google has launched Eddystone, its beacon technology that competes with Apple’s iBeacon. Eddystone uses electronic beacons to connect user smartphones with information such as information related to an art piece at a museum or a coupon in a store.
Eddystone is being rolled out to developers who can now start building upon the technology.
Marketers are clearly interested in connecting with shoppers through their mobile devices while in-store, and Google, Apple and other tech providers are happy to oblige in that effort. Google entering this space will certainly accelerate this effort further as competition heats up.
Reddit CEO Plans Changes (Read more at Digiday)
Reddit has had quite the past couple weeks. It started when Reddit’s head of AMAs or Ask Me Anything forum was fired. That unleashed a backlash from the Reddit community that involved them taking their subreddits down, which in turn led to the removal of interim CEO Ellen Pao.
Now Reddit’s new CEO is Steve Huffman, and he’s making some changes, which may sound reasonable, but they have to be read in the context of Reddit users’ understanding is that Reddit is a “bastion of free speech."
Huffman says the site will get rid of any illegal activity, spam, harassment and sexual content involving minors. Adult content will be given a NSFW tag and be viewable only to users who log in. Huffman is also introducing guidelines to keep AMAs more professional.
Now, all of these guidelines have been proposed to the Reddit community and have not been made company policy.
Reddit is in a really tough spot. It’s amazing that it’s even a company. Sure, it has millions of page views, but it’s also essentially run by a team of volunteer users. They have the ultimate control. That’s what puts Huffman and team in a tough spot. They can’t dictate to the community. The community has to buy into the changes.
Facebook Testing Storefronts for Businesses (Read more at Buzzfeed)
News content isn’t enough for Facebook. It now wants businesses to sell their products through storefronts hosted on Facebook. At least ten shops are going into testing, and Facebook will not take a cut of any of their sales. Although, it’s unclear if that will be the case should they move forward after these tests.
Businesses have tried and failed to open storefronts on Facebook when tabs were all the rage. This time could be different.
Facebook can help businesses get more exposure to their shops, especially since they’ll be hosted on the platform where Facebook has control, and it should want to make these work as a way for Facebook to take some commerce share from Amazon and Google.
Still, all of this comes with risks. Facebook ultimately owns the users and their data, so businesses run the risk of becoming reliant on Facebook, which means more ad dollars given to Facebook. And if Facebook owns the data, businesses can’t do anything to really nurture relationships with customers as they can with their own commerce destinations.
Facebook is powerful. It has users and it’s proven that it knows how to deliver a great user experience. But aligning commerce efforts with it comes with a great deal of risk.
News Quick Hits
- Snapchat has updated its service to give its ’Stories’ section more prominence. Previously, it was a small circle in the upper right corner of the Stories section. Now, according to CEO Evan Spiegal, Stories is working, so the service is giving it greater prominence. (Read more at Digiday)
- Reddit, which has faced an onslaught of user revolt, is working to overcome what the platform’s new CEO, Steve Huffman, cites as a major challenge: getting new users on boarded onto the platform. Reddit is full of nuances and a language that those who don’t use it can find confusing, so the Reddit team is working to create a new onboarding process to explain what Reddit is all about to new users. (Read more at AdWeek)
- Twitter is now expanding links for some publishers. As users scroll through their timelines some publisher content is expanded with large images, introductory text and a link to the full article. (Read more at The Verge)
- Google’s buy button is here. Users can now purchase products by clicking through select ads using their smartphones. Tapping the ad takes users to retailer-branded product pages that Google hosts. (Read more at AdAge)