This Week in Social (December 14 - January 3)
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 Launches Yelp Competitor (Read more at Search Engine Land)
Facebook has quietly launched a new feature that allows users to find information and reviews on local businesses called Facebook Professional Services. The desktop-only experience gives users a list of businessfrom Event Planning to plumbers to dentists. Once a user searches, they will see a list of businesses with links to their Facebook Pages and current reviews of the business. Users will also see business contact information and hours.
This project is certainly at the early stages and isn’t Facebook’s first effort to take on a competitive service. This time it’s going after Yelp. Facebook’s success in this area is questionable at this point because often people stick with established channels even when Facebook offers competing services. But for brands this will mean having up-to-date pages and encouraging reviews on those pages, especially if this feature shows signs of taking off.
Pinterest Allows Users to Track Price Drops (Read more at TechCrunch)
Pinterest has launched a new tool that alerts users of price drops on products they’ve pinned. The alerts will come via email and in-app notifications, so users can quickly open the pins and make a purchase.
The feature comes with the launch of buyable pins, which were released last year. Users can add their purchase information on Pinterest and then easily make purchases on available buyable pins.
The move appears to be a way to attract more advertisers to look at the platform as an e-commerce channel. Pinterest is all about curating what you want to do soon. This kind of feature allows Pinterest to turn those plans into action—purchase in this case.
Facebook Testing Interest-Based News Feeds (Read more at The Next Web)
Facebook is testing category-focused versions of its News Feed, and the test has been underway since October.
The interest-based News Feeds are accessible via tabs, allowing users to switch from the standard News feed to ones based on travel, style, headlines and other categories. Users in the test are given the option to specify these feeds even more by selecting sub-topics within an overarching category they’re really interested in.
According to Facebook, “…we are testing feeds for people to view different stories from people and Pages based on topic areas.” They’re doing this because they’ve found that people want options to see and have conversations around specific topics.
Facebook users are inundated with a deluge of content every time they log in. These feeds would allow users to curate and control their experiences even more, creating a more engaged user base that could also allow Facebook to deliver more ads. It could even create feeds that advertisers could target to help ensure their ads are reaching people as relevantly as possible. For example, a beauty brand might prefer to target users viewing the beauty-focused News Feed to hit users in the right mindset over the standard, more general News Feed.
News Quick Hits
- Facebook has new tools for publishers. They can now embed videos and posts across other Web properties. The ability to embed video comes with other features, such as the ability to auto-play, include volume control, display playlists and more. (Read more at Facebook Developer News)
- Apple-owned Topsy, a social media analytics tool, shut down after being acquired by Apple two years ago. The shutdown came abruptly with no announcement or warning. (Read more at The Next Web)
- Facebook has enabled the ability to stream live video to all verified pages. The feature was previously limited to celebrities and journalists with access to the exclusive Facebook Mentions app. (Read more at Facebook Media)
- Vine has introduced a ‘For you’ feed that displays content Vine recommends for you. The feature is available for iOS right now with Android coming soon. (Read more at The Next Web)
- Facebook’s Year Review videos have gotten an update over last year’s version. The feature that allows you to create a collection of memories from the previous year now automatically eliminates photos associated with painful events. From there, users can edit the photos and add new ones. Last year, Facebook was criticized for showing users painful memories. (Read more at CNET)
- Instagram has updated its Boomerang app. It no longer will save videos to phone camera rolls to conserve memory. The app also works with camera flashes for shooting in the dark, and users can finally control the length of their Boomerang videos to be up to 20 frames. (Read more at SocialTimes)
- Twitter has updated its conduct rules. Last year it updated rules to take on revenge porn. Now, it has posted that it will not “tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice.” Twitter does say that it will continue to “embrace and encourage” different opinions. (Read more at CNET)