This Week in Social and Digital (Week of October 24)
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.
Instagram Lays Groundwork for Live Streaming (Read more at Mashable)
Instagram appears to be following Facebook’s lead when it comes to live video. Some users are now seeing a “Go Insta” button within Instagram, along with a “Schedule” option. Both of which allow users to live stream video content to their followers. Beyond that, a “Live” option is featured within Instagram Stories that takes users to a page called “Popular Live Broadcasts.” Nothing has been confirmed by Instagram.
Instagram has been investing heavily in Stories, so adding more features to it makes a lot of sense. This also feels like a fairly organic feature with Stories, which is a much less polished, more spontaneous way of sharing on Instagram—exactly what Live video is. But it’s somewhat interesting considering Facebook is doing a huge marketing push on driving people to go live on Facebook. It will be interesting to see if Facebook pushes this forward for Instagram given its current focus of Facebook Live.
Facebook Unrolls Filters (Read more at Mashable)
Facebook now has its version of Snapchat Lenses. The feature works similar to MSQRD, a 3D face-tracking app acquired by Facebook that tracks a user's face and overlays a filter. The new filters are available within Facebook’s Mentions app as well as the Facebook app. The feature is available for all iOS users in the United States, UK and New Zealand and will become available for Android users in the next few months.
Facebook’s made no secret of its desire to take inspiration from Snapchat, and its acquisition of MSQRD months ago was a clear signal that something like this was on its way. But this is also part of Facebook’s efforts to push into video more and more, particularly when it comes to live, and even beyond that, Facebook has a content sharing challenge. It wants people to do more personal sharing rather than links and articles, so this is one way, among others, from Facebook to encourage personal sharing.
Twitter Reports Q3 Earnings and Shuts Down Vine (Read more at Social Media Today)
Twitter shared its Q3 2016 financial results, and the news was not overly bright, coming after a search for a buyer ended without one.
First the bright side, Twitter revenue rose 8% over last year to $616 million with advertising revenue increasing 6% to $545 million. Ad engagements grew 91% over last year with the cost per engagement going down 44%. Users grew 3% to 317 million average monthly active users, and daily active users increased 7%.
All of that news was overshadowed by the announcement that Twitter is laying off about 9% of its workforce. In addiiton, Vine, which Twitter acquired when it launched in 2013, is being shut down. Users will be able to download their Vines, and the website will remain for users to watch old Vines.
All of these change are intended to help Twitter increase its audience size and engagement in its core service, according to CEO Jack Dorsey. At the end of the day, Twitter needs to really define itself and figure out what it is for users and advertisers. Twitter’s latest moves are drastic, and hopefully for it, those drastic moves will lead to focus and clarity for the platform’s future.
News Quick Hits
- Facebook’s community standards have been updated to be more permisive of graphic and offensive content if it is deemed to be newsworthy or “important to the public interest.” How Facebook will determine this is unclear, but it will be working with publishers and law enforcement as it unrolls the new policy. This comes when Facebook has come under scrutiny for censoring content deemed important by the public. (Read more at Facebook Newsroom)
- PayPal is now a payment option within Facebook Messenger. This move comes along with plans announced by Facebook to make payments in Messenger more broadly available by the end of the year. Currently, PayPal has 192 million users, while Messenger has one billion. This could be great exposure for PayPal. (Read more at TechCrunch)
- Twitter’s mobile ad exchange, MoPub, is making rewarded video campaigns available for over 70 demand-side platforms. Rewarded video allows users to opt to view an ad in exchange for a reward, such as in-game currency. (Read more at The MoPub Blog)
- YouTube End Screens are now available for content creators to use instead of annotations, a desktop-only option. End Screens allow content creators to link to other video content and subscribe. (Read more on the YouTube Blog)
- Facebook is using Ireland to test another Snapchat clone feature, but this one is different in that it runs within the Facebook app. Users who swipe right from the News Feed get a new camera that lets them take photos, add “masks” or filters and other effects, very similar to Snapchat’s selfie features. Users can share the photos with all their friends or through private groups, called Direct. (Read more at Mashable)