This Week in Social (Weeks of March 21 and March 28)
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.
Video Ads Closer to Becoming a Reality on Pinterest (Read more at Digiday)
Pinterest video ads may be just around the corner. Small groups of users are seeing video ads on the platform that autoplay when users stop scrolling over them.
There are few other details, including what the ads are, who’s placing them and how pricing is being determined, but the goal right now appears to be determining the optimal video length.
These video ads are different than Cinematic Pins, which play as users scroll through their feeds.
Video ads have seen a huge push across social platforms for more than a year, so this would be a bit of catch-up on Pinterest’s part. It’s also something Pinterest would have to train users to want to see and engage with. The most immediate opportunity for video is likely in how-to content that’s quick, easy and related to what people use the platform to do—take inspiration and turn it into action.
Instagram Updates Website with Notifications (Read more at Instagram)
Instagram.com just became a bit more useful. The photo-sharing platform that normally focuses on its app experience has added a notifications tab to its website. The update allows users to see likes, comments, new followers and posts they were tagged in. It didn’t stop there, though. It also added a new “discover” page that allows all users to find interesting people to follow on the platform. The feature is available in the top-right corner of the Web experience through a compass icon.
Instagram certainly wants to push its users to its mobile app, and this is the first update its Web experience has gotten since it launched in 2012, other than the addition of search in 2013. It remains to be seen whether or not Instagram is focused on building out its web experience further, but as the platform works to court more advertisers and compete with the likes of Snapchat, it could make the Web experience core to that strategy.
Twitter Testing Stickers (Read more at Recode)
Stickers may be making their way to Twitter. The feature would allow users to add images to photos prior to tweeting them out, but Twitter’s adding another element to inspire users. When news breaks, Twitter will suggest a photo that you might want to edit. Then users will be able to see how other users have edited a particular photo, so if a photo is being edited related to breaking news or a trending conversation, users will be able to see what others have done with the image.
The feature is only in testing at this time, so there’s no guarantee it will make its way to users.
Stickers add an element of fun to image sharing and would allow Twitter to compete with the quirky photo editing behavior seen on Snapchat. But Twitter seems to be taking the feature in a direction only it can own—serving up images related to trending conversations and then allowing users to take stickers and share their own take on recent events.
Google Building Livestreaming App (Read more at Venturebeat)
Google is building YouTube Connect, a livestraming video app that would compete with Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live. The app would allow users to login using Google or YouTube accounts and then stream content, while being able to receive comments and chat with viewers.
Users of the app will have a News Feed of clips from friends as well as channels they’ve subscribed to on YouTube, and their videos will be viewable both within the app and on YouTube. Once a steam is done, the broadcast is available for viewing later.
This is a move by Google to ensure it doesn’t lose any more users to Periscope or Facebook Live. Those apps have changed the way people view content—live. YouTube previously had the capability to do live streaming, but access was limited to a handful of users. With this app, the live streaming ecosystem will get even more competitive as Google makes a big bet to not lose any more video viewers to apps outside of its own properties.
Instagram Allows for 60-second Videos (Read more at Recode)
Instagram is opening up the ability to upload 60-second videos to all users. Previously, videos of that length were limited to paying advertisers, who also had the ability to upload 30-second versions. Everyday users have been limited to 15-second videos since video’s introduction to the platform, but 60 seconds is now available all.
The update comes at a time when mobile video viewing is on the rise, and competition in the video space is growing from the likes of Snapchat and even Facebook Video (even though it owns Instagram).
It’s likely by no coincidence that this has been announced right after Instagram shared that an algorithm is being slowly rolled out to users to prioritize the order in which content is displayed in their feeds. Longer content doesn’t mean better content, so this algorithm will encourage those users and brands who take the time to launch longer content does so in a way people will want to engage with. Otherwise, it will simply get buried in the feed.
The brands that do pursue this long-form content will have access to another level of storytelling, and the opportunity to tell potentially richer and more compelling stories. Still, best practices like putting branding up front, getting the message out immediately and making the best use of those initial seconds hold true.
Pinterest Launches How-To Pins (Read more at Mashable)
Pinterest has released a new version of its rich pins called How-to Pins, which allow brands to share pins with instructions on how to take on a task. The pins apply to content related to food, home projects, beauty, fitness and more. The pins are only available for Pinterest brand partners, and currently 25 brands have taken part, including Home Depot and Cosmopolitan.
The move is akin to moves made by Google to offer as much content as possible on its own platform without linking offsite with features like Knowledge Boxes. But it also creates an opportunity for brands to bring as much value and information to the forefront as possible for users.
Snapchat Launches Chat 2.0 (Read more at TechCrunch)
The messaging space has gotten a bit more competitive with Snapchat launching Chat 2.0, which it aims to make the “best way to communicate with friends.” With this new update users can easily switch between text, video and voice chatting during a single conversation. Users can also send each other video notes that resemble GIFs and send multiple photos in a single chat. In addition, users have access to over 200 stickers they can use to tweak photos.
Snapchat’s update carves a nice niche for the platform between more and more commerce-focused Facebook and the simplicity of WhatsApp. Snapchat’s focused on human-to-human chatting and has created a full communication suite to do just that.
This move isn’t just significant for Sapchat. It’s another illustration of the growing trend of people moving from open sharing platforms to more private, more intimate one-to-one communication networks. Snapchat’s offering that along with many others. The competition’s only going to get stiffer in this space, and platforms are going to have to find the balance between personal communications with friends and the presence of brands.
As far as Snapchat specifically goes, the move creates more opportunities for brands to have personal communications with customers on the platform, including offering customer service, sharing live stories and executing influencer activations.
News Quick Hits
- Google Photos received an update that makes its photo albums smarter. Now Google will suggest new albums to create after a user takes a trip or attends an event. From there, it curates the best photos and videos and packages them with maps that include location pins. (Read more at Google’s Official Blog)
- Facebook is now alerting users of accounts that are mimicking their names and likenesses. Users who are being mimicked receive a notification, and users can confirm if the user is actually mimicking them. Facebook manually reviews any requests for account removal. (Read more at Mashable)
- Snapchat appears to be following Facebook’s steps of automatically adding closed captions to videos. Snapchat just added a caption button that Discover publishers can activate to add text to their content. The update allows Snapchat to cater to users who choose to view a video without sound, and it allows publishers to ensure their content can be viewed in almost any situation. (Read more at Social Media Today)
- Snapchat has acquired Bitstrips, a service that allows users to create comics featuring avatars of themselves and send them to friends. Bitstrips' future is unclear. (Read more at The Next Web)
- Twitter has launched the ability to add alternative text to images. The addition makes images easier to consume for the visually impaired. Descriptions of up to 420 characters can be added to images within Tweets. As Twitter has shifted to being a more visual platform, the update is important for accessibility, but it also allows Twitter to create another point of data. Text descriptions could potentially make images searchable on the platform. (Read more at VentureBeat)
- Tumblr has brought back the ability for users to reply to posts on the platform. The feature was removed last year, angering many users. Now, it’s back with new features like the ability for authors to reply to their now posts, the ability for users to reply multiple times and the ability for users to apply different settings to how replies work on their individual Tumblrs. (Read more at Mashable)
- Users looking at code within Facebook Messenger have found suggestions that Facebook may be looking to give the platform more in-store retail capabilities, such as the ability to make in-store purchases using Messenger. (Read more at The Information)
- Snapchat has updated its privacy policy to allow it to use user data to customize ads. The update comes at a time when Snapchat has been working to embrace more advertisers, and this data would allow for stronger targeting and message optimizations. (Read more at Digiday)
- Microsoft has introduced chatbots for Skype. The bots will be able to be looped into conversations to populate messages based on how users interact with them. (Read more at Venturebeat)
- Twitter has launched universal website conversions tags, which allow advertisers to create snippets of code for each conversion event and tailored audience they want to track on their websites. The update makes implementing conversion tags easier for advertisers. (Read more at Twitter’s Blog)