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 Announces New Data Inaccuracies (Read more at AdAge)

Facebook isn’t done announcing metrics and measurement issues, and the latest relates specifically to Instant Articles and comScore. It seems a Facebook update affected publishers using a legacy comScore integration caused underreporting of iPhone traffic from Facebook from September 20 to November 30. Facebook has since fixed the issue and is working with affected publishers.

This is the fourth announcement by Facebook that it has been providing inaccurate data, and those affected have included both marketers and publishers. This issue, however, affects publishers.

In related news, the Media Rating Council has been speaking with Facebook about auditing its measurement technologies. For its part, Facebook has not committed at this time.

Independent data verification could go a long way in helping Facebook recoup from a slew of announcements related to data inconsistencies. Facebook’s size and reach, however, may mean it doesn’t need to implement such verification. Still, pressure is mounting.

Instagram Launches Several New Features for the Holidays (Read more at Instagram’s Blog)

Just in time for the holidays, Instagram launched new features for its users, including contextual stickers, holiday stickers, multiple text fields, hands-free video and the ability to save Instagram Stories.

Contextual stickers do what they sound like. They add weather and location to posts through different styles chosen by the user. Users can move the stickers around until it’s just right. Beyond that, Instagram added some holiday-themed stickers to help users bring in the holidays with just the right image, and multiple text fields allow users to add as many fields as they want, while also choosing how the text should be formatted. Hands-free mode allows users to record video without holding down on the button, which is useful for people shooting themselves solo. Lastly, users can save their own Instagram Stories for later viewing as one video. This move comes after Instagram launched the ability to save others’ posts earlier this month.

Again, there’s little here that differentiates Instagram from Snapchat, but the features are certainly welcome additions, especially for holiday sharing. Instagram’s quickly evolving to be much more of an in-the-moment, off-the-cuff platform.

For marketers, the new filters and stickers offer more opportunities for story telling and context. Showing users things like the temperature or locations of their Instagram posts could be a great way to highlight events and other on-the-ground activations.

Facebook Launches New Live Features for Verified Users (Read more at Facebook Media)

Facebook Live is getting some welcome new features for select users. Currently, the features are only available to public figures with verified profiles using the celberity-only Facebook Mentions app.

The new features include pre-broadcast drafts which let them prepare post descriptions prior to going live. A celebrity’s team can also schedule reminders for a public figure to go live, which would be a welcome feature for businesses to better prepare, plan and schedule their own broadcasts. The next feature is comment moderation, which gives the ability to block specific words from the comments. The third features is called the ‘adjustments tray,’ and it allows broadcasters to change the orientation, brightness and other editing tweaks while streaming. The status bar gives streamers information like signal strength, audio level, broadcast duration and battery life. And lastly, after a stream is done, public figures can trim the beginning and ends of their videos before archiving them for post-streaming viewing.

There are a lot of great features here that are, unfortunately, limited to only a handful of users at this time. That being said, Facebook has used the Mentions app as testing ground for Live in the past, so these features will likely be expanded to others. They make the streaming experience much better and will certainly encourage more Facebook Live content.

Snapchat Launches Filter Games (Read more at TechCrunch)

Snapchat has launched a new, native games feature that lets users play games using Selfie Lens filters. The first of these native games is called Santa’s Helper, which was available as a Lens.

Once enabled, a user’s face is placed on an elf body, and the user tilts his or her device to steer the elf down a ski slope to collect presents. Users can take photos and videos, as well as challenge others to beat their score.

Snapchat’s made some recent hires that signaled getting into gaming. This is one way for it to innovate and keep its users coming back time and time again, which will be important as recent moves by Facebook Messenger and Instagram are aimed squarely at competing with Snapchat.

Snapchat Using Machine Learning for Ad Targeting (Read more at AdAge)

Snapchat’s taking steps to help advertisers optimize their campaigns with machine learning. The technology is for brands looking for specific actions from users, what Snapchat calls goal-based bidding. That involve swiping up on the ad to install an app, view a video or view a web page. It is not for advertisers focusing on impressions.

Using machine learning, Snap will auto-optimize bidding and delivery to the audience most likely to take those specific actions. Advertisers are charged on a CPM basis

This effort has been paired with an increased focus on measurement. Snap has partnered with third parties to improve measurement overall, just in time for an IPO expected for some time this year.

The progress made by Snap to update its platform to be in competition with the likes of Facebook for advertiser dollars has been impressive. Machine learning is something Facebook has rolled out successfully for its advertisers looking to drive specific actions from audiences, and Snapchat is, understandably, taking a page out of Facebook’s playbook to build an advertiser-friendly platform.

Twitter and Periscope Launch 360-Degree Live Video Streaming (Read more at Mashable)

Periscope and parent-company Twitter have launched 360-degree live streaming video. This gives users the ability to pan to view a live video from different perspectives. “Live 360” will appear as a red tag on videos with the feature enabled.

While viewers can easily participate, special cameras are required to actually stream live 360-degree videos.

Facebook is in the process of testing live 360-degree video of its own.

It’s a fitting story to wrap up 2016. Arguably, live video streaming has been the biggest shift to the social landscape this year as we’ve seen a tit-for-tat across social platforms looking to give users reasons to live stream content, while also working to recruit content creators to go live as entertainment for users.

News Quick Hits

Vine is coming back… kind of. It will now be “transitioned” into a new app called Vine Camera that will let users create 6.5-second looping videos that can be saved to a phone or shared directly to Twitter. Along with the announcement, Vine shared that it will be giving current Vine users the ability to migrate their Vine followers over to Twitter. (Read more at Medium)
Messenger continues to be a major focus for Facebook with the latest feature being group video chats. The feature is available on iOS, Android and desktop through Messenger.com. Users simply hit the camera icon to notify other people in the group of the video chat. They can choose to accept or decline. (Read more at Facebook)
Twitter search has gotten an update to sort results by relevance rather than reverse chronological order as it's done in the past. According to Twitter, the reverse chronological approach often displayed tweets users simply weren’t looking for. (Read more on Twitter’s Blog)
In an aqui-hire move, Snap Inc. has acquired Flite, a content creation company that offers tools for digital ads, 360-degree video ads and vertical video ads. The move is seen as one meant to onboard Flite’s team versus acquiring the technology. (Read more at Recode)
Snapchat is rapidly inking deals with content providers. The latest is Disney-ABC Television Group, which will create an original series for Snapchat. It will kick off with Watch Party: The Bachelor on January 3, which will continue every week with ten original episodes and a Live Story. More shows will come. The move shows the increasing prevalence of video and how Snapchat is working quickly to become a second screen experience, if not a first one. (Read more at SocialTimes)
Twitter has been testing push notifications to drive users to its Moments for breaking news events. The terrorist attack in Berlin as well as the electoral college vote in the United States were featured in the test. (Read more at Mashable)
Facebook just launched Live Audio, which lets users broadcast voice recordings and other audio-only content. The Page that is streaming live audio pushes its cover photo as a post into user News Feeds, and users can start listening as they browse through the rest of Facebook. Publishers and authors, including HarperCollins and BBC World Service are testing the feature, which will roll out over the coming year. (Read more at AdWeek)
Facebook is not alone is misreporting metrics. Twitter recently noted a bug in its Android app that led it to overcharge advertisers due to inflated video campaign metrics. The metrics were inflated by as much as 35%, which Twitter has offered refunds for. The error was technical and has been resolved according to Twitter. (Read more at Mashable)
Snap Inc. has acquired Israeli augmented reality startup Cimagine Media. Cimagine Media offers augmented reality that allows users to visualize products in 3-D in their own environments. (Read more at TechCrunch)