280 Opportunities from Twitter

November 28, 2017 by Taylor Wiegert in Twitter

As 2018 wraps up Twitter gave marketers a bit of a gift, doubling the character limit of tweets from 140 characters to 280. Okay, calling this a gift is pretty generous, but 280 characters is a significant shift for Twitter, which became a household name because of its simplicity and brevity. Moving away from limiting users to no more than a couple sentences to a full paragraph is a notable shift for the platform, so there are bound to be some implications (even positive ones) for marketers.

Pushing the Google+ Layer Forward

January 14, 2014 by Taylor Wiegert in Google+

Google rocked the Internet last week when it announced its hardest push for Google+ yet, allowing any Google+ user to email any other user without an email address as long as both the sender and recipient have Gmail and Google+ accounts.

The email inbox is arguably the most private space online. While everything from Facebook to Twitter to even Snapchat is about sharing a piece of yourself with others. Email is where Internet business is done. It's where private communication takes place, where bills are taken care of and so on. It's sacred ground, which is why Google+'s new update upset some users even though they can opt out. No one wants unsolicited email. This is just the latest move by Google to push Google+ onto users. It recently started to require Google+ to leave YouTube comments.

Google is willing to change the rules users have come to expect to get Google+ out there.

Brave Ad World - Episode 100

January 28, 2013 by Taylor Wiegert in Podcast

The Brave Ad World Podcast has reached the century mark with Episode 100.

This week’s headlines: NLRB Raises Questions on Social Media Policy Legality, Facebook Launches Conversion Measurement, Quora Will Host Blogs and Twitter Launches Vine.

The week’s news quick hits cover: Tumblr Allows Users to Share Panoramic Photos, Bing Gets Deeper Facebook Integration, Google+ Makes Push for Enterprise Use and Foursquare Partners with Voice Media Group for Content.

Find the latest episode in the podcast section or subscribe via iTunes. However you choose to listen, lease leave a review, contact us on Twitter or send us an email to braveadworld [at] gmail [dot] com.

Graph Search: What, Why, How and Where

January 18, 2013 by Taylor Wiegert in Facebook

This week Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to introduce a new way for Facebook users to “discover content and information from their friends and the businesses and brands they’re connected to” called Graph Search. Graph Search is the third pillar of Facebook’s products. The other pillars arebeing the News Feed and Timeline.

“Graph Search is not Web search. We’re not indexing the Web here. We’re indexing our map of the graph. Graph Search is very different,” stated Zuckerberg.

Graph Search is very different.

Go After Your Audience

December 11, 2012 by Taylor Wiegert in Planning

Why do marketers choose the social media platforms for marketing that they do? There are a number of reasons, but a September poll of adult internet users and marketing decision makers conducted by Pitney Bowes Software shows that the percentage of marketers on certain social media sites like Twitter far exceed the percentage of Internet users, meaning that there’s a possibility marketers aren’t allocating their social media efforts effectively.

Instagram Web Profiles: Brands Will Like These

November 08, 2012 by Taylor Wiegert in Instagram

This week Instagram launched Web Profiles, a critical update considering the fact that up until this point any interaction with Instagram profiles outside the mobile device was limited to using third-party services like Statigram. This also represents one of the biggest updates since Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in April.

Introducing Web Profiles

The new web profiles allow users to view each other’s Instagram profiles outside the mobile device. Profiles feature a selection of a user’s most recent images laid out in a large, dynamic banner at top, similar to Facebook cover photos. You can also see a user’s profile information, links to other personal web sites and a brief bio. A grid of a user’s entire photo library is below.

The update makes Instagram much easier for users, especially as it’s evolved to be about more than just sharing stylized photos with friends. Hurricane Sandy showed the potential for the photo-sharing service to follow the lead of Twitter in being a real-time news source. Instagram saw 1.3 million photos documenting Sandy. Web profiles allow users to search, follow and use Instagram wherever and however they choose.

Web profiles can be found by going to instagram.com/[USERNAME]. They’ll be rolled out over the coming days and weeks.

Opportunity for Brands

Instagram has grown quickly to more than 100 million users, and marketers have taken notice of the growth along with Instagram’s ability to help generate visual content. MTV, Nike, Red Bull, Puma and others have noticed the potential and created a presence. Web profiles may lead more brands to follow suit.

Mobile, Desktop… One Destination - Instagram was largely limited to the mobile device before. Now, a brand’s Instagram account is more than mobile. It’s platform agnostic.

A Simple Call to Action – Web profiles allow brands an easier avenue to build awareness of their Instagram presence because they can now direct their audience to find them at instagram.com/[BRAND NAME] to view all of their content in one place.

Open to Everyone – Everyone isn’t on Instagram, but web profiles make the possibility of showing non-users great content a possibility. They can still visit the profile and view the content whether they have an account or not.

Management Got Much Easier – Community managers will love the update as they can now manage everything from a computer, which means following, commenting and liking is no longer limited to the mobile device or third parties.

Facebook’s Invisible Hand

It’s important to remember that Instagram is a Facebook-owned property, and Instagram’s update is consistent with the look and feel of Facebook. More importantly, web profiles open up additional monetization opportunities for Facebook with brands paying to promote their content on Instagram as well as their profiles to increase followers.