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 Accidentally Releases Slingshot App Early (Read more at Inside Facebook)

Facebook accidentally released its new app, a Snapchat competitor called Slingshot, to the iTunes Store this week before removing it again. Users who were quick to latch on to the mistake were able to download it and learn a few things about what Facebook has in the works.

The app works by allowing users to quickly share or sling moments with one or more friends in the form of photos or videos. Users can draw or write on images before sending them. Recipients won't be able to view content until they sling a reaction back, so they can choose to either react or just ignore the content from the sender. Once a shot is viewed and reacted to, it's no longer available.

The app is expected to have its official launch "soon."

This is Facebook's second attempt to compete against Snapchat. It's first effort, dubbed Poke, was pulled from the App Store following low usage. This app, however, offers something different. It encourages a back-and-forth dialogue by requiring users to send a sling back in order to view content sent to them. This is likely in an effort to encourage content creation and regular usage.

Facebook and Twitter Look to Capitalize on World Cup (Read more at The Wall Street Journal)

The 2014 World Cup may be the biggest social TV event in history, and both Facebook and Twitter are looking to capitalize on it by being the place for online conversation. Both have launched hubs to encourage people to jump into the World Cup conversation.

Twitter has made selecting your country's flag as your profile picture an option in the sign-up process. They've also created a timeline for individuals who search for #worldcup. The timeline includes inks to all team accounts, scoreboards and Hashflags, a feature that adds a country's flag to any tweet with a specific country's hashgtag like #GER or #USA.

Facebook has created Trending World Cup hub at Facebook.com/trendingworldcup. This hub includes scores, news and posts from players and their teams. The hub also integrates related posts from friends. In addition, users will be able to use Facebook's emoticons to share what they're watching.

Outside of the hub Facebook has created an interactive map at Facebook.com/worldcup/map to display where fans of top players are located.

Google will also have a World Cup Google Trends Page to show what people are searching for related to the event.

Social conversations are a big opportunity for the social networks to position themselves as a place to complement traditional advertising as well as to solidify a position in the minds of users. Twitter has faced challenges around recruiting and retaining new users. The World Cup is an opportunity for Twitter to get new users on the platform and show them what it can do in terms of bringing them real-time information and conversation from others. For Facebook, it's an opportunity to show how the platform can be paired with TV conversation, something it's been working to do, especially with the launch of video ads.

Pinterest Guided Search Comes to the Web (Read more at TechCrunch)

Pinterest introduced Guided Search on mobile devices in April. Now, it's coming to the the desktop version of Pinterest.com through a search bar.

The feature works the same as the mobile version by recommending keywords when a user searches to help him or her get better, more specific search results. A search for "jeans" might recommend modifying your search with "skinny," "designer" or "outfits." The idea is to help users get to what they're actually looking for or maybe help them discover something they didn't think to search for in the first place.

The feature will be released over the next few weeks in English with other languages to come.

Guided Search comes at about the time Pinterest is ramping up paid advertising. Last week, Pinterest announced that it was testing self-serve ad tools for small and medium businesses, while simultaneously running a larger test with bigger advertisers. Search is one area Pinterest can quickly monetize as it helps users find what information, products or ideas they're looking for.

Facebook Expands Site Targeting (Read more at AdAge)

Facebook's interest-based targeting has been based on what users liked and interests on their profiles. The social network aims to expand beyond that by following the sites users visit to determine their interests.

AdAge provides the example of an advertiser that wants to reach people interested in camping doesn't have to rely only on what an individual has 'liked' or shared as an interest. The advertiser can target users who have visited camping-focused sites. Facebook does this by tracking users on any website that has the 'like' button installed, whether they like the web page and anything on it or not.

This is good news for advertisers who want to make ads more relevant. However, it has serious privacy implications. Facebook has taken steps to help users better understand their privacy controls and tweak their settings. For example, users will soon be able to click 'Why am I seeing this ad?' to view why the ad is being shown to them. Once they see an explanation, users can update their settings to disallow advertisers from targeting them in a specific way in the future.

Still, Facebook will certainly face scrutiny because this does not honor do-not-track settings in browsers, and it's something Facebook denied it would ever do.

News Quick Hits

Instagram is expanding ads to advertisers in Canada, the U.K. and Australia in 2014. This follows a test in the United States in which Instagram has been monitoring user feedback on ads as well as identifying what has and has not worked for advertisers. (Read more at AllFacebook)
Facebook is now requiring any mobile app ad to be connected to a Facebook Page, contain social context by showing, for example, that a friend has liked a Page and allow users to comment, like or share the unit. Ads in the old format will not be accepted starting July 2. (Read more at AllFacebook)