I’m busy working with clients today so my social media news roundup is in the form of a blog post today rather than THE #SocialToday SHOW.
The social media landscape is fast shifting with changes happening every day and it can feel like a full time job to keep abreast of the latest trends and new features. So to help you keep up to date, below you’ll find the latest new features with tips on how you can benefit from them.
Virtual reality – Regular readers and viewers of THE #SocialToday SHOW will know what I’m excited about the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) and social media. So it was interesting to note that despite us being in the very early stages of VR 39% want to watch movies with VR and 38% want to play games – learn more. Source: Touchstone Research. I’ll be taking delivery of my Samsung Gear VR this week so will let you know how I get on.
Facebook – Facebook Live videos will be given more priority in the News Feed whilst they are Live. Available in the US and to some users in the UK, Facebook Live is a new way of making a status update and is Facebook’s equivalent of Twitter’s Periscope. Facebook state that 3x as many people watch a Facebook Live video compared with the recording – learn more. Live streaming video is going to be huge and if you haven’t done so already, you should start to consider how you can use it as part of your Marketing and PR mix.
Facebook has launched the Your Business Story video tool which allows you to create a great video telling the story of your business, complete with soundtrack in around 5 minutes – create your video.
Here’s mine:
My business storyWe’re in the business of Connecting people
Posted by Intranet Future on Monday, March 7, 2016
*Rumour* – It looks like you’ll soon be able to invite people to your Facebook Events via email as Facebook is testing this feature. Handy.
*Rumour* – Publishers will soon be able to publish content via Facebook Messenger. Look out for an announcement at the Facebook F8 Developers Conference in April.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn have boosted the accuracy of targeting for advertisers by launching Account Targeting which they describe as ‘a new way to run effective account-based marketing campaigns on our platform’. Sounds good, although having read their ‘How does it work’ section here, I’m not much wiser!
Twitter – In a bit of a coup for Twitter, Apple has chosen the 4th largest social network to launch it’s very first official social network account – follow @AppleSupport for ‘tips, tricks and helpful information when you need it most”. Pro-tip: Best not tweet them pics of your new Samsung Galaxy S7.
Instagram – Plenty of Instagram uses have encouraged their followers to join them on other social networking by including an ‘add me’ link to other social profiles. But not any more. Instagram say: “We’ve removed the ability to include ‘add me’ links on Instagram profile pages. Other types of links are still allowed.”
Meerkat – It was THE Live Streaming app of choice in early 2015 but with the arrival of Periscope and Facebook Live, Meerkat has now abandoned it’s live video streaming service and is focussing on setting up a video based social network.
My number of the week – My number of the week is 3 million. This is the number of businesses who actively advertise on Facebook.