Here’s my summary and opinion on the latest social media news that matters including new developments from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest.
You can watch me go through the week’s news on the recording of THE #SocialToday SHOW below. The show is on Facebook Live at 8.45am every Monday morning. Next Monday’s show will be broadcast from my Intranet Future Facebook Page.
Feel free to ask me questions by posting in the Comments or tweeting me @intranetfuture.
Facebook’s Android app has had a major update although it doesn’t appear to be in the UK yet. It’s a huge change that indicated the importance Facebook is giving Facebook Live. In the new app, there’s a new Facebook Live button dead centre in the top menu bar between friend requests and feed updates. Clicking the button leads to scrollable list of videos. Clicking on Guide on the top right gives you a list of topics including World News, TV & Movies, Funny, Politics, Arts & Culture, Health & Fitness, Food and Science and Tech. By clicking the + symbol on the topics, you add them to your preferences and Facebook will show more of those types of videos in your Live feed. If you’re not yet exploring using Facebook Live I would encourage you to so as with increased awareness amongst users, the business benefits such as direct engagement with customers and clients are even greater than before.
Facebook is going to produce a live streamed show in the US containing similar content to breakfast TV eg news, weather and chat. Ad agency DigitasLBi has announced that it will partner with the social network on live streamed, brand-sponsored video called Rise and Shine. It’s not clear whether any sponsors have yet been found.
Facebook’s Reactions which were launched in February have failed to cause much well…reaction. A study of 130,000 Facebook Posts from Quintly has revealed that 97% of interactions are Likes, Comments and Shares with only 3% being Reactions.
Facebook Messenger
Facebook are testing disappearing messages – in the style of Snapchat – on its Messenger iOS app.
[RUMOUR] Brands and businesses are likely to have their own style profiles soon. At present, there is no distinction but testing of different formats with unique feature for brands such as categories and a contact button.
[RUMOUR] LinkedIn is considering introducing articles from other publishers on LinkedIn in the same way as Facebook does with its Instant Articles and Google does with Accelerated Mobile Pages. The advantages are fasting loading times for the reader and more time spent on the host site. LinkedIn already provides a platform for authors which it calls influencers on its Pulse platform.
Twitter has introduced a new tabs at the top of the news feed called Connect, which replaces ‘Find people’. Like its predecessor it suggests accounts to follow. It pulls together follow recommendations based on your local area, who you already follow and major events happening on Twitter. It also makes it easier to sync Twitter with your address book so you can easily find friends and contacts to follow. It’s a significant improvement to ‘Find people’ and is available now on iOS and Android.
Find the best people to follow. With the new Connect tab, there’s no place like home: https://t.co/gWTtAmgizw pic.twitter.com/mu8pXlKPF0
— Twitter (@twitter) May 3, 2016
Periscope You can now save videos indefinitely on Periscope using #save. The new functionality is in beta testing at the moment and is a big improvement on the previous 24 hour limit. Previously, katch.me acheived the same result but the service is now closed so this is a timely introduction by Twitter for its Pericope service.
Working on supporting broadcasts beyond 24h! Starting now, you can use our public beta by using #save in your title! https://t.co/LsjqsSib7v — Periscope TV (@periscopetv) May 5, 2016
YouTube
You’ll soon be able to publish 360-degree videos to YouTube.
[RUMOUR] It’s a probability that pretty soon you’ll be able to live-stream 3D video via YouTube. Will they beat Facebook who no doubt are planning a similar service?
Number of the week: My number of the week is 40. Facebook videos gain 40% more reactions than other kinds of content.
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