Here’s the replay of Monday 11 December’s The #SocialMediaShow which was broadcast live via my Facebook Profile from Cardiff, Wales. There are some great new features for Facebook Pages including the ability to take appointment bookings directly on your Facebook Page plus there are many other social media news stories plus my insights in italics covered below. Plus as usual there’s Headline, Question Time, Tools Talk plus Tip Of The Week and Number of the Week.
The #SocialMediaShow is aimed at people who work on a daily basis with or who are interested in social media and the aim is to increase your knowledge and improve your use of social media. If that sounds like you and you want to keep up on the latest news throughout the week plus get access to my newsletter.
Headline: How UK consumers shop at Christmas – and how to target them in The Drum – An interesting read if you are selling at Christmas time.
Questions Time: Which social network are you going to focus on in 2018? Please let me know in the Comments below.
Tools Talk: Eye Dropper – a handy extension for Chrome that lets you select colours from the web.
Tip Of The Week: Use Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature to monitor other businesses use of Facebook in your sector.
Number Of The Week: 90. There could be a new trend for video…longer videos receiving more engagement. Buzzfeed say, “We’ve found that on average, non-live videos on Facebook uploaded by news publishers get 30% more shares when they’re longer than 90 seconds.”
FACEBOOK NEWS
1. Facebook has pulbished Year In Review Videos for itself and members – learn more. This year’s most talked about event was International Womens’ Day.
2. Facebook confirms that the ability for publishers to edit the way their content appears on Facebook will be removed in early Q1 2018, unless admins complete the new Domain verification process for all of their pages. Here’s how to do it – Domain verification. If you want to edit links, descriptions and image when publishing articles, you’ll need to do this.
3. Facebook unveiled a new “Did You Know” feature for profiles on mobile and the web. It asks users to complete random statements such as “The superpower I want most is…” and “Mondays make me feel like…” I’ve had a go at mine – check it out.
4. The text “You Got This” is now highlighted in purple in posts and comments and generates animated bouncing Likes across the screen when clicked. I wonder what phrase will next get this treatment?
5. There’s a new Hello button on profiles. Click “Hello” to hug, wink, poke, or high-five.
6. A Chats tab has been added to some users Facebook Groups at top of the mobile apps and underneath posts. A great way to encourage conversation between Group Members.
7. You can now connect Book Now button to a new appointment booking feature and to your Services. This is great for anyone taking appointments as should encourage clients to book.
8. Get Quote and Use our Messenger Bot buttons are coming soon as options for ‘Call to Action buttons’ on your Facebook Page. Again, great news.
9. Facebook is testing adding a mini-profile picture next to mentions of people in comments.
10. A new summary card is displayed in Groups showing actions in Group from the Member.
11. New for video creators – Sound Collection which enables you to add music, effects and audio. Very handy to improve your videos plus gets around potential licensing issues.
12. New 360 Director tools have been launched. Creative tools for editing 360 videos on Facebook. Now available for both pages and profiles. You can add text, symbols and graphic annotations to videos.
13. Pages to Watch was always a useful feature and now there’s a tab for it on the Admin panel at top of page. Cool!
14. Facebook is testing ability to make recurring payments to charities. Good news for charities on Facebook.
FACEBOOK LIVE VIDEO NEWS
15. “Go Live With Inspiration” feature for Facebook Live has been launched. It gives you suggested topics every week to broadcast about on your Profile.
FACEBOOK WORKPLACE NEWS
16. Facebook Workplace is being promoted in the About section of personal profiles.
FACEBOOK MESSENGER NEWS
17. You can now import your Instagram contacts into Messenger – learn how
18. Messenger now provides new Meetup suggestions encouraging you to plan meetups with your friends every week. Yikes!
19. There’s been a redesign of the People tab including new suggested people to connect with.
20. Facebook is testing a Create Payment button which will allow businesses to send invoices from the Page inbox.
INSTAGRAM NEWS
21. Instagram is in the process of testing a stand-alone Instagram Direct app for iOS and Android in Uruguay, Chile, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, and Israel. TechCrunch reports that the Instagram Direct app will be “a camera-first app that connects seamlessly back to Instagram.” Instagram friends are added instantly to the app and users will be able to create and share stories, and have access to exclusive filters, Boomerang, and other creative tools available on Instagram.
LINKEDIN NEWS
22. Some of my LinkedIn contacts who are active users are seeing a message stating that they are “nearing their commercial limit”. Looks like Microsoft are on a push to upgrade members to premium.
23. You can now tag people on LinkedIn messages on the mobile apps.
24. There are several improvements to Skills – More insights such as which companies are hiring people with that Skill and recommended LinkedIn Learning related to a Skill plus monthly reminders on trending skills suggesting that you might like to add these to your profile. Good to see more use being made of the Skills feature.
TWITTER NEWS
25. hashtag insights as you type are coming soon to Twitter eg how many tweets and searches and whether or not the Hashtag is trending.
26. There’s a revamped Explore tab on the mobile web version of Twitter.
27. Twitter is testing polls with the option to add a photo or a video. What took them so long?
28. According to SocialFlow early data shows tweets above 140 characters are being liked and retweeted at a rate approximately double that of their shorter counterparts.
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Questions? Need help with social media?
For more information about how we can help with your social media efforts including other social media training options please call me, Jonathan, on 029 2078 9139.