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Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news.
To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week
Facebook Adds New Daily Video Breakdowns: Facebook added “new daily breakdowns for video metrics,” which “gives Page owners a better understanding of when their audiences are watching their videos” and provides “a more detailed picture of performance that [Facebook hopes] will help publishers inform their video strategies.”
Facebook Introduces Delivery Insights in Ads Manager: Facebook’s new Delivery Insights are “a new set of insights available in Ads Manager that tells advertisers how their ads are competing at auction and provides recommendations on how to tweak the ad to make it more competitive.” This new feature “will begin rolling out globally to Ads Manager in a few weeks.”
Tumblr Adds GIF Creation to Android App: Tumblr announced to Android users that their “Tumblr app makes GIFs now, just like the iOS app does.”
Our Take on Top News This Week
The Morning Social Media Marketing Talk with Michael Stelzner is taking a break this week and will return on Friday, April 1, 2016. Subscribe to future shows here.
More News to Note
Google Rolls Out Smarter Photo Albums for Google Photos: “After an event or trip, Google Photos will suggest a new album for you, curated with just your best shots. It’ll also add maps to show how far you traveled and location pins to remember where you went.” This new album feature is available now on Android, iOS, and the web.
Instagram Rolls Out Notification on the Web: “Instagram has begun showing notifications in a new drop-down box on its website. The box shows likes, people who’ve followed you, and friends who have recently started Instagram accounts.”
Foursquare Swarm App Adds Lifelogging Feature to User Profiles: Foursquare redesigned the user profiles within its Swarm app for iOS and Android. They are now “more visualized, presenting you with an analysis of past check-ins such as top place categories, which friends you’ve been hanging out the most with and other streaks. There’s also a map at the top of the screen that shows you the check-ins by country.”
Square Integrates Facebook Ads Within Customer Engagement Tools: The addition of Facebook ads within Square’s new Customer Engagement suite of tools means “your Facebook Ads results and Square sales data are integrated, so you can connect your Facebook marketing budget to actual sales and understand exactly what your customers respond to.”
Upcoming Social Media News Worth Following
Snapchat Adds Caption Button to Discover: “Snapchat has quietly added a caption button that Discover publishers can use to make their videos audio-optional.” The closed caption option is available “for long-form videos within Discover,” but there are currently no plans to extend this feature to other videos within Snapchat “such as Live Stories or individuals’ stories.”
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Facebook Tests Impersonation Alerts and Other Account Safety Features: Facebook is “testing a new feature that will automatically alert you if it detects another user is impersonating your account by using your name and profile photo.” Two other safety features also being tested are “new ways of reporting non-consensual intimate images and a photo checkup feature.”
Google Builds Live-Streaming App Called YouTube Connect: “YouTube Connect has much of the same functionality that you’d already find with Periscope and Facebook Live… There are chat and tagging features and a ‘news feed’ that features the latest clips from your friends or those that you’ve subscribed to on YouTube.”
Twitter Tests New Stickers Feature for Photos: Twitter is “considering a new product it’s calling ‘Stickers’ that would let you add images to photos before tweeting them out.”
Twitter is considering a new stickers feature for photos https://t.co/6w4L8z2ljq by @KurtWagner8 pic.twitter.com/uUFCap2UT3
— Re/code (@Recode) March 22, 2016
Some Interesting Studies to Note:
Discover How Marketing Analytics Increases Business Performance: Google commissioned Forrester Consulting to perform an in-depth survey of 150 marketing, analytics, and information technology executives to understand how they’re measuring business performance and successfully leveraging analytics tools to make the most of their consumer interactions.
Video Insights Report: 2015 Year-in-Review: Viant analyzed thousands of campaigns and tens of billions of video ads served through its ad serving platform in 2015 and found that only 37% of all video ads served in 2015 were both “viewable” and “viewed to completion.” While 30-second ads accounted for 51% of all ads served in 2015, shorter ads appear to have higher completion rates. The report also examined click-through rates, preferred devices for viewing video ads, and video engagement benchmarks by industry.
U.S. Total Retail 2016: PricewaterhouseCoopers compiled national survey data as part of an overall global survey of 23,000 online consumers and found that nearly half of respondents (45%) who had shopped online at least once in the past year say that reading reviews, comments, and feedback on social media influenced their digital shopping behavior. Other social media activities that influence digital shopping behaviors include receiving promotional offerings (44%), viewing ads (30%), staying on top of current fashion and product trends (25%), and purchasing products directly through a social channel (16%).
Emoji Usage in Marketing Messages: Appboy recently analyzed 9,359 marketing campaigns which utilized emojis and found that emoji usage has rapidly increased by 777% year-over-year. So far in 2016, the month-over-month growth of emoji use in marketing messages has been over 20% and increasing.
Job Seeker Nation Survey 2016: A new study from Jobvite found that 48% of those surveyed researched jobs online and 58% used social media to research companies of interest. The study revealed a disconnect between job seekers and employers when it comes to preferred platforms. While employers favor LinkedIn, job seekers prefer using Twitter to research current employees (17%) and Facebook to research brand reputation (21%). The findings also reveal that job seekers are generally savvy when it comes to actively monitoring their privacy settings and what content their social media profiles reveal.
TV and Emotions Study by Starcom, Twitter, and Canvs: Twitter partnered with media agency Starcom and social TV analytics company Canvs to study how TV programming influenced viewers’ emotions and ability to recall commercials, as tracked by tweets. The findings show that viewers who engage on Twitter while watching a program have higher rates of ad recall. While watching shows that “elicit emotional reactions,” viewers are 48% more likely to recall an ad than those who watched programs with lower reaction rate. Also, people who engage on Twitter while watching TV are 62% more likely to recall the brands that advertised during the program over people who were not on Twitter.
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What do you think of Delivery Insights for Facebook Ads? Have you checked out Facebook’s new daily video metrics? Please share your comments below.
