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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 Opens API to Desktop Apps, Drones and Cameras: The Facebook Live API allows “developers and publishers to join forces to build immersive and interactive live video experiences on Facebook.” See an example of a Live show broadcast, here.
Facebook Challenges Freebooting with Rights Manager: Facebook launched Rights Manager, “a set of admin and workflow tools that help publishers and creators manage and protect their video content on Facebook at scale.”
Facebook Opens Instant Articles to All Publishers: Facebook is “officially opening the Instant Articles program to all publishers – of any type, any size, anywhere in the world.”
Facebook Rolls Out Cross-Posted Videos and Total Performance Insights: Facebook rolled out “a new way for publishers to easily cross-post videos within and across Pages owned by the same Business Manager” and “total performance insights for [cross-posted] videos.”
Facebook Introduces Updated Save Button for the Web, Quote Sharing and More: Facebook rolled out a number of “new ways for people to share, along with new tools to measure those interactions so you can optimize sharing and increase growth.”
Google+ Rolls Out Updated Content Controls for Communities: The roll out adds more protection to communities “with stronger content filters & controls.” “When this setting is on, Google+'s content filter is more likely to flag posts that are questionable, so fewer of them will show up in your Community.”
Our Take on Top News This Week
The Morning Social Media Marketing Talk with Michael Stelzner is taking a break for Social Media Marketing World and will return on Friday, April 22, 2016. Subscribe to future shows here.
More News to Note
Facebook Introduces Video Chat Heads for Messenger: “With Video Chat Heads, you can talk to your friends from a smaller chat head instead of using your full phone screen.”
Facebook Messenger Integrates Dropbox File Sharing Feature: Dropbox announced a new feature that “makes it easier to share photos, videos and other files in Facebook Messenger.”
Facebook Introduces Surround 360 and 360 Publisher Tools: Facebook released “a suite of new tools and resources to support the growing Facebook 360 community.”
Vine Adds Watch Button: The latest Vine update features a new Watch button “that lets you kick back and see the story of a channel as Vines automatically play back to back.”
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Instagram Rolls Out Video Channels in Explore: “As people share more videos than ever before, [Instagram is] making it easier to discover the ones you’ll love” with video channels in Explore.
Reddit Introduces Official Mobile Apps for iOS and Android: Reddit introduced “two apps… in the US, UK, Canada and Australia: Reddit for iPhone and Reddit for Android.”
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Twitter Embeds SoundCloud Audio Cards in Moments: Twitter Moments users “can now share entire playlists or any other audio content with SoundCloud's audio cards embedded right into the Tweet.”
Hear that? Turn up the volume for @Stereogum‘s favorite new music, powered by @SoundCloud 🎧 https://t.co/JVtZHMyZ4A
— Twitter (@twitter) April 12, 2016
Snapchat Adds 3D Stickers: “Snapchat revealed its new 3D stickers that can be pinned to objects in a video and stick with them no matter how they or your camera move.” This update is available now on Android and is coming soon to iOS.
Upcoming Social Media News Worth Following
Facebook Outlines 10-Year Roadmap in F8 Conference Keynote: “Mark Zuckerberg kicked the conference off with a keynote detailing Facebook's 10-year technology roadmap, and the ways those technologies will help bring people together and give everyone a voice.”
Facebook Tests More Video Options for Profile Photos: Facebook is beta testing a Profile Expression Kit, which “lets people share videos they make in third-party apps directly into the Facebook profile video flow,” with a select group of third-party partners.
Facebook Launches Messenger Platform (Beta): Facebook Messenger Platform (Beta) which features “bots for the Messenger Platform” and the “messenger Send / Receive API.”
Twitter Testing New Design for Android: The design makes it easier to access the main feed, Moments, notifications, and direct messages from “large tabs across the top of the screen”, and opens up other features such as Highlights and settings “in a friendlier way.”
Ticketmaster and Eventbrite Will Start Selling Tickets Through Facebook: “Facebook confirms Ticketmaster “will begin to sell tickets through Facebook by the end of April.” Eventbrite is “also set to pilot selling tickets directly through Facebook.”
Periscope Tests Doodle Feature in Beta Version: “The current beta version of Twitter's video streaming app Periscope includes a feature that lets you draw over the top of your own live feeds.”
LIVE on #Periscope: Testing the new doodle feature on Periscope beta https://t.co/jgfjJOMvrg
— Matt Navarra ⭐️ (@MattNavarra) April 11, 2016
Some Interesting Studies to Note:
The 2016 Digital Marketer: According to a new report from Experian Marketing Services, the top three challenge faced by digital marketers around the world today include: knowing customers' needs, wants and attitudes (38%), increasing their visibility over competitors (35%) and staying ahead of marketing trends (33%). This report also provides expert insights on how to overcome these challenges using real-world client examples of tactics and results.
B2B vs B2C Content Lessons: HubSpot and BuzzSumo analyzed 175,000 articles published with the Hubspot platform and compared which topics convert at the highest rate across the major social media platforms. The report also provides examples of best performing posts on each network, compares B2B and B2C content and offers tips on how to make your content more shareable.
50 Channel Marketers to Connect With on Social Media: Leadtail and Elastic Grid partnered to uncover insights on how channel marketers connect on and utilize social media. This report explores what topics engage modern channel marketers, which publications are shared the most by channel marketers and how real-world channel marketers are using Twitter.
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What do you think of the new Facebook Live API? Have you applied for access to the Facebook Rights Manager? Please share your comments below.
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