• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Social Media Examiner

Your Guide to the Marketing Jungle

  • 🔥 Free Newsletter
  • 🎙️ Podcasts
    • Social Media Marketing Podcast
    • AI Explored Podcast
    • Social Media Marketing Talk Show
    • Our YouTube Channel
  • 🌟 AI Society
  • 🗓️ Marketing Conference
  • 👋 About Us
    • Marketing Events
  • Search
  • Embrace AI & MarketingGet Ongoing Training & SupportBEGIN YOUR JOURNEY NOW

    Facebook Takes on Yelp With New Service: This Week in Social Media

    by Grace Duffy / December 19, 2015

    social media researchWelcome 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 Tests New Professional Services Feature: Facebook is “in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they’re interested in.” Test the feature here.

    facebook professional services
    “Results are likely customized for users depending on their previous interactions with a business’s Page or whether someone they are connected with has reviewed a business on Facebook.”

    Facebook Rolls Out Improved Video Publishing Tools: Facebook introduced “two new tools for embedding public videos and posts from Facebook: a new embedded video player API and support for the oEmbed standard.” Example here.

    Posted by Facebook Developers on Friday, December 11, 2015

    Facebook Introduces Live for Verified Pages: Facebook is “beginning to roll out the ability for verified Pages to share live video using Facebook for iOS.”

     alt=
    “People who like your Page can discover your live videos in News Feed and through notifications on Facebook [and] tap the Subscribe button to get notified the next time your Page goes live.”
    LinkedIn Offers New Insights on Job Postings: LinkedIn helps job-seekers with “new insights on LinkedIn job postings” such as your connections at the company, its history of hiring people like you and current employees with similar roles as the posted job.

    linkedin job posting insights
    LinkedIn is “showing your connections to a company front and center on job postings.”

    Facebook Launches Instant Articles to Facebook for Android: “Everyone who uses the Facebook for Android app can now read thousands of Instant Articles every day in News Feed from publishers worldwide.”

    facebook instant articles on andorid
    “More than 350 publications around the world have already joined the Instant Articles program to date, and more than 100 are already publishing daily — with more joining each day.”

    Pinterest Narrows Support to Retail and Consumer Goods Ad Buyers: Pinterest is “focusing more on attracting dollars from retailers and consumer packaged-goods companies while de-emphasizing other marketing categories.”

    Our Take on Top News This Week

    In this blab from December 18, 2015, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include Facebook Live and new features debuted this week (2:11), enhanced tools for embedding Facebook video (16:20), the new Professional Services feature being tested by Facebook (29:09) and changes to Pinterest's advertising focus (42:29). Subscribe to future shows here.


    .

    The Social Media Marketing Tools Show

    In this episode, tech and tools expert Steve Dotto explores How to Track Trending Topics and Influencers with BuzzSumo.

    AI Business Society

    Ready to Unlock AI Marketing Breakthroughs?

    If you’re like most of us, you are trying to figure out how to use AI in your marketing. Here's the solution: The AI Business Society—a new AI marketing community from your friends at Social Media Examiner.

    The AI Business Society is the place to discover how to apply AI in your work. When you join, you'll boost your productivity, unlock your creativity, and make connections with other marketers on a similar journey.

    I'M READY TO BECOME AN AI-POWERED MARKETER

    Simplify your social and build your business in just 10 minutes a week by subscribing to future shows here.

    Other cool social media tools worth checking out

    SocialRank for Teams: This new SocialRank feature allows you to manage your Twitter and Instagram audience as a team with unique email login and permissions for each member of your team.

    social rank for teams
    “SocialRank for Teams was made to make managing your audience on Twitter and Instagram easier.”

    Wipster: This new video review and approval platform allows producers, content creators and media teams to collaborate simply, quickly and elegantly to produce video content.

    Is it magic?

    Posted by Wipster on Thursday, September 25, 2014

    Discover Proven Marketing Strategies and Tips

    Want to go even deeper with your marketing? Check out the Social Media Marketing Podcast! Publishing weekly since 2012, the Social Media Marketing Podcast helps you navigate the constantly changing marketing jungle, with expert interviews from marketing pros.

    But don’t let the name fool you. This show is about a lot more than just social media marketing. With over 600 episodes and millions of downloads each year, this show has been a trusted source for marketers for well over a decade.

    CHECK OUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PODCAST NOW

    More News to Note

    Facebook Introduces Transportation on Messenger: Facebook and Uber have partnered to test a new Messenger feature that allows users to “request a ride from a car service without ever needing to download an extra app or leave a conversation.”


    .

    Facebook Messenger Rolls Out Photo Magic and New Ways to Customize Conversations: “Messenger is rolling out some new features to make it easy for you to surprise and delight those you love.”

     alt=
    “By recognizing your Facebook friends in the photos you take… Messenger can create a group thread for you to share the photos with those friends in just two taps.”

    Facebook Amends Real Name Policy: Facebook is testing new tools that “reduce the number of people who are asked to verify their name on Facebook when they are already using the name people know them by [and] make it easier for people to confirm their name if necessary.”

    facebook real name policy
    Facebook is testing a “new way for people to describe their special circumstance when verifying their name.”

    Pinterest Adds New Price Tracking Tool on Buyable Pins: Pinterest introduced “a new tool that helps Pinterest users monitor price drops on products they’ve pinned.”

    Apple Closes Topsy: “Topsy, the Twitter and general social media analytics service quietly bought by Apple for more than $200 million two years ago, closed its doors today.”

    We've searched our last tweet.

    — Topsy (@Topsy) December 16, 2015

    Upcoming Social Media News Worth Following

    Facebook Discontinues Photo Syncing:  Starting January 10, 2016, Facebook will “discontinue support for photo syncing, and is instead asking users to download the Moments app through a pop-up notification that appears at the top of the News Feed.”

    YouTube Disables Webcam Feature: Google will disable the ability to record a video from your computer webcam and upload it directly to YouTube on January 16, 2016, because this feature “is rarely used and is built on technology that is no longer supported.”

    Some Interesting Studies

    Cross-Channel Planning: Making Search Work Harder: Facebook Marketing Science conducted a meta-analysis of 23 conversion lift studies based on U.S. campaigns that ran from July through September 2015. The studies represented a wide variety of verticals including ecommerce, retail, automotive, travel, finance, education, technology and telecommunications. The findings report that nearly one-quarter of the campaign studies showed statistically significant gains in search referral as a direct result of Facebook paid media exposure traffic. The average lift in search traffic was 6.3% for mobile and 0.9% for desktop.

    Gartner 2015-2016 Chief Marketing Officer Spend Survey: Gartner surveyed more than 330 U.S. and UK organizations on their 2015 marketing budgets and 2016 expectations. Almost two-thirds of respondents say that social media marketing (65%) and digital commerce (64%) are leading technology investment priorities for them. Sixty-one percent of marketers also see marketing analytics as an investment priority, followed by technology for improving customer experience (56%) and advertising operations (54%).

    Pinterest Interaction Study Q3 2015: A new report from Quintly analyzed 3Q 2015 data from 220 Pinterest brand accounts to determine the most repinned content types. Thirty-five percent of all repins examined for this study were recipes, yet recipes only make up 9% of total pins. The second most popular repinned content is products (19%), followed by articles (16%). The report shows recipes receive 62 repins on average in 3Q 2015, compared with only 33 repins on average for products and 29 for articles within the same period.

    Don't Miss Our Conference

    Join 3,000 fellow marketers at the mega-conference designed to inspire and empower you with social media marketing ideas: Social Media Marketing World, brought to you by Social Media Examiner.

    social media marketing world 2016You’ll rub shoulders with the biggest names and brands in social media, soak up countless tips and new strategies and enjoy extensive networking opportunities in San Diego, California.

    Discover the newest and best ways to market your business with expert-led sessions and workshops covering social tactics, social strategy, content marketing, measurement, corporate social and social customer service.

    Click here to see what all the buzz is about.

    What do you think of Facebook's new local business search and reviews? Have you tried searching for a local business? Please share your comments below.

    social media examiner weekly news december 19 2015
    Facebook Takes on Yelp With New Service and other social media news for December 19, 2015.

    AI EXPLORED

    Curious About How to Use AI?

    Our newest show, AI Explored, might be just what you're looking for. It's for marketers, creators, and entrepreneurs who want to understand how to use AI in their business.

    It's hosted by Michael Stelzner and explores this exciting new frontier in easy-to-understand terms.

    Pull up your favorite podcast app and search for AI Explored. Or click the button below for more information.

    I WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT AI

    Tags: News, Social Media Marketing Talk Show

    About the authorGrace Duffy

    Grace Duffy, serves on the Editorial Staff at Social Media Examiner as News Producer. She is a social media strategist, marketer and content creator with a passion for connecting people through technology.
    Other posts by Grace Duffy »

    Get Social Media Examiner’s Future Articles in Your Inbox!

    Get our latest articles delivered to your email inbox and get the FREE Social Media Marketing Industry Report (43 pages, 60+ charts)!

    Industry Report Cover

    Worth Exploring:

    Facebook

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Instagram

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    YouTube

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Linkedin

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    AI

    Next Frontier Explore More →

    Social Media Marketing Industry Report

    Get Free Report →

    Social Marketing Trends

    The data you've been missing!

    Need a new plan? Discover how marketers plan to change their social activities in the 16th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. It reveals what marketers have planned for their social activities, content marketing, and more! Get this free report now and never miss another great article from us. Join more than 385,000 marketers!

    Simply click the button below to get the free report:

    Footer

    Your Guide to the Marketing Jungle
    Copyright © 2025 Social Media Examiner®
    All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy.

    Helpful Links

    • About us
    • Our content via email
    • Our podcasts
    • Our YouTube channel
    • Our live show
    • Our social media marketing industry report
    • Our generative AI marketing industry report
    • Sponsorship opportunities
    • RSS