Google Reshapes Google+: This Week in Social Media

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

Google Rolls Out a New Google+: Google introduced “a fully redesigned Google+ that puts Communities and Collections front and center.”

Tumblr Simplifies GIF Creation on iOS: Tumblr announced that “any video (or burst!) on your iOS device can be GIFFed, edited, and posted using the Tumblr app.” This functionality will be coming soon to Android.

Vine Introduces New Remix, Remake and Collaboration Features: “You now have the power to reinterpret, collaborate or remix with audio from any Vine on the network.” Vine also introduced a new discovery feature that allows you to “find Vines that use the same audio clip or song.”

YouTube Releases New Translation Features: YouTube introduced a new set of translation features “designed to help creators make their content more accessible and understandable to an international audience.”

Blab Rolls Out Show Cards for the Web: Show cards on Blab are “finally here.” They are currently only available for new blabs and only on the web, but are coming soon to Blab replays, on iOS and in tweets.

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Our Take on Top News This Week

In this blab from November 19, 2015, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include Facebook allowing Google to index its mobile app (at 2:00), the newly redesigned Google+ (at 18:38), 360-degree video on Facebook Mobile (at 33:39) and the beta test of Facebook’s Personal Digital Assistant in Messenger (at 44:24). Subscribe to future shows here.

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More social media news to note

Instagram Limits Access From Third-Party Apps: Instagram announced “several platform changes to improve people’s control over their content and set up a more sustainable environment built around authentic experiences on the platform,” including a new review process for third-party apps starting December 3, 2015.

Facebook Mobile App Opens to Google Search: Facebook is “allowing Google to crawl and index its mobile app,” which means mobile search results from Google “will display some content from Facebook’s app, including public profile information.” The results “appear as ‘deep links’ that will take users to the relevant part of the Facebook app.”

YouTube Offers Legal Protection for Fair Use: For select video creators facing wrongful DMCA takedowns, “YouTube will now protect some of the best examples of fair use on YouTube by agreeing to defend them in court if necessary.”

Facebook Launches Instant Articles in India: “Facebook is bringing Instant Articles, which launched back in May on iPhone in the U.S. and Western Europe, to Android devices in India.” The five publications included in the India launch are India Today, The Quint, Aaj Tak, Hindustan Times and The Indian Express. More will be added early next year.

Other upcoming social media news worth following

Facebook Introduces New Tools for Nonprofits: Facebook is “testing fundraisers — a new tool — and improving [the] Donate button, to allow people to donate to charities without leaving Facebook.” Facebook is testing this experience with a limited number of partners and is “committed to expanding these tools to as many organizations as possible in the future.”

Facebook Messenger Tests Disappearing Messages: “Facebook is testing a disappearing message option within its Messenger app in France, giving users the option to have their messages self-destruct one hour after sending them.” This is a limited test for now, but Facebook “may roll it out further in time.”

Some cool social media tools worth checking out

Bitly Campaigns: This new Bitly product lets you build a dashboard to display the performance of every Bitlink you use.

Social Media Calendar by Buffer: This new social media management tool allows you to plan and manage events on your calendar from within your Buffer account.

BuzzSumo Chrome Extension: This new extension for the Google Chrome browser shows social share data for any web page. This includes Twitter shares, which are no longer available through the official Twitter API.

Some Interesting Studies to Note:

2015 State of Sponsored Social: A new study from Izea conducted in partnership with Halverson Group and The Right Brain Consumer Consulting shows that 52% of companies now have a stand-alone sponsored social budget and find sponsored social to be one of the top three most effective marketing investments they make. The study also examined consumer sentiment towards sponsored social media content. Social media users are noticing more sponsored content in their social feeds and perceive them to be equally or more effective than TV commercials.

Who Should Manage Corporate Social Media?: When asked who should be responsible for corporate social media activities, more than half (51%) of advertising and marketing executives surveyed by staffing firm The Creative Group answered public relations/communications department. This figure is up from 39% in a similar study conducted in 2013. The other departments considered were marketing (28%), customer service (9%) or the CEO/owner (5%). Because of the many different activities encompassed within social media, the executive director of The Creative Group suggests that it’s often beneficial for multiple departments to work closely together to leverage strengths and encourage ongoing collaboration.

Top 16 Mobile Brands on Facebook and Twitter: This new case study from Talkwalker analyzed around 3 million Facebook and Twitter posts from 16 leading mobile brands across the world to find out which mobile operators are best at engaging with their customers on social and what can we learn from them. The key finding shows that the most reactive mobile brands on Facebook achieved a 90-100% reply rate, bad customer service offline increased negative mentions online and humor is a valuable asset for boosting positive brand perception on social media.

What Is the Future of Data Sharing? Consumer Mindsets and the Power of Brands: The Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School, in conjunction with the Aimia Institute, surveyed 8,000 people in five countries (U.S., Canada, UK, France and India) on their attitudes and behaviors towards personal data sharing and privacy. The report examines customer attitudes towards specific types of personal data (e.g., sharing their name versus their purchase history), sharing data with different industries (e.g., retail versus telecommunications companies) and how a trusted relationship with a brand might affect a person’s willingness to share their personal data.

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What do you think of the newly redesigned Google+? Have you tried using Google+ since the relaunch? Please share your comments below.