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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
Instagram Introduces Feed Algorithm to Show Best Posts First: The new Instagram algorithm shifts the order of photos and videos in your feed “based on the likelihood you'll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting, and the timeliness of the post.”
Splash Launches Social Sharing Platform for VR: Splash is a new a “Snapchat-like platform for casual sharing in virtual reality” that “allows you to quickly share 360-degree videos of your surroundings that can be viewed on both smartphones and VR headsets like Google Cardboard.” Splash is currently available on iOS only.
Medium Adds Curated Collections: Medium updated its iOS and Android apps with “a brand-new browsable reading experience that integrates your personalized interests with explorable threads of content and diverse viewpoints across different topics.”
Samsung Launches New Social Media Platform, Waffle: Samsung introduced Waffle, “a new content-sharing application” that “enables users to create a new feed of expandable content” and “add to existing related content, as if contributing to a communal graffiti wall.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U8c-7CnYrE
Sprout Social Releases New Social Image Resizing Tool: Landscape by Sprout Social is “a powerful image resizing platform designed to help social media marketers, content creators, and business owners keep up with an increasingly visual social world.”
Our Take on Top News This Week
In this blab from March 18, 2016, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include the new feed algorithm and user decline on Instagram (1:47), Facebook Live Video for Pages (24:50), and the new Splash Virtual Reality app (39:50). Subscribe to future shows here.
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More News to Note
Twitter Is Now Turning on Its New Algorithmic Timeline for Everyone: “The algorithm now appears to be enabled by default across the social network, with users reporting that the company started turning it on across the service as early as March 15.”
Google+ for iOS v5.3.0 Brings 3D Touch Support: “Version 5.3.0 brings support to 3D Touch – whenever you tap and hold on the G+ icon, three Quick Actions will pop up: Create a Poll, Share Photos/Videos, and Create New Post.”
Twitter Makes Twitter for Windows 10 Available on Mobile: Twitter for Windows 10 is now available on mobile and includes new features “that make content discovery, as well as both public and private sharing, more seamless than ever.”
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— Twitter (@twitter) March 16, 2016
Google Rolls Out Google Analytics 360 Suite: The new Google Analytics 360 Suite is “a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers.”
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Facebook Rolls Out Profile Frames Feature: Facebook's new profile frames feature allows you to “show your support for a cause, cheer on your favorite sports team, or celebrate a moment in life.”
Twitter Rolls Out Seamless Login Experience for Twitter Sites and TweetDeck: “Starting today, when you're logged into any Twitter website, like twitter.com or analytics.twitter.com, you'll no longer need to log into TweetDeck separately.”
Upcoming Social Media News Worth Following
Google Announces Upcoming Updates to Mobile Search Results: “Beginning in May, [Google will] start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help [their] users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.”
Facebook Expands Availability of Conversion Lift Measurement and Tests New Advertising Insights: Facebook is “scaling and broadening [its] ad measurement solutions” by expanding conversion lift measurement studies and testing new ads reporting fields.
Google Tests Live Sports Commentary in Search Results: Google is testing the ability to “find commentary from a wide range of players, commentators, and experts right from Search.”
Some Interesting Studies to Note:
2016 State of Digital Marketing Survey Summary Report: A new digital marketing survey from Ascend2 examines the most significant challenges for digital marketing in 2016 and explores how companies plan to overcome them. This report provides insights on the most important goals and significant barriers for marketers, current metrics, and successful tactics.
Why Your Employees' Voices Matter on Social: LinkedIn analyzed company update and employee share data from July 2015 and evaluated over 2,800 active companies with at least 2,000 employees on its network. The data shows that employees get double the average CTR from their shares compared to company shares of the exact same content. While companies of every size benefit when their employees share content, LinkedIn found that the biggest beneficiaries are large enterprise companies with more than 10,000 employees. For companies of this size, the median CTR was over 2.4x higher. Companies with fewer than 10,000 employees still saw a considerable boost with CTRs over 1.8x higher than the original company shares.
Instagram Study 2015: Quintly analyzed Instagram data for the whole of 2015 and identified key insights on how marketers and brands should be leveraging the platform. The study looked at the frequency of posts per day and per type (image or video) on Instagram and the growth of the platform relative to a distinct drop in interaction from 4.96 to 3.10 during the year.
Gen X: America's Most Influential Generation: Yahoo, Audience Theory, and Ipsos surveyed 2,005 U.S. Internet users on their attitudes toward targeted advertising. The research indicates that current ad targeting tactics fall short of reaching audiences of all age levels. Of those surveyed, Millennials are most likely to interact with ads targeted towards them with 37% of respondents saying they would click on ads and 34% saying they are more likely to purchase products from brands that target them. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers are the least likely to interact with targeted ads, with only 17% likely to purchase from brands as a result of targeted ads and only 23% even clicking ads.
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What do you think of the upcoming feed algorithm for Instagram? Have you checked out the curated collections on Medium? Please share your comments below.
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