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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
Meerkat Cameo Allows Users to Take Over Streams: “Broadcasters can now invite viewers to take over their stream for up to sixty seconds.”
Cameo is “a simple yet powerful way to create a deeper human connection with people — going from ‘broadcasting to' towards ‘broadcasting with.'
Facebook Updates News Feed Controls: Facebook introduced “even better tools for you to actively shape and improve the experience” of managing your news feed preferences.
Facebook Updates How Cost per Click Is Measured: As part of its latest API release, Facebook is “updating the definition of cost per click (CPC) … to only include clicks to websites and apps, and not likes, shares and comments.”
Twitter Introduces Twitter Ads Companion: The new Twitter Ads Companion is “making it easier for advertisers to manage them from anywhere, at any time.” It is available to “all advertisers globally through the Twitter app on iOS or Android devices.”
More social media news worth noting:
Vimeo Improves Site Navigation: Vimeo has been “working hard to ensure that navigating the Vimeo website is as easy and intuitive as possible.”
Facebook Tests Floating Videos: The new Facebook button “allows video to be popped out from the News Feed so you can keep watching as you scroll.”
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Here's a cool social media tool worth checking out:
Workato: Similar to IFTTT, this tool automates your workflow and sets up recipes for up to three applications at once, including your social networks.
Weekly Video Tip:
How to Enable Reviews and Star Ratings on Your Local Business Facebook Page
Some Interesting Studies to Note:
Social Media Demographics 2015: The BI Intelligence team published a demographics report on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and the other top networks. The key takeaways include: overall social networking adoption in the U.S. and globally, demographic trends for each platform and the current increased growth and popularity of image sharing networks like Instagram and Snapchat.
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GET THE DETAILSMultichannel Social Use Is on the Rise: A recent study from Yesmail Interactive tracked and analyzed leading retailers' social campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Google+. The data shows that apparel brands are the “most socially connected” with 86% present on four or more tracked channels and 60% present on all five. Conversely, only 40% of electronics brands had a presence on four or more social channels. Facebook (98%) and Twitter (91%) dominated in terms of adoption by retailers, but follower growth rates for both sites have slowed down significantly. Meanwhile, Instagram boasts a 237% average follower growth rate.
Nearly 8% of Instagram Accounts Are Fake: According to a study of over 10 million Instagram accounts by a group of Italian security researchers, up to 8% of Instagram accounts are fake spam bots and almost 30% of users are virtually “inactive” (posting only one or fewer photos or videos per month). The research also looks at how spam bots behave and bypass Instagram's filters.
Google Now Indexing 466% More Tweets: A new report from Stone Temple Consulting shows that Google is now indexing 466% more tweets since February 2015, which is when Google initially gained access to Twitter data. However, more than 96% of tweets are being left out of Google's index due to the search engine's major bias toward accounts with a “high follower count” and higher “social authority.” The report findings show a correlation between accounts with higher engagement levels and overall “authority” and likelihood of being indexed by Google.
When to Post on Social Networks: A new Klout study reveals “personalized” user schedules have maximum reach on social networks. Looking at over 144 million posts and more than 1.1 billion reactions (likes, comments, retweets, etc.), the research found that a generalized schedule based on regional averages has limited effectiveness and is not likely to engage your followers in different locations around the world. The study also compared peak engagement throughout the day and week, average reaction trends and other posting data.
What do you think? Have you tried Meerkat Cameo? Please share your comments below.
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