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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
Snapchat Now Serves 10 Billion Daily Video Views: “Now users are watching 10 billion videos a day on the application, up from 8 billion in February.”
YouTube Introduces 6-Second Bumper Ads That Can't Be Skipped: YouTube launched Bumper ads, “a new six-second video format… [that is] ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency, especially on mobile, where ‘snackable videos' perform well.” Here's an example of a bumper ad from an early tester, Atlantic Records:
Periscope Adds New Audience Stats: Periscope added improved “viewer and watch time statistics to all broadcasts” and the ability to “see a graph of your viewers over time to find your broadcast's moments with the most reach.” The feature is currently only available for iOS.
Dig deeper into your broadcasts with a live viewer graph and improved stats on iOS! 📈👌 pic.twitter.com/WDABAn2lLW
— Periscope (@periscopeco) April 27, 2016
Pinterest Launches Featured Collections to Global Audience: Pinterest's new featured collections are “curated collections of trending topics localized to the UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Japan.” More countries and languages will be added in the next few months.
⚡️🎥🎨🌟 Sketch while you Scope – now available on iOS! pic.twitter.com/k5JgViBnkO
— Periscope (@periscopeco) April 27, 2016
Our Take on Top News This Week
In this blab from Friday, April 29, 2016, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include Facebook news feed insights (1.42); Facebook Developers updates for sharing, engaging, and measuring on Facebook (17:30); and Google Play's official welcome of podcasts (28:55). Subscribe to future shows here.
Facebook news feed link mentioned by Mike.
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More News to Note
Facebook Recognizes Small Business Week With In-Person and Online Events : Facebook is “looking forward to meeting small businesses from around the country and offering tools, resources and networking opportunities to help grow their businesses” with Facebook and Instagram marketing.
YouTube Updates Content Recommendation System for Mobile: YouTube rolled out a “smarter machine learning engine on its iOS and Android mobile apps, allowing it to serve up better recommendations for viewers.”
Google Hangouts for iOS Gets New Features: Google Hangouts for iOS now features a share extension that “allows you to directly share photos or links to friends via Hangout without ever having to open the app” and a low-power mode that “automatically shuts off video streams when your iPhone battery capacity dips below 20 percent.”
Facebook Introduces Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram Apps for Windows 10: Facebook announced the rollout of “Windows 10 Apps for Facebook and Messenger on desktop and Instagram on mobile.”
Periscope Adds Autoplay Feature to Twitter for Android: “Periscope live streams will now autoplay on Twitter timelines on Android.” This feature was made available to Twitter users on iOS earlier this year.
💙⚡️🎥🐥 Now playing in your Twitter timeline on Android: Live Periscopes! pic.twitter.com/VgqdyTmRnZ
— Periscope (@periscopeco) April 25, 2016
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Google Analytics Encrypts All Web Traffic: Amid growing privacy concerns, Google announced it will be “securing all traffic communication of websites using Google Analytics, whether the sites are using HTTPS or not” and there is “no way to opt out of the HTTPS encryption.”
Twitter Adds Ability to Attach Multiple Tweets to a Single Abuse Report: “This update makes it easier for you to provide [Twitter] with more information about the extent of abuse and reduces the time it takes to do so. That added context often helps [them] investigate issues and get them resolved faster.”
Report abuse on Twitter more easily than ever. Find out how to protect yourself and others.https://t.co/1MEfTzkfFL
— Safety (@safety) April 25, 2016
Google Photos Rolls Out New Search Feature: “Rolling out now, the latest Google Photos update helps you find your photos faster with a new search bar.”
Upcoming Social Media News Worth Following
Facebook Releases Quarterly Results and Announces Proposed Changes to Company Structure: Mark Zuckerberg shared his plans for “investing in areas like spreading connectivity, building artificial intelligence and developing virtual and augmented reality” and continued commitment to humanitarian efforts, as well as a “proposal to create a new class of stock that will allow [Facebook] to achieve both goals.”
YouTube Working to Improve Monetization During Content ID Disputes: YouTube is currently “developing a new solution that will allow videos to earn revenue while a Content ID claim is being disputed” and plans “to roll it out to all YouTube partners in the coming months.”
Facebook Developing Stand-alone Camera App: “The unnamed app reportedly launches on the camera – like Snapchat – and will reportedly integrate with Instagram and other Facebook-owned apps. It will also allow users to share live streamed video back to Facebook.”
Google Publishes Annual Founder's Letter: The Google founders and CEO share “a good personal overview” of the company's “recent highlights” and their “vision for the future.”
Some Interesting Studies to Note:
Discover How Marketing Analytics Increases Business Performance: A new study commissioned by Google from Forrester Consulting uncovers how successful organizations are leveraging marketing analytics tools to develop relevant customer experiences and make the most of their customer interactions. The key findings reveal that access to well-established metrics tied directly to business objectives and the right mix of analytics tools are critical to marketing success.
The Global Authentic 100: Cohn & Wolfe compiled a list of the highest-ranking brands in the world in terms of perceived authenticity based on a survey of more than 12,000 consumers in 14 markets on more than 1,600 brands. Respondents rated each brand against seven key attributes of authenticity. The findings suggest that authenticity matters greatly to customers. Of those surveyed, only 22% agree that brands and companies, in general, are open and honest. However, 88% are willing to reward authentic brands with recommendations (52%), loyalty (49%), and value (48%). A brand's authenticity also attracts 1 in 5 consumers to work for or invest in the company.
Bazaarvoice CGC Index : According to a new report from Bazaarvoice, consumer-generated content (CGC) is a major driver of sales and product engagement on ecommerce sites and social media. The report shows that 57% of retailers and 61% of brands currently integrate CGC into their social media efforts and campaigns. Also, the use of visual content in marketing is increasing. The Bazaarvoice Curations tool processed 4.7 times more photos and 4.5 times more videos on product sites and social media in 2015 than in 2014.The findings also report that revenues increased by 106% on retail sites and 75% on brand sites when customers were exposed to some element of CGC prior to their purchase.
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Have you watched video on Snapchat? What do you think of the new 6-second mobile ads on YouTube? Please share your comments below.
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