We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #195
Snapchat founder: ‘It’s weird when brands act like buddies’
As more and more brands look to Snapchat as a way of connecting to their audience, founder Evan Spiegel believes it’s important for them not to act like they’re people.
Speaking from Cannes Lions festival of Creativity, Spiegel said:
The thing that’s different with brands is that brands maintain the same identity and message for a long period of time, but change how they express it. But people change every day, so if you’re building a product for a brand it fundamentally has to be different than for a person. From a more human level we just think it’s weird when brands try to act like your pal. I mean be friendly, but not a buddy.
International Social Media Day – Put it in your diary folks!
It’s nearly time to pay homage to something very close to all of our hearts… In 2010, Mashable launched Social Media Day to celebrate and acknowledge the important role these tools play in our day-to-day lives.
Whilst everyday is Social Media Day for the majority of us, June 30 marks the sixth-annual official global celebration. Get involved by following @MashableEvents on Twitter for #SMDay updates.
Facebook announces significant updates to Ad Manager, Power Editor
Facebook have announced significant updates to its Ads Manager and Power Editor tools to create and manage ads on the social network. The changes are aimed at enabling advertisers to more easily buy, optimise and manage ad campaigns on Facebook. The social network has outlined the changes in a Facebook for Business post, saying:
We want every Facebook advertiser to get incredible value from their ad campaigns, and one way we can help advertisers do that is by offering tools that make ad creation and management simpler. So we revamped both Ads Manager and Power Editor to make it easier to create, optimise and monitor ad campaigns. Starting today we’re rolling out updated versions of both tools with simplified layouts and new features, so advertisers can get more value with less effort on each campaign.
Facebook to order News Feed by time spent on stories
Here’s a sentence I type a lot: Facebook is making changes to its News Feed. This time, it’s based on how long you spend reading a post compared to others. The more time you spend, the higher up similar stories will appear. Here’s the thinking, according to Facebook software engineer, Ansha Yu:
We’ve discovered that if people spend significantly more time on a particular story in News Feed than the majority of other stories they look at, this is a good sign that content was relevant to them
Facebook Moments looks to unearth phone photos
Facebook has released a new app, called ‘Moments’, for iOS and Android, which helps you organise the hundreds of photos you’ve left on your phone. Using face recognition technology, Moments scans your phone for any images that feature your friends and allows you to sync these to the relevant people with a couple of taps. Nobody’s tagged me in anything yet, but that’s totally cool. I’ve got loads of friends. It’s only a matter of time.
Brands are getting more social engagement than ever
People are engaging with branded content more now than ever before. Analysis of over 100,000 brands by social analytics firm, Shareablee, found that engagement with branded content in the US rose 52% between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015. The study, which took into account Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, concluded that this increase owes more to the number of interactions per post than it does to the total volume of content.
Social customer service is still below par
Research from Socialbakers that came out last week has found that four in five questions to US companies on Twitter go unanswered. Tut tut. Facebook fared better in that study, with 60% getting a response, but that was contradicted by a study from Locowise. The company found that 87% of Facebook posts on brand pages went unanswered. Even louder tut.
Twitter now autoplays videos and GIFs
Autoplay video is an increasingly common phenomenon in social, so it’s no surprise that Twitter has got in on the act. Both GIFs and videos will now autoplay on the network – for the latter, you enable sound by clicking on the clip. It’s good news for brands, especially as the network has announced a 100% viewability rule for ads, meaning that you only pay for a video ad if it’s 100% in view of the user.
Twitter adds product pages and celebrity collections
Twitter is looking to get more shoppable and has added product pages to support its Buy button. Each one includes multiple tweets, product information and the button itself, as you can see in the below example. The network has enlisted the help of celebrities to promote the move, with ‘collections’ of product pages from the likes of Demi Lovato, LeBron James and the Captain of the USS Enterprise himself, William Shatner.
Twitter ready for revamp with Project Lightning
Twitter has revealed its plans for the future to Buzzfeed, which involve complete renovation of the platform. ‘Project Lightning’, as it’s been named, is Twitter’s attempt at event-based curation. A revamped Twitter will feature a set of pages about current events, each of which will include instant-load photos and videos, curated by a dedicated editorial team. The content can then be embedded on pages across the web.
Wired has published a piece about what this might mean for Twitter, focussing on the platform’s key function: helping people find out what’s happening. The move could make the network more user-friendly and accessible, allowing it to better fulfil that purpose to a whole host of new users.
Snapchat tests branded geofilters
Snapchat is turning its geofilters into an ad unit. McDonald’s is the first brand to test the feature, paying the network to include a branded geofilter, which Snapchatters can add to images taken in any US McDonald’s outlet.
Pinterest updates search and adds verified users
Pinterest has updated its search feature, making it easier to locate individual users and boards. Pinners and boards are now shown separately from topics, while the new ‘verified users’ feature adds a red tick next to such accounts.
LinkedIn tests Groups, LookUp and new messages
LinkedIn is testing three new features: Groups, LookUp and a messaging overhaul. The first two are apps; Groups will alert users when messages are posted to groups they belong to, LookUp will allow them to more easily find their coworkers. As for messaging, the network is looking to streamline messages for easier communication on all devices. It’s not yet clear when any of these features will become available, or indeed if all of them will.
Drumstick sponsors Periscope streams for Summer Solstice
Nestle’s Drumstick, an ice cream brand, ran the first ever sponsored Periscope streams, in line with the Summer Solstice. A number of influencers posted streams on their own channels, including the hashtag #ad, which were supported by promoted tweets from Drumstick.