Snapchat beats Instagram in teen popularity stakes
It seems Instagram has long way to go before winning over teens. According to investment firm Piper Jaffray’s annual “Taking Stock With Teens” report, 47 percent of teens said that Snapchat was the app for them, a 35 percent increase on last year. Only 24 percent opted for Instagram, and a very modest nine percent of teens admitted to still loving a bit of Facebook.
Facebook Stories opens to brands
Despite Instagram Stories getting a lot of love, the function hasn’t really taken off on Facebook. The platform is hoping to change this, and is now offering it up to brands by making Stories available for Facebook Pages. Rolling out over the next few months, brands, news agencies, athletes, entertainment figures and non profits will all be able to use Stories to promote themselves or their products and services – Facebook is hoping some big budget video content will give it a much needed boost.
You can now order food on Facebook without leaving the app
Facebook is adding another string to its well-strung bow, announcing that it is teaming up with a host of delivery services that will let you order food for delivery or pick up, straight from the app. The service that’s available with iOS, Android and desktop includes the likes of Five Guys, Papa John’s and Chipotle – all you need to do is click on the Order Food tab in the explore menu and dinner is served.
Facebook lets brands study users’ posts
In a bid to better inform brand marketing decisions on Facebook, the platform is experimenting with letting them study everyone’s behaviour on the site. The beta platform will allow partners and companies to search Facebook’s huge history of posts and see exactly what brands, products and topics are being talked about. Identities are all withheld but this is the first time Facebook has let brands look right into the personalities of their users in order to emulate them.
Snapchat launches Context Cards to make discovery even more fun
If you ever saw something on Snapchat and wanted to know a little bit more about it, then Context Cards are for you. The new feature launched by the platform lets you find out more information about any Snap shared. Whether that’s restaurant reviews, reservations, getting an Uber or contact information. If you’re worried that every single Snap is going to turn into a mini ad, fear not. The Context Cards will only include those Snaps that have been tagged with a venue-specific Geofilter or added to the public ‘Our Story.’
“It’s Happening” right now on Twitter
Twitter is looking to attract newcomers with the release of new feature, “Happening Now”. The function, that aims to collate all the content around a certain subject, might sound (exactly) like Moments but it isn’t – promise. The more visual Moments are a curated selection of tweets that tell a story, while Happening Now takes users to a dedicated timeline of tweets related to the event at hand. Designed to let you experience an event live from the perspective of the audience, it is great for sports and entertainment, and it’s not hashtag dependant, either. Check out the demo below.
Feel the roar of the crowd, no matter where you are.
LinkedIn is finally introducing video ads
Since LinkedIn allowed users to upload videos in August it was but a mere waiting game until video advertising followed in its footsteps. Now the platform has announced that it has been running a beta test for sponsored video content with “a limited number of advertisers.” No surprise, owner Microsoft is one of those advertising. The ads, which are debuting first on mobile, will sit next to regular LinkedIn content as stand-alone posts and will have the same targeting options as other LinkedIn advertising.
Burger King trolls Wendy’s by turning old Twitter posts into ads
Sometimes the competition gives you all you need, especially when it comes to Burger King’s new spicy nuggets promotion. After Wendy’s discontinued their own version of the snack in March, fans were in uproar and took to social to denounce the decision. Burger King has decided to not let those tweets go to waste and so has dug deep into Wendy’s social accounts and paid to promote some months-old complaints. Just to really hammer the point home, the fast food brand also invested in a little not-so-subtle billboards…
