We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #377
In its latest wave of updates, Facebook has killed off its Messenger Day brand to merge the chat app’s Stories feature with Facebook Stories. Now, Stories shared by users will appear in both apps, and viewing will be synced, so users won’t see a Story as unviewed in one app if they’ve already watched it in the other.
The platform is also allowing users of Facebook Groups and Events to contribute to a collective Facebook Story, visible to the rest of the members and moderated by the admins. These collaborative Stories will work like a private hashtag, so multiple people can add content around a particular event (such as a festival or a wedding) but only those involved can see it. Neither of these updates will go down well with poor old Snapchat, which has been suffering in recent months as Facebook runs a steamroller through its USPs.
Facebook launches new Creator app for influencers
Facebook is trying to win over the influencer crowd with an app built just for them. Its latest app, Creator, will give internet stars a place to create and edit videos, film live, message with followers, and track stats about their videos. The app also connects to Watch, for those influencers with an official show on the social network.
Facebook launches dynamic and lead ads for automotive brands
In recent months, Facebook has crafted ad products for specific industries such as travel and real estate, and now automotive brands can get in on the action. The new dynamic ads will allow manufacturers and dealers to upload new and used vehicle inventory, complete with details including make, model, year and mileage; then Facebook will automatically generate ads that show the most compelling vehicles to the right audiences.
Instagram celebrates the holiday season with Thanksgiving stickers
Instagram is marking Thanksgiving with a new set of stickers, helping US users add a little extra creativity to their posts throughout the holidays – with everything from expressive turkeys and decorative grounds to a pumpkin spice latte.
Snapchat updates give advertisers a more targeted approach
Brands can now target specific audiences on Snapchat based on their age, gender, interests and even the time of day. It’s hoped that the new audience filters will be significantly more useful to advertisers than geofilters, which only enable them to reach users in specific locations.
Snapchat advertisers can now also add Context Cards to Lenses and Filters for free, providing users more information and allowing advertisers to directly track their ROI. This will be supported by the fact that, for the first time ever, users will now be able to swipe up on any snap that includes a Sponsored Lens or Filter to open up the linked website URL, without leaving the platform. In the past, advertisers could only use Sponsored Lenses and Filters to track engagement, but now they will be able to quantify whether those Filters and Lenses actually drove an action.
Twitter extends display names to 50 characters
Twitter has followed its recent expansion to 280 characters by upping another character limit. The social network will now allow users’ display names to run up to 50 characters in length, however user names will still be limited to 15 characters.