Snapchat launches Promoted Stories with HBO Black Friday campaign HBO became the first brand to utilise Snapchat’s new Promoted Stories feature on Black Friday, with a Story containing a simple message telling Black Friday shoppers to stay home and watch Game of Thrones instead. Previously, advertisers could only buy short, interruptive video ads inside stories, but the new “Promoted Story” feature means they are now able to reach everyone in a given country with a single promotion. Of course, the new Stories are still labeled as an ad.
BMW launches ‘try-before-you-buy’ with Snapchat AR Lens
As part of its efforts to promote the new X2 model, BMW has become the first brand to utilise Snapchat’s new AR Lens – allowing users to visualise how the car will look in the real world before purchase. The tool aims to enrich BMW’s digital user experience, by allowing users to customise the AR car – changing the colour and viewing it from different angles – to give them the full experience of seeing their dream car on the driveway, before shelling out for the real thing.
Instagram allows users to request to join friends’ Live videos
Instagram users watching a friend’s Live video now have the option to tap the ‘Request’ button in the comment section to ask to join in the live stream. Once accepted, the new feature will split the screen in half to make it easy for users to hang out in real time. Hosts will also be able to invite friends to join in the conversation, as well as having the option to share the finished video to their Stories.
Facebook tests Instagram-style ‘Collections’ feature for saved posts Facebook is trialling a new extension to its saved items feature, called Collections. Similar to Instagram’s feature by the same name, Collections will allow users to organise their saved items from the News Feed into folders – making it easier to view posts or videos they wish to revisit at a later date. The feature is currently only available to a small number of users – it’s hoped that it will prove useful for those who interact with plenty of groups and shop through the social network. The platform is also testing a browser extension of the feature that will allow users to save pages from anywhere on the web to return to later.
Twitter trials new ‘talking about’ feature, replacing retweets and replies
Twitter is experimenting with a new feature to replace both the retweet and replies totals into one cumulative total, that will show how many people are “talking about” popular tweets. The new metric will show up under some embedded tweets when the content appears somewhere else on the web, and is part of the network’s ongoing process to simplify social context around engagement.
