Twitter’s share of US social network users is dropping eMarketer has significantly downgraded its projections for Twitter, placing it behind Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr for growth forecast in 2016, meaning its share of US social network users is actually slated to go down this year and onwards.
The news comes amid nearly stagnant growth reported by Twitter in Q2. By the end of this year, 52.2 million people in the US will access their Twitter accounts at least once a month. That’s a 2.0% increase over last year – but in February, eMarketer had forecast an 8.0% increase in US Twitter users for the year, and not enough to stop a deline in US market share compared to other platforms.
YouTube takes Google to the top of the UK charts for unique visitors Google-owned sites, led by YouTube, are beating all other website owners in the UK for unique visitors, according to new data released for June 2016. 46.6 million people visited Google’s various digital properties during that time, with YouTube enjoying the lion’s share of with 39.6 million unique visitors. Facebook, however, wasn’t far behind, with 38.8 million unique visitors.
Facebook tweaks newsfeed to make stories more ‘informative’ The platform has appointed a slightly creepy sounding Quality Feed Programme team to ensure the right stories get prominence on your personal news feed. Stories will now be sorted using a new ranking system to predict stories that are more important to users. The team will take into account factors like your relationship with the person or publisher that posted, or what you choose to click on, comment on or share — to best predict stories that you might personally find informative.
Facebook launches new tools for 360 videos Facebook has launched two new creator tools for 360 videos. The first, the Guide, is similar to annotations within YouTube, allowing owners to bookmark key moments in a video as it plays. The second tool, Heatmapping, will display specific portions of a video where people have spent the most time watching.
Instagram launches new business profiles Instagram has launched business profiles, designed to help advertisers on the platform stand out from ordinary users and equip them with greater measurement capabilities. Instagram says business profiles will enable brands to choose how they want their customers to get in touch with them, give directions, and unlock access to insights and promoted posts.
More ads between friends’ stories on Snapchat Snapchat Stories will feature more ads, which will appear between strings of photos and videos that users share with their friends. Snapchat has said it will cap the amount of ads so that each person is served three so-called Snap Ads Between Friends promos per day—one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night.
Snapchat users up but engagement drops after Discover redesign The Snapchat Discover channel doubled daily users to 1 million two weeks after its redesign – but overall engagement dropped. The number of views per user dropped 14 percent when comparing the two-week average post-redesign and the six-week average pre-redesign. Time spent in the app dropped 6 percent and completion rate plummeted 32 percent.
Pinterest is changing the way it sells ads Pinterest said Thursday it is changing the way it sells CPM campaigns. Marketers will now be able to bid through an auction process, rather than the previous fixed price. The company will also allow brands to specify the maximum number of times a person can see their campaign.
Pepsi splashes out on first #Promoted Stickers Twitter campaign Twitter has introduced its first “#Promoted Stickers” campaign with Pepsi. Starting Monday, Pepsi-themed stickers will be available for consumers to slap on their photos and tweet out. The stickers, which were introduced in June, are reminiscent of Snapchat’s emojis, filters and animated lenses, which people layer on top of their photos and videos before sharing.
Burberry and Pinterest launch first customized beauty board Burberry has created personalised boards with suggested products and makeup tips for users on Pinterest. Users can indicate their makeup preferences via a Burberry-sponsored questionnaire and then log in separately to their Pinterest account to discover their personalised board, where they can click directly on pins to make purchases.
One out of four influencers asked to keep brand deals secret
Influencer marketing and media platform SheSpeaks found a quarter have been asked to keep their brand deals secret. The finding follows on the heels of the US Federal Trade Commission saying last week that it plans to get tougher on paid promotion disclosure.
