Tag Archives: Social Media Today

Instagram looks to be testing a new Stories sticker option which would enable users to share a business profile with their followers, including a header and a three-image preview that links through to a brand’s on-platform presence. As you can see in this example, shared by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, the new ‘Share Professional’ sticker would enable users to add in an Instagram @profile, which would then pull in thumbnails of the most recent three posts from that account. That preview could then be used as a promotional tool in Instagram Stories – you could promote the business of a friend, a service that’s helped you out, or […]

With the global COVID-19 shutdowns set to significantly impact Q2 2020 reports, Q1 may be the best true indicator we have for some time as to where the major social platforms are placed, and how their growth plans are actually panning out in a normal operating environment. On that front, Snapchat, and parent company Snap Inc., would appear to be on the right track, maybe not for transcendent growth, but for stable, steady increases that look set to solidify its position within the social media space. First off, on active users – Snapchat posted an increase of 11 million DAU on its last report to 229 million – which represents […]

Facebook is abandoning its push to have all advertisers to switch to its automated Campaign Budget Optimization process, which would have seen the removal of manual ad set budgeting options from the available tools for ad management. Campaign Budget Optimization – or CBO for short – enables advertisers to set a central campaign budget for all of their ad sets, which Facebook’s systems then automatically pull from, in real-time, based on the relative performance of each. The idea is that CBO facilitates better outcomes by distributing your ad spend to the ads that perform best, which produces better outcomes for Facebook’s ad products, and ideally, better results for advertising brands. Back […]

Facebook has this week announced the expanded roll-out of its ‘Avatars’ custom, Bitmoji-like characters, which it first launched to Australian users in June last year. As per Facebook’s EMEA Communications manager Alexandru Voica: “We’re expanding Avatars across Europe, and are excited to give people in these countries a new way to express themselves and convey more of their identity. Avatars let people create a new persona, allowing them to share across Facebook and Messenger in a more light-hearted way.” As noted, Facebook first launched Avatars to Australian users last June, providing an option to create your own cartoonish likeness, which can then be added to stickers that can be used […]

WhatsApp has launched a new sticker pack, in conjunction with the WHO, to help spread key health messaging among its user base, in order to reduce the ongoing spread of COVID-19. We worked together with @WHO on a new ‘Together at Home’ sticker pack to help people stay connected throughout this moment and beyond. Send an air high five, celebrate our medical heroes, or show love to a personal hero in your life. Available now in your WhatsApp. pic.twitter.com/6xjKylYzRd — WhatsApp Inc. (@WhatsApp) April 21, 2020 As explained by WhatsApp: “We’re excited to work with The World Health Organization to launch the “Together at Home” sticker pack that will help […]

With no social events taking up people’s time, most of us are looking for remote entertainment options. And one way that an increasing number of people are looking to utilize their free capacity is via professional development, and learning new skills that can help to advance their skills and career prospects. Underlining this, LinkedIn has reported that it’s seeing a big increase in demand for its LinkedIn Learning professional development courses. As per LinkedIn: “As our social and professional norms shift, people are turning to learning to help them get through. In the first week of April, people watched 1.7M hours of learning content on LinkedIn Learning vs. 560K hours […]

Google’s seeking to bolster its stake in eCommerce by making Google Shopping listings available for free, a surface that, up till now, has been a paid option, based on Google’s regular ad bidding process. As per Google: “Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings, helping merchants better connect with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google. With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each day, we know that many retailers have the items people need in stock and ready to ship, but are less discoverable online.” Google says that this update has been in development for some time, […]

YouTube is making some changes to its YouTube Measurement Program, while it’s also adding a new option that will enable brands to stop their ads being shown alongside “unsuitable” content. First off, on measurement – as reported by AdAge, YouTube is adding five new partners to its YouTube Measurement Program, which enables selected vendors to provide advertisers with in-depth data insights via YouTube’s API. The measurement partners being added are Channel Factory, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, Sightly and VuePlanner, expanding the available data options to track brand safety, placement, performance, etc. At the same time, YouTube has also removed OpenSlate from the program after a disagreement over what OpenSlate would be allowed to […]

Facebook has outlined its latest advancement in the early detection and removal of fake profiles, this time through the use of data related to friend requests, and the variance in friend request rejection between real people and fake profiles. As explained by Facebook: “Online social networks are frequently targeted by malicious actors who create fake accounts for the purpose of carrying out abuse. Broadly, abuse is conducted in three phases. First, malicious actors create accounts. Then, these accounts need to establish connections with real users (e.g., by sending friend requests on Facebook). Finally, once they establish a sufficient number of connections, fake accounts can expose their social networks to a […]

Maybe, this will work? Possibly? According to a new discovery by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook looks to be testing out a new option that would alter the background color of your profile within the mobile app based on the dominant color in your profile image. As you can see in these examples, the process would work by identifying the main color within your profile picture, then adapting the background color to align with that. Which looks interesting, I guess, but it would also be a significant change to your regular Facebook browsing experience. It’s not a major surprise to see Facebook once again experimenting with adaptive color schemes. […]