Tag Archives: Social Media Today

Almost a year after first launching its native live-streaming option to selected users, LinkedIn is now expanding LinkedIn Live to company pages, while its also officially adding a new option to invite personal first-degree connections to follow a business page that you manage. The most significant update here is the expansion of LinkedIn Live – as per LinkedIn: “LinkedIn Live has helped members and organizations foster dialogues with their communities. That’s why brands have seen 7X more reactions and 24X more comments vs. standard video posts on LinkedIn. […] As part of our continued investment, we’re delighted to bring LinkedIn Live to Pages so that organizations can leverage sight, sound and […]

The additions keep on coming for Instagram Stories. This week, reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong has discovered that Instagram is working on a new map sticker for Stories which would display your location on a world map. As you can see in this example, the map sticker would show a section of a world map image, including a marker for your location. You would imagine, due to privacy concerns, that you wouldn’t be able to zoom in too far on that map, giving viewers a precise location, but it could be another way to easily share where you are, and what you’re up to at any given time. Map […]

This will be welcome news to many Instagram marketers. After the functionality was first spotted in testing in February last year, Instagram has now confirmed that it will begin a small roll out of direct message access through the web-based version of its app. DMs, but make them desktop. ???? We’re currently testing Direct messaging on the web, so you can read and reply to your messages from wherever you are. pic.twitter.com/VJ06EpETxG — Instagram (@instagram) January 14, 2020 Instagram says that a small percentage of users will initially be given access to the option, with the process still very much in test phase. As noted, DM access via Instagram’s desktop version […]

Last month, Apple released its listing of the most downloaded apps on the App Store for 2019, which showed that Facebook and Google held six of the top ten spots, underlining the dominance of the digital giants. Recently, app analytics provider Sensor Tower published its latest data report, which includes, among other elements, its own listing of the most downloaded apps of 2019, covering both Android and iOS activity. And while the results are slightly different to Apple’s rankings, the end picture is largely the same. Across the two app platforms, Facebook-owned apps come in at 1, 3, 4 and 5, again reiterating the scale and presence of Zuckerberg’s Social […]

This could be interesting. Google has this week announced that it has acquired Dublin-based retail hardware provider Pointy, which produces small devices that retailers can plug into their barcode scanner and automatically upload their inventory direct to the web for advertising purposes. In addition to these devices, Pointy also has an app which can connect with digital POS systems, facilitating the same purpose. Once your inventory details are uploaded, Pointy can then provide digital product overviews, showcase items within your Google listings and facilitate simplified connection to other online display ad and search types – no data entry required. [embedded content] As noted in its own announcement of the deal, Pointy has […]

Addressing negative online comments about your brand is something that every social media manager will have to deal with from time-to-time. I see these types of questions pop-up all the time in groups and communities that I’m part of: How do we deal with negative online comments made on social media about our brand? What’s the best way to respond to negative comments in order to avoid further argument? Do we have to address criticisms online, or can we just delete them? The short answers are yes, you have to address the comments, publicly; no, you can’t just delete (all of) them. The best way to respond? In this post, we’ll […]

Almost every industry has a slow season. Whether it’s leaner summer months or the after-Christmas lazy time, every niche has its own period when businesses experience a natural dip in sales and activity. In many cases this can be a good break from the norm, but still, your labor costs will remain the same, and a slower period can see you lose momentum. So how can you keep things moving, and keep your marketing team busy and motivated, when there’s less work to be done? The upside of a slow season is that you can generally predict it, enabling you to prepare yourself and your team to face it with […]

There are a lot of questions swirling around California’s new Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which was enacted on January 1st, 2020. The good news is that enforcement action under the CCPA cannot be enforced until July, so brands still have some time to ensure compliance. Essentially, this is California’s version of the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), however there are some major differences in implementation. And while this new law legally only impacts California residents, the regulations will likely impact many websites in the US, and possibly others overseas. If a company has clients in California than they need to comply with the CCPA, and for many, it’ll be easier […]

Last February, Facebook added some new info elements in its ‘Why am I seeing this ad?’ listings which provide users with a better understanding of how each ad has been targeted, including notes on the use of Custom Audience lists from third-party data providers. The increased transparency helps users better understand where their info is coming from, and why they might be seeing specific ads, while Facebook also added in controls which enable users to remove themselves from any list they don’t want to be a part of. Facebook added more transparency on which specific data brokers and marketing companies have provided your data to Facebook advertisers in July, and […]

You may not watch Twitch content yourself, you may not be interested in gaming live-streams, or gaming culture more generally. But the influence of gaming is massive, and as younger users who’ve grown up with functions like live-streaming move into adulthood, and more viable spending demographics, you can expect the focus on such platforms to evolve in-step. This is an important trend to note, because as this shift happens, platforms like Twitch are gradually becoming more popular, and thus, more relevant for marketing and outreach purposes. And this week, we’ve seen signs of another important shift in this area, with a new report showing that Twitch’s non-gaming live-streams are now becoming just […]