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Tag: Social Media Optimisation

  • LinkedIn seeks to improve in-platform experience with GIFs in messaging

    LinkedIn seeks to improve in-platform experience with GIFs in messaging

     

    Professional networking giant LinkedIn announced that it is implementing GIFs into its messaging system. For business users and professionals (who form perhaps the only market for LinkedIn) this move is certain to surprise many. The common perception is that a serious career-oriented platform like LinkedIn need not have a GIF presence on its messaging platform.

    But obviously, the LinkedIn product team seems to differ on opinions here. They feel that GIFs and emojis are staple to the next generation professional’s communication. Hence, this move is in sync with what the aspiring career professional is looking for on LinkedIn. So don’t be surprised if you see a GIF button soon on your messaging window that will allow you to send GIFs in your LinkedIn messages.

    What does it mean for businesses?

    For advertisers, the move seems to have some logical sanity attached to it. LinkedIn has always tried to incorporate a more intimate one-on-one messaging experience with features like SMS-oriented back and forth message flow and emojis.

    For a marketer, this philosophy aligns well with their lead generation objectives, as better one-on-one interaction is directly proportional to better levels of engagement and conversions.

    For suave marketers, the concept of GIFs driving reader engagement has been a well-known subject. On LinkedIn they have been using GIFs as photo attachments to evoke better engagement from the readers.

    A word of caution

    The blending of the informal nature of Gifs in a professional setting like LinkedIn messaging needs a careful thinking before using it. Many senior people think GIF to be a seriously unprofessional addition to a professional networking platform. Using GIFs to communicate with such an audience may backfire badly if not used with care.

    Also, GIFs tend to be misread quite a lot. A possible misinterpretation of a GIF on the messaging system may result in an unhappy client or a total attrition altogether. So be very careful before sending out a GIF to potential customers or business leads.

    Then why have it?

    Many feel that incorporating GIFs addresses two crucial issues:

    1. The lack of human touch is solely missing when we are dealing with 100% text-based messaging or dreary presentations. A GIF can easily overcome this perception and add a human touch to the communication.

    2. GIFs aid a better recall value. When you see something different on your messaging screen, chances are that you would remember it for longer than other types of text-only messages. From a branding point of view, this stickiness of a message is a substantial impetus for marketers to explore GIFs in messaging.

    If used subtly, then GIFs have the power to evoke a greater level of interaction and personalisation on LinkedIn messaging platform. Your brand gets the human touch, the recipient acknowledges the personalised connection, and rewards the effort with better engagement and likely conversion.

    What is your view on the new messaging GIF feature on LinkedIn? Do write to us and let us know in the comments below.

  • Facebook’s “issue ads” and verification requirements for Page Managers

    Facebook’s “issue ads” and verification requirements for Page Managers

     

    It is evident that ‘change’ is something that social media thrives on. Facebook, on similar lines, has always aimed to bring about changes that make networking a better experience and more relevant to the shifting customer preferences and trends. Many of these changes are welcomed, and an equal number of them aren’t. But that has never hindered Facebook from bringing in more changes under the tactful guise of an update.

    The trigger for the update

    Looking back at the mess Cambridge Analytica Scandal left behind for the social media giant, Facebook seems to have taken evasive privacy protection measures. They are now rolling out a range of privacy tools that aim to safeguard data. These changes in the privacy tools and settings allow finer page management. They also come with specific indicators and instructions that aim to fill the leaks that lead to the recent fiasco.

    What is in the update?

    One of these updates concerns itself with political ads. Not that long ago, Facebook rolled out an update that only verified advertisers would be allowed to run ads of electoral nature on the site. That is to say that if you as a person would want to post an electoral ad or post, you need to reveal your identity. This extended its application to the acquired platform Instagram also. This update also specified that any and every such ad would be labelled accordingly.

    In accordance with this move, Zuckerberg mentions that people who manage Large Pages too will come under the purview of verification. This means a large number of fake accounts using Large Pages will now find it tough to function on the social media platform. This step is expected to bring down misinformation and fake posts substantially.

    What does this mean for FB users?

    However, Zuckerberg hasn’t entirely been clear on what counts as a large page nor has Facebook given out anything regarding the current verification process. But if we are to go by what the Boss says, then page managers would now have to go through a different verification process to confirm their identities. This step will strive to avoid foreign interference and influence in important events like elections.

    In order to apply concrete measures to this, and to counter political issues birthed by non-political groups, Facebook now has something called “issue ads” in its arsenal.

    How do the “Issue ads” aim to curb political influence?

    As recorded by NYTimes, Zuckerberg says, “These steps by themselves won’t stop all people trying to game the system, but they will make it a lot harder for anyone to do what the Russians did during the 2016 elections and used fake accounts and pages to run ads.”

    Facebook suggests that “issue ads” relate to topics that are being discussed across the country and that it is working with third-party services to enlist various keywords which would be refined as time goes on.

    Facebook has constantly been under thorough scrutiny, owing to how big an audience it commands and how influential a source it ends up being.

    But with these measures in place, Facebook hopes to curb the mishaps that dictate destinies thereon. What is your take on the new measures put in place by FB? Do write to us and let us know.

  • Facebook and Instagram introduce some interesting updates to their ‘Stories’ feature

    Facebook and Instagram introduce some interesting updates to their ‘Stories’ feature

    Facebook has been rolling out a slew of new features and graphics support in order to improve the level of engagement and social connect between users of the social media site. Its latest update has made a few changes to the ‘Stickers’ option on Facebook and ‘Stories’ option in Instagram.

    Changes on Facebook Site

    Facebook runs a ‘Stickers’ program that picks artists and develops sticker packs. These stickers convey a range of emotions in a refreshingly different way – a key reason for the program’s success among the site’s users. Last week, the site went ahead and added a few more stickers to enhance the stickers’ efficacy in promoting collaboration among the users.

    With these new stickers, Facebook allows users to add in name, weather, and location. With the name sticker, you can tag friends and communicate in an interactive and refreshingly unique way on Facebook. These options are already present on Instagram Stories. But for those who are present only on Facebook (and not Instagram), it is certainly a new addition that users would want to try out. Even for other users, the new stickers provide more options to Facebook Stories. It gives them better reasons to try it out on Facebook and thus, improve distribution and engagement

    On the anvil are other updates that take a cue from Instagram. Some examples include polls for Facebook Stories, which would be similar to the ones we see on Instagram Stories. For many users, there is a lot of content on the News Feed view but hardly any content present in the Stories module.

    For B2B marketers, this is digital whitespace can be utilised for brand marketing. This sounds interesting especially considering that the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, himself stated that more emphasis would be given to Stories and it would be as mainstream as News Feed is today.

    Changes on Instagram Site

    On the Instagram site, there are reports of Instagram Stories mentions now coming up in user notifications. This provides a lot of visibility value to the in-stories tagging option. Users will now be better notified of the mentions. This, in turn, could improve the functionality of the feature. As an outcome, B2B marketers may utilise this functionality for a better level of engagement and improved connection facilities.

    There has been another noteworthy update to Instagram Stories. Images and videos that are presented in square or landscape layout will be rendered into full – screen view in Stories. With this, advertisers can easily reach people across Instagram and Facebook. In the mobile view, this will mean three key updates –

    1. The whitespace will be filed with an appropriate background colour

    2. The text in the post will be added in Stories text below the image or video

    3. The destination URL will be integrated with a ‘Swipe Up’ facility.

    The aim is to cross utilise the Facebook ads in Instagram as well. As a result, marketers need not re-calibrate the Facebook image or video layout when they want to use it in Instagram Stories.

    What do you think of the new updates to Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories? Do write to us with your views in the comments below.

  • LinkedIn rolls out Native Video Marketing

    LinkedIn rolls out Native Video Marketing

    On 29th March, LinkedIn announced two key updates that will be of significant interest to B2B advertisers in the digital space.

    1. It now allows marketers to run native video ad campaigns
    2. It provides placement of videos on Company Pages on the site

    B2B marketers would welcome the new move from LinkedIn that allows companies to run native video ad campaigns and run video ads on the site. At a time when Facebook is reeling under data breach issues, the new move is sure to bring in a lot of interest and sustained visibility from B2B marketers who are looking for a viable social media channel to tap into leads worldwide. And what better than LinkedIn – the best known and perhaps the world’s biggest professional networking site today. Marketers looking to drive results from video content can count on LinkedIn to provide the much needed visibility and business traction.

    What this move means?

    LinkedIn had allowed individuals to add video in native format over the social media platform as late as last August. Many believe LinkedIn is one of the last big social media sites to launch this feature. In order to avoid a similar late-mover tag for B2B too, it has gone ahead and launched native video ads for B2B businesses now.

    Brands will be able to add videos to their company pages as well as to the Showcase page. The new LinkedIn campaign manager will allow marketers to target audience by specific variables like demographics, job title, or industry. When you use LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences option, you can further drill down your ads to be seen by specific account level audiences. You can also build an email list to reach out to existing customers.

    Leads are typically generated either by driving site traffic to the company website or via LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms product. As expected, the rollout will be a phased one. Businesses are expected to see more features and get access to better functionality in the coming months.

    Sponsored content now supports video too

    LinkedIn had rolled out a phased beta testing for around 700 marketers since October 2017, to track performance and efficacy of the native ad campaigns. Results have been very encouraging from an ‘impressions’ point of view. Viewers have been found to spend 3x the time on average watching ads with videos as compared to static (text/image) ads. In the same beta testing, it saw that Company Page video was viewed 5x more than other forms of content on the Company Page. This will be an encouraging sign for B2B marketers to embrace native ads on LinkedIn with full enthusiasm.

    Appearance-wise, the native ads will be shown on the News Feed of a targeted LinkedIn member as a standalone, sponsored post. The video will be in auto-play mode by default (in mute version).

    For analysis purposes, the LinkedIn tracking pixel will come in handy. It will allow advertisers to assess the performance of ads with important metrics like leads, sign-ups, site visit numbers, to name a few.

    What is your initial assessment of LinkedIn native video ads? Do write to us and let us know your thoughts.

  • All You need to know about Instagram‘s ‘New Posts’ Button

    All You need to know about Instagram‘s ‘New Posts’ Button

    A typical social media feed automatically updates new posts and pushes down the older ones below. The same was the case with Instagram. However, the brains behind the hugely popular social media platform are now testing a new update method for newsfeed.  In order to put more power in the hands of the user, they are planning to add a ‘New Posts’ button to the user’s feeds.

    How does it work?

    The ‘New Posts’ button is intended to keep the user to the current feeds view till the user taps on this button. Once he/ she taps it, the view will move to the top of new posts added by their network. Another social media platform where something similar is happening is LinkedIn.

    By tapping the button, Instagram users will be brought to the top of the feed. This, in turn, will allow you to view more of timely posts that are fresh. This will override the algorithm based automatic feed update. The algorithmic update was performing poorly by pushing up very old posts and irrelevant updates (from a chronological point of view) and hence lowering the overall user experience that Instagram users were facing.

    Why the need for this new move?

    Along with the ‘New Posts’ button, the photo-sharing app promises users to see more of chronological posts. If you recall, the platform has been slammed for pushing up chronologically outdated posts when its algorithm-based post update was in force.

    This is why this update holds so much significance – it will help users get fresh content and overcome the limitation posed by algorithmic feed (of showing older feeds). According to the company blog – “With these new changes, your feed will feel more fresh, and you won’t miss the moments you care about.”

    What does it mean for users?

    Right now there is no clear indication of how the new move will work out from users’ point of view. The current algorithmic view introduced in 2016 was notorious for not allowing users to view new posts and pictures. Before the introduction of algorithmic updates, the feeds view was based solely on date and timestamp, thus allowing users to view newer posts on top and push down the older posts.

    The new update does seek to address a few challenges such as :

    1. Timely updates, allowing users to see posts when they are actually relevant. Imagine getting a ‘Merry Christmas’ greeting on December 28th! This is a problem that the new move seeks to address.

    2. Limited time sales and events too used to get missed because of the algorithmic updates. The ‘New Posts’ button will allow users to see such events and offers when they are actually in force.

    What the future holds?

    While Instagram has offered a slew of new features like ‘Stories’ in the recent past, the fact remains that algorithmic feed was a major gripe with many users. Oly time will tell if the users remain satisfied with these ‘New Posts’ button or not. Do share your views on this change and if the ‘New Posts’ button is working as per your expectations and showing up more relevant feeds?

  • New Analytics On Snapchat For Better Audience Insight

    New Analytics On Snapchat For Better Audience Insight

    Snapchat is trying to re-establish the platform’s position among the advertisers and influencers. This is the reason why the social media platform is creating new tools.

    Now, there is a new analytics update available for the Snapchat influencers. The insights provided by the analytics should help content creators with their approach towards Snapchat. The analytics include multiple types of data to help Snapchat influencers and content creators.

    Here are all of them:

    1. Total views of stories

    The data on total views of the stories is now available for the creators. They can see the number of people who have seen their stories. The data will be available for every story. Plus, a creator can filter the data according to the time period. So, it will be possible to see the total number of story views in a year, in a month, and even in the past week.

    With this insight, users will get the opportunity to understand the engagement growth or decline in their stories. As a result, their ability to provide more engaging stories will improve.

    1. Unique viewers

    The new analytics also has the feature to offer data on unique viewers on a daily basis. Which means that the creators can see how many unique viewers have seen their story on a particular day. This data will come along with the watch time and the completion rate. So, the creator can also see the time spent by new viewers and the number of people who have seen complete stories.

    This data should help the creators to understand what attracts viewers. They can learn the content demands and design their strategy accordingly for Snapchat.

    1. Viewing time

    The viewing time includes a list of data related to the watch time of the stories. The creator can see this data for a year, month, past week and minutes as well. Mapping the watch time will help in monitoring the growth in the audience engagement. With that, a creator can push forward the strategy for Snapchat and get better outcomes.

    1. Audiences’ interests

    This is probably the most valuable data that the new analytics has. The insights about the audiences include their interests along with their lifestyle categories. Snapchat will provide this data for the most engaging viewers. With this, a creator will become clearly aware of the likes and dislikes of the audiences. And that will become a key factor in improving engagement with better stories.

    1. Demographic insights

    The demographic insights are now available for the creators too. These insights can show your audiences in multiple demographics such as age, gender, geographic regions and others. The demographic insights are there to help creators understand the groups of audiences they are influencing with their content. This way, a creator can become consistent with his or her content and satisfy the audiences.

    All these insights have the capacity to change the way creators engage with Snapchat. However, it is important to know that these insights are offered to the influencers only. The logic is to provide the tools and information for the influencers who can bring more engagement with their content.

  • Instagram Upgrades Its Features with an option to Share Other People’s Stories & More

    Instagram Upgrades Its Features with an option to Share Other People’s Stories & More

    For quite a while, there has been a competition to be the top social media app among the major players. Instagram looks forward to acquiring that top position. For strengthening its impact profoundly among social media fanatics, the Facebook-owned app has added some new features to its directory, including a feature to share other people’s Stories posts.

    New features available through the settings menu

    Instagram plans to test the latest features that will let users share posts with the touch of a button. As it is in a testing phase, the feature is still not completely available to all. The small group of testers, who are able to use it, can also toggle it off from the Instagram’s setting menu at will. The app has also added features that allow a user modify the design of the shared stories. Some of these include – changing the colour of the background as to match with the primary colour of the image, changing the size of the image, adding stickers to the posts, etc. While it may not be considered a revolutionary feature, it was still shared around the social media by the testers. Even though the response to the feature was not groundbreaking, it did highlight the appreciation from the users. With such features, Instagram may look forward to taking Snapchat head on.

    Instagram’s Cinemagraphs and more

    What may excite Instagram fans is the feature called Cinemagraphs, where a part of an image can stay animated. The feature may make many curious to try it out, even if it is just for fun. Another notable feature that Instagram is working on is a map-based tool that will optimise the shared stories for users.

    Instagram owner Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that these features would also be added to Facebook’s push tool. According to him, these features are a step towards the new age of social media sharing. He further noted that Stories would be trending among users, as it becomes the primary sharing feature, obscuring feeds. This could give some serious competition to Instagram’s rival Snapchat. Albeit, the latter has shown a decrease in Stories sharing, yet there has been an increase in the use of messaging features by users.

    While Snapchat may possibly not be able to threaten Facebook’s reign, it still may have time to revive its lost numbers. In the end, it all depends on creativity among the developers of such apps. Users will be lured towards the one that can provide better features in their apps.

    Snapchat still remains popular among the teens, even more than Instagram. This concern has made Facebook take such steps to add new features, which may give fruitful results. We can just look forward to the results once the tools are available for usage to all users. Who knows, maybe Instagram’s new features will take over the users who are enticed by its cinemagraphic presentations. It will all be clear really soon.

  • New Carousel Format Ads For Instagram Stories

    New Carousel Format Ads For Instagram Stories

    Instagram, owned by Facebook, recently announced an upcoming new addition to its Stories segment. This will further expand the efficacy of ads which started being shown last year on this hugely popular format. Claiming to have more than 300 million daily users on its Stories platform, the company’s recent move will seek to bolster the ad revenues generated from this well-liked platform.

    What change can you expect?

    Facebook is planning to bring the carousel ads display format to Instagram Stories. In the existing format, there was one piece of ad content (either a video or a photo) associated with each Story. In this revised format, advertisers can display three ads per Story. The ad display will be consistent with the existing format – i.e. upto 15-second videos and every photo in a Story ad can be visible for 5 seconds.

    As per Susan Rose (Director of Monetization and Product Marketing, Instagram), this was a natural move as this type of format was already prevalent on organic (non-ad) Stories. So moving to the ad-based Stories section was an expected transition. She went to say that this move was to cater to the demands of advertisers and businesses who have first-hand seen the power of multiple contents on the organic Stories section.

    The first preference upon launch will be given to traditional ad buyers via the automated ad buying services on Facebook Marketing Partners programme.

    What prompted the change?

    The primary trigger for this move was the phenomenal success of carousel based ads displayed on Facebook’s News Feed section. Since the parent company for both Facebook and Instagram are same, it was long expected that the hugely successful carousel ad based display would make its presence on the photo-sharing site as well.

    In addition to this, advertisers too will benefit from this new ad display format. Instead of trying to fit in their marketing messages into a 15-second slot, they will get 3x the length of time to present their marketing messages. This, in turn, will have a better level of engagement and increase the likelihood of conversions through Instagram ads. They can continue the narrative in a series of videos to be displayed side by side and keep the viewers hooked. Additionally, they can now pin stickers and use Instagram functionalities, like the drawing tool, to enhance the videos put up.

    As a part of its rollout plan, it will start small with a select group of advertisers. This will help them check the pain points and rectify any flaws before a full-fledged rollout of the ad display format to all users. Initial participating advertisers include Gap and Coca-Cola. Interested in checking out a sample ad? Then head here and see the Gap blog showing a glimpse of the exciting things to come on their ad display network on Instagram Stories.

    What are your initial thoughts on this new change being brought about to Instagram? Do write to us and let us know your views.

  • Facebook Introduces Branded Content Tags With New Proviso For Misuse

    Facebook Introduces Branded Content Tags With New Proviso For Misuse

    Facebook has emerged as one of the most compelling, efficient, and dynamic platforms for business marketing. If you plan to catapult your venture to great heights, Facebook will certainly play a crucial role. As one of the most popular and remarkable social platforms, Facebook has conceptualised and rolled out a new feature.

    The company dropped restrictions on ‘branded content’ and rolled out a unique tagging system. Let’s take a look at the new offering by Facebook and how it works towards eliminating misuse.

    What is branded content tags?

    When it comes to ensuring effective influencer marketing, nothing more than the Branded Content Tags work. They enable better influencer marketing, assure increased transparency, and help in sponsoring partnerships. Endorsements can be paid promotions too, and it’s imperative to differentiate them. It’s here that the new tagging system rolled out by Facebook will work wonders!

    If we take a look at what statistics have to reveal about the issue, here’s what we can come across. The number of publishers and creators have increased at an exponential rate. The total number has grown 4-fold over the last one year. However, before moving into further discussions, it would be crucial to understanding the concept.

    What are the highlights?

    The process of using or leveraging the ‘branded content tags’ is simple, uncomplicated, and straightforward. The sponsor gets into an alliance or simply put, makes a deal with the relevant Page. The relevant page gets added as a tag to posts created by the sponsor.

    In spite of the straightforward and transparent process, branded content tags can be confusing too. The term isn’t that clear and might lead to ambiguity and confusion. Let’s find out.

    What’s a branded content?

    The term ‘branded content tags’ don’t lead to anything definite. If you are trying to deduce the meaning by performing a critical analysis of the term ‘branded content’, you are on the right track. The term refers to videos, articles, and other content that brand owners get created from publishers. Brands pay publishers to get these ads posted appropriately.

    Although the theoretical description says it all, we must take a look at the concept’s implementation in actual practice. In reality, branded contents can be any of these types:

    • A simple video or article created by a publisher.
    • It can also be a link to the page of the product. You can check the e-commerce site of the brand and find out.
    • The policy is quite essential and happens to be a great move towards the development of effective digital marketing.

    Identifying the violations

    Facebook also has ways and means to detect the violations in the policy. The entire feature or service should be under control, and it won’t be tough to identify the pain points. The platform relies on some of the unique and strong signals that tell your ad’s performance. The system is strong enough to recognise the critical errors and relationship between two pages.

    Keep these aspects in mind, and that will accelerate the process of preventing misuse. Facebook had always been associated with effective business marketing, and that’s where the new feature can help you!

  • Weekend Digital Media Round-up: Google’s New Search Console, Facebook’s privacy center, Paytm’s business app and more..

    Weekend Digital Media Round-up: Google’s New Search Console, Facebook’s privacy center, Paytm’s business app and more..

     

    1. New Google Search Console may be rolling out for everyone now

    Google seems to have just fully released the new beta version of the Google Search Console to everyone who has verified access to the normal Google Search Console. We expected it to roll out shortly, and now it has. [Source: Search Engine Land]

    1. Facebook to launch privacy center ahead of GDPR deadline

    Social media giant Facebook announced that it will make it easier for users to manage their data. The move comes in advance of the May 2018 deadline for GDPR compliance, which outlines a wide variety of enhanced consumer digital rights for citizens in the EU. [Source: MARTECH TODAY]

    1. After WhatsApp, Paytm now launches its app for businesses

    Days after global messaging giant WhatsApp launched its standalone app for businesses, Paytm on Monday launched its Paytm for Business app on the Android Play Store. Paytm’s standalone app for businesses is using seamless payments as a hook to gather more merchants on its platform. [Source: YourStory]

    1. Google rolls out lightweight keyboard app to low-RAM Android devices

    Google has slowly but surely been introducing “Go” versions of its apps to phones that lack the processing prowess to handle its full offerings. The latest of these? Apparently, it’s Gboard. Google is currently rolling out a lightweight version called Gboard Go to phones with low RAM that run Android 8.1 or later. [Source: Digital Trends]

    1. Facebook Announces New Methods to Measure Page and Publisher Trust, Which Will Impact Reach

    In the second installment of their explanations of coming changes to the News Feed algorithm, Facebook’s detailed how it plans to rank news sites by trustworthiness, in order to determine whether they get a distribution boost, or penalty. [Source: Social Media Today]

    1. Salesforce And Google Join Hands To Make Customer Insights Better

    Salesforce has recently announced their partnership with Google, and the plan was to integrate Salesforce data with Google Analytics 360 and G Suite. With this partnership between Google and Salesforce, companies will now be able to connect sales, marketing and advertising using Salesforce cloud and Google Analytics 360. This also means that you can connect Salesforce with your G-suite to enhance your customer reach and boost sales. [Source: Logicserve Digital]

    1. Instagram Confirms Ability to Add GIFs to Stories, and to Upload Stories Content in Various Formats

    Instagram has now confirmed what was widely reported last week – they’re adding the ability to insert GIFs into Stories content as a new way to spice up your visuals. [Source: Social Media Today]

    1. Google AdSense adds style automation for native in-feed ads

    Publishers that want to run Google AdSense native in-feed ads on their sites can now opt to have Google’s machine learning take control of the creative look and feel of those units. [Source: Marketing Land]

    1. Facebook invented a new time unit called the ‘flick’ and it’s truly amazing

    A flick is one seven hundred and five million six hundred thousandth of a second. It’s a very clever way of dividing time that theoretically could make video and audio production much more harmonious. [Source: TechCrunch]

    1. 3 AdWords Features You’re Probably Underutilising

    AdWords gives companies the freedom to manage their ad campaigns themselves and provide their own preferences for the ads. Here are some AdWords features that you should utilise to get the best out of your investment. [Source: Logicserve Digital]