Taking The Pulse – ep. 3 – fast summary of latest news on key digital marketing and social media platforms, keeping you updated on the stuff that matters to your business #twitter #google #linkedin #socialmedia #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #youtube #insta
If you'd prefer to read this week's round-up instead of watching you can read it here (and get all the relevant links for further info) https://thedigiterati.com/taking-the-pulse-episode-3/
Posted by The Digiterati on Wednesday, May 11, 2016
- Facebook Pages get MORE new messages features – updates to settings
We’ve been testing out Facebook’s Messenger features for Pages over the last few weeks. One major annoyance is how we’ve received a lot of “Messenger spam” since our Messenger Code image ranked in Google image search. Our response time metrics were being trashed! Well, they’ve just rolled out some useful features to help with this (albeit not the spam itself) – plus excellent live previews – in the Page > Settings > Messaging section:
- Talking of Messenger, the first Messenger service for websites launches
Tech start-up Modern has launched a great app for Pages to embed a Messenger chat icon directly on their website, letting you chat with website visitors while they’re on your website. I’ve been testing it out over the last few days and we’ve already received a credible lead. I’ve been talking to their team and they’ve got some pretty incredible features up their sleeves. It works a treat on mobile too. - Disappearing Messenger messages
Could Facebook be about to do a Snapchat? According to reports they’re testing a feature which allows users to set an expiry time on messages. Snap! - Enhanced roles for Facebook Groups
You can now make members of your Facebook groups Moderators instead of Admins. If you’ve ever run a FB Group you’ll understand the pains and risks of the previous options, and breathe a huge sigh of relief! - Facebook says trending topics are not rigged
There was some debate this week on whether trending topics were suppressing certain stories from the News Feed. It was kicked-off by some presumably disgruntled former Facebook employee. The guy heading-up that feature at Facebook says categorically ‘not true’. Believe who you will:
- Advanced Facebook Marketing Masterclass June 15th
Not news, but if you’re looking for some incredible training on advanced Facebook marketing my colleague Marie is running a full-day masterclass at University of Portsmouth Business School next month. She’s got a ton of fresh-off-the-press material that will be invaluable to Facebook marketers. Early bird pricing available for a few more days.
- Business profiles coming soon
Some screenshots have been circulating of the upcoming business profile features currently being tested by a few lucky Instagrammers. They look good and will provide a contact button as well as directions for physical store locations. Additionally, businesses will be able to list in a category as can be seen in this image of a ‘Health/Wellness Website’:
- Retargeting ads for products
You can now retarget visitors to your website products on Instagram by uploading your product feed. It utilises the same Dynamic Product Ads feature on Facebook. If you’re a retailer and the attention of your customers is on Insta, this will be a huge opportunity. Get in quick. More here.
- No longer a social network – now a news organisation
Following on from my piece in last week’s show, I spotted an interesting development over at Twitter. They’re no longer being referred to as a social network and instead want to be know as a news organisation. As I mentioned over on Facebook, this makes complete sense because Twitter has always been a place where news breaks. It also means their metrics will be compared with news and media organisations rather than social networks. I think this has some relevance to marketers because it appears Twitter is doubling-down on attempts to be the real-time source of news, sport and media consumption. If they succeed it’ll be a lot more interesting to advertisers. Will they? I’m not so sure.
Amazon
- Amazon goes head-to-head with YouTube. Yes you read that right.
Launched only yesterday, Amazon Video Direct is a YouTube-esque video platform enabling users to upload their video clips for free. Users can decide whether the clips will be free to viewers or can choose from a range of monetisation options. Clearly Facebook isn’t the only Goliath looking to muscle-in on YouTube’s dominance. The Wall Street Journal covers the story well.
Periscope
- #Save your broadcasts forever
In just the last few days Periscope announced a beta #save feature so your broadcasts don’t disappear after 24 hours. Just add the hashtag #save to your ‘scope title and it gets saved forever. Well, until Periscope shuts down that is. #awkward - Search and discover
There’s a new search and discover feature which essentially allows you to categorise and find ‘scopes using hashtags. - Feel the need to livestream from a drone? You got it!
Daft feature of the week goes to Periscope’s new drone integration. Yep, you can livestream from a drone (err, just like Facebook Live did a month ago!), assuming you have the right make of drone and a reason you’d want to stream from it! I’m pretty sure Periscope should have bigger fish to fry…
Missed the previous Taking the Pulse?
Where the heck were you?! Don’t worry – go check out our last show here. And don’t forget to subscribe to receive notifications of all new episodes in case you can’t catch it live on Facebook.