Tag: Google

Social Pulse, Week of 11-16

Posted on by Greg Swan in Social Media

Every week I keep tabs on what’s trending, new technology and consumer habits that impact the social web. These are summed up in a round-up called Social Pulse. Sign up to get this in your inbox every Friday here.

Twitter Introduces Fleets: This week Twitter introduced a new disappearing content, Stories-style feature called Fleets. Fleets are another place for content and engaging with consumers. So yes, Fleets are a channel where your brand should consider putting effort. Will it be a success in the long term? That’s the wrong question to ask. Here’s a POV: Fleets could be fleeting. But the Stories format is here to stay.

Google Pay Will Pay-Off: In the era of Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay and Zelle, it can be easy to discount a new way to exchange money. But this week’s introduction of Google Pay is extremely ambitious – becoming not just another peer-to-peer payment service, but also offering bank account integration, finance tracking (auto-crawl through your Gmail and photos for receipts?!), an Explore tab full of Google-specific and brand-deals, and more. And in 2021, Google will launch its own bank service, Plex. This is going to be big. Download the app here.

Zillow Surfing: As a form of pandemic entertainment and daydreaming, people are “Zillow Surfing” — browsing sites like Zillow, Redfin and Trulia to find gorgeous, obsure, or unique properties, and then  and bonding over listings they find on Discord, group chats, TikTok, Twitter, and Twitch. Zillow is seeing a traffic increase of 50 percent year-over-year. Key quote: “I think for a lot of people, Zillow feels like the opposite of doomscrolling… You’re stuck in your apartment, maybe you can’t move, but it’s easy to look at listings and imagine yourself in a different life. And maybe in that life Covid isn’t happening.”

Facebook Design: This week the Facebook Design team launched a new website to serve the design community, and for you design nerds out there, the team detailed out the discovery and design process of building their own site.

Debt Collection Comes to Social Media: A year from today, debt collectors will be permitted to contact consumers not just by phone but also email, text and social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Collectors will be allowed to send an unlimited number of texts, emails, and social media private posts. It’s going to get real noisy and inconvenient for many folks in social media next year. Look to the platforms to get creative in how to balance the new social collection with expected consumer pushback.

Patents of the Week: Although patent filings aren’t a guarantee that new technology will come to fruition, they give us a hint of where we may be headed. In the latest round: Google has a new patent for a smart ring that doubles as a small selfie camera. Voice assistants are trying to better understand accents. Facebook has a patent for tagging both objects and people in their forthcoming AR glasses. And Microsoft is pursuing technology to helping you avoid specific people. Read about those and more here.

‘Harry Potter’ and the Prisoners of Quarantine: On TikTok, Gen Z “Harry Potter” fans are editing themselves into the movies in a quest for escapism, representation and community. If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you’ve seen some of these. Key quote: “The pull of childhood comforts is especially strong for young Americans today, with coronavirus cases climbing, a contentious presidential election just barely in the rearview mirror and an upcoming holiday season mired in travel restrictions. In the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Gen Z is fleeing our world for the safety of Harry Potter’s.”

College Courses for the Class of 2073: Wired has a humorous sci-fi look at a college course guidebook for those heading off to university 50 years from now, with courses including: Millennial Gerontology, Pre-Fan Cultures, Ethics in Punitive Marketing, and a notice that Creative Writing has been cancelled. Bummer! Plan your schedule here.

Business Reads of the Week: The Next Generation Of CMOs Will Come From Today’s Social Media Managers; How to Be Happier Working From Home; What Inclusive Leaders Sound Like

Quick hits:

SIGN UP FOR THIS WEEKLY REPORT IN YOUR INBOX EVERY WEEK!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Social Pulse, Week of 11-9

Posted on by Greg Swan in Social Media

Every week I keep tabs on what’s trending, new technology and consumer habits that impact the social web. These are summed up in a round-up called Social Pulse. Sign up to get this in your inbox every Friday here.

What Does 2021 Hold for Digital/Social? This week there is lots of discussion online about what the future of digital and social look like under a Biden administration. Short answer: focus on privacy, data, antitrust, and China will still be a focus, including potentially revoking Section 230, the section of the Communications Decency Act that shields internet companies from liability for the content that they host. Perhaps there will be movement on net neutrality. And look to Twitter to be more aggressive at deactivating troublesome accounts.

2021 Social Media Planning Calendar: It’s not quite the new year, but it’s never too early to start planning Q1. Social Bakers have published a 2021 calendar you can combine with your own brand moments and hashtag holidays that you care about. It integrates with Google Calendar, plus it can be downloaded as an .ics cal to upload to your platform of choice.

Parler’s Rise to #1: In the last week a relatively unknown social network called Parler has rocketed to the #1 spot for app downloads, beating out Zoom, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Parler calls itself “an unbiased social media focused on real user experiences and engagement,” with “free expression without violence and no censorship.” And it is growing in popularity as Twitter and Facebook start enforcing new moderation policies as some conservatives look for alternative social networks to connect. Just like any other emerging social network, brands should consider registering their brand handles to inoculate against trolls or squatting.

Give Your Social Team a (Virtual) Hug Today: In the relentless news cycle of 2020, social media pros are first responders, and it’s been a nonstop crisis almost the entire calendar year. Yet the importance of their work is often invisible and sometimes underappreciated. Journalist Marta Martinez has a highly recommended read called “The Social Media Managers are Not Okay” that spells out the essential role of a social team in 2020.

Key quote: “Social media managers are making important — and very public — decisions all the time. They need to respond to news and conversations quickly to be effective. The public voice and image of companies, media outlets, public figures, and institutions are in their hands at a very delicate time. Yet their job is still often seen as something anyone could do, or left to those who are just getting started in their careers… It is an essential job. We need to have more infrastructure and awareness of the fact that we’re in service to our audience.”

Payola in the Spotify Era: With the news that Spotify will begin allowing artists and labels to influence recommendations if they accept a lowered “promotional recording royalty rate” for the resulting plays, a new generation is learning the definition of payola, and how it has artificially influenced the music industry for decades. There have always been creative marketing solutions behind the scenes, but this is one to watch – especially as the music industry tends to “break” trends before they move to other categories, influencers, and publishers.

Twitter’s Carousel Ads are Here (Organic, too!): This week Twitter introduced a new Carousels format. Brands can now add up to six images or videos in an ad, they can run organically or promoted, and like other carousel ads, and although every brand is different, they are expected to perform extremely well. For example, Carousel ads on Facebook and Instagram reportedly drive 10 times more web traffic for businesses than the counter single-image ads. And a Facebook study showed Carousel ads drove a 72% higher click-through rate than single images. Read more about the announcement here.

Business Reads of the Week: McKinsey’s 2020 Holiday Seasons in a Pandemic Report; 6 skills employees will need in the post-pandemic workplace; It’s time for brands to double down on activism; The Battle for the Soul of Digital Freedom Taking Place Inside Your Printer

Quick Hits:

Sign up for stuff like this in your inbox every week here:

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.