Tag: instagram

Social Pulse, Week of 11-9

Posted on by Perfectporridge 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

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Social Pulse, Week of 10-5

Posted on by Perfectporridge 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.

Get Your Instagram Birthday Icons: To celebrate its 10th birthday, Instagram added an Easter egg to the app that lets you change its home screen icon to the classic Polaroid-style camera icon, Pride rainbow, monochrome, and more. The app update also includes a private map and archive of your stories from the past three years. To unlock these icons, go to Settings and pull the whole menu DOWN. Here’s a quick video demo.

Stories and More Stories: From Snapchat to Instagram and Facebook to Linked, the “Stories” content vehicle format continues to grow in popularity. It’s an ephemeral, accessible, and vertical first format that’s easy to share and easier to consume. This week both Google Search and Slack added Stories to their platforms.

Triller Paying Big $ to Grow: TikTok-cloneapp Triller is bolstering its quality and reach by offering notable creators big bucks to make content dedicated for the platform. Key quote: “Triller offered the creators a deal: Tell your audience on TikTok that you’re moving to Triller, and we’ll give you equity and roles within the company. You can still post on TikTok, they were told, but only if you post on Triller more frequently.” The platform is quite popular with Trumpers, QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theorists, although it picked up lots of new users when folks thought TikTok could be banned.

Nvidia Maxine Sets Out to Fix All the Problems With Video Calls: You know when you’re in a video call and the person on the other end isn’t looking directly at the camera, has really bad audio and video quality, steps out of frame completely, or overall it just feels like maybe you should just do a phone call? Nvidia has announced a new videoconferencing platform for developers named Nvidia Maxine that claims to fix all of these problems, and more. Watch a demo here.

A Social Network Rooted in Kindness? A team of former Quora employees are using lessons learned from Twitter in an effort to make social networking fun again, launching an invite-only social network called Telepath. Telepath threads combine the urgency of Twitter with the ephemerality of Snapchat (posts disappear after 30 days). The key differentiator is you must use real names and the network hosts an in-house content moderation team that enforces kindness. Key quote: “Telepath is ultimately in a tug-of-war: Is it possible to encourage lively-yet-decent debate on a platform without seeing it devolve into harassment? Most users assume that being online involves taking a certain amount of abuse, particularly if you’re a woman or from a marginalized group. Ideally, that doesn’t have to be the case.” Join the waitlist here.

Forecast is Public: Facebook is opening its experimental predictions app Forecast to all users. It’s pretty fun to make predictions – and bet – on trending news or world events, or add your own. For example, I added a forecast asking if you believe if the President would pardon a turkey this year or not. What do you think? Download it here.

Happy Birthday @HydraulicPressChannel! It’s been 5 years of publishing videos of a hydraulic press crushing things like gummy bears, duct tape, basketballs, and more. Of course, the channel celebrated by smashing lit birthday candles. So satisfying.  

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