Industry News

Highlights from PR News’ Big 4 Conference #Social16

August 11, 2016 by The Motherhood

This week, PR News held its Big 4 Social Media Summit & Visual Storytelling Boot Camp (#Social16), where agencies and brand representatives gathered to discuss ways to make their messages stand out on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.

The Motherhood’s social listening team followed along with the online conversation and rounded up some interesting takeaways from the event!

David Kellis from Clorox asserted that organic social media is dead (with the possible exception of Twitter influencers), and that brands must use strategies like earned media outreach, influencer marketing and social media listening to effectively reach their audiences. Social media listening, in particular, is what he called the “most important use of social media that we have.” It is a data mine for insights, ideas and input on areas of interest.

David Landis (Landis Communications) and James Mowdy (BSPOKE) explained how to maximize Periscope, including some best practices:

When it comes to sharing information – whether it’s a social post, video or longer-form messaging – Paul Englert with @CKMondaviWines reminds us to be concise!

PR News shared a summary of its four data visualization takeaways for creating infographics. The takeaways mirror the top-note themes from the event, such as keeping infographics concise and distilling the information in them into a simple story.

Stephanie Elsea with the American Heart Association shared the “rule of thirds” via this visual as a way to balance social media promotion:

PwC’s Leslie Douglas shared an interesting tidbit for brands interested in exploring Snapchat as a viable marketing platform: Snapchat has more than 100 million daily active users, and collectively, they watch more than 10 billion videos daily.

Were you at the event? Tell us your favorite takeaways in the comments below, and follow along with the conversation using #Social16!

Industry Round-Up: Pinterest, Facebook Release New Publishing & Advertising Features

May 27, 2015 by The Motherhood

Pinterest and Facebook have been busy announcing exciting new features for brands, consumers and advertisers: Find out more in this week’s Industry Round-Up from The Motherhood!

Pinterest Announces New Ad Services & Products

After naming its first general manager of monetization, Pinterest is ready to build its ad services and products portfolio. Pinterest’s new services include “Cinematic Pins,” improved audience targeting and new pricing structures.

Pinterest’s new Cinematic Pins will be animated pins that move when the user scrolls and stops when the user stops. The speed at which a user scrolls will determine how fast an animated pin moves.

Photo Credit: Pinterest

In addition, Pinterest will begin offering a more niche system for audience targeting that will be based off a user’s interests and personas. Genre marketers will be able to target millennials, gardeners, foodies, travelers, etc.

Lastly, Pinterest announced plans to offer two new pricing structures to marketers. The “cost per engagement” model is for marketers looking to drive Pinterest users’ intent to purchase – marketers will only pay when a user signals intent toward the brand or product such as a repin, click-through or close-up of a specific pin. The “cost per action” pricing structure will be offered for advertisers looking to drive action such as the actual purchase of a product or service.

Tim Kendall, General Manager of Monetization at Pinterest, says, “We want to make it easy for marketers to work with us. They are only paying us if we achieve their objectives, and that takes the risk out of advertising on Pinterest, which we think is really important.”

Facebook Introduces Instant Articles

Last week, Facebook announced its plan for a direct-to-Facebook publishing service that allows publishers the ability to share articles and content directly on the social media site. Facebook Instant Articles will eliminate the current click-through model, meaning readers will not have to click through to read the article; it will appear directly on Facebook’s mobile apps.

Photo Credit: Facebook

This new feature could have a huge influence on the way the publishing industry works. BuzzFeed, The New York Times, National Geographic and The Guardian are a few publishers that have access to Instant Articles, allowing these publications the opportunity to reach 936 million daily active Facebook users directly.

Industry News Round Up: Social Media’s Role in the Presidential Campaign & Game of Thrones

April 17, 2015 by The Motherhood

This week in our Industry News Round Up, we take a quick look at how politicians and entertainers are making headlines in social media:

Presidential Candidate Announces Run for Presidency via Social Media

Unlike candidates before her, Hillary Clinton opted to take a less traditional route when it came to announcing her bid for the Democratic presidential candidacy. On Sunday, the former Secretary of State used her Twitter account to inform the public that she will be hitting the campaign trail in a bid to become the first woman President of the United States. Clinton also released a 140-second video announcing her campaign on YouTube. This is an exciting social media first for the presidential candidacy, and we can’t wait to watch how social media continues to play a role in the election.

Image: Twitter

Game of Thrones Social Campaign Excites and Engages Fans for Season 5 Premiere

A few of us at The Motherhood are die-hard Game of Thrones fans, and every year HBO and digital agency 360i deliver a creative social media campaign to tease fans for the premiere. Last year, the #RoastJoffrey campaign garnered more than 60,000 roasts, one million social engagements and 850 million impressions. This year, the team rolled out a dragon hunt on social media to find Drogon. The #CatchDrogon campaign asked fans to create photos, posts and custom GIFs to lure the dragon to their social media feeds. If Drogon landed on a fan’s feed, they were asked to retweet that post or use #CatchDrogon in the Facebook or Instagram comments sections to be rewarded with GoT prizes.

Celebrities and brands even took part in the #CatchDrogon hunt.

Image: Twitter

HBO Digital and Social Media Director Jim Marsh explains the success behind this campaign model: “What makes a concept like this work is simplicity and flexibility. We are offering fans a creative platform to have fun, but what’s common about all our social campaigns is that the title, #CatchDrogon, explains exactly what the expectation is. The rule is, if you can’t explain what the campaign is in a hashtag, it’s probably the wrong campaign.”

What’s New in Social Media This Week

April 10, 2015 by The Motherhood

A lot has happened in the world of social media this week. Here’s the latest:

Facebook expands Messenger service:

You can now access Facebook Messenger on a separate platform: Messenger.com. The website allows users to view conversations on a full screen, as well as enable notifications to your desktop or laptop. This move sets the stage for Facebook’s Messenger Platform and Business on Messenger initiatives announced in late March. On Messenger.com, users can do all of the same things they did in Messenger, including easily sharing GIFs, photos, videos, audio clips and more. Business for Messenger is still being tested, but will eventually allow businesses and customers to better communicate with one another. For example, a customer could easily check on the status of an order they’ve made online through the new Business for Messenger.

Facebook still remains most used social network among teens:

The Pew Research Center released a studying this week showing that Facebook is used by 71 percent of American teens, as well as the platform that 41 percent of teens say they use the most. This data contradicts what many people may have thought about young people straying away from the social network.

Twitter allows users to say more with new “quote tweet” feature:

Starting this week, Twitter users can now embed a tweet within their retweet, then add up to 116 characters of their own commentary. With the old “quote tweet” function, the quoted tweet would appear in the user’s tweet with quotation marks and quite commonly used up most of the character space. The new function is currently available only for Apple iOS and web users, and is reportedly coming to Android soon.

Twitter experiments with new search result design:

Have you noticed a difference in your Twitter search results? Mashable reported that Twitter is testing a new search design that allows users to filter results by account, popularity, photos, videos and more.

screen_shot_2015-04-08_at_12.01.55_pm_1024-640x441 — Photo source: Mashable

Instagram announces new notification options:

On Tuesday, Instagram announced the Color and Fade tools for editing photos. Users can now choose from eight different colors to add “flair” to their photo. The Fade edit tool softens the colors, letting you achieve more of a “quiet tone,” according to Instagram.

Screen Shot 2015-04-09 at 3.30.40 PM — Photo source: Instagram

But what we find even more interesting is that users now have the option to receive notifications from accounts they already follow. Simply go to a user’s profile and hit the “…” in the top right corner to enable notifications.

Tip for brands: Aside from creating and posting colorful photos, tell your followers to turn on notifications to stay updated on your posts! It’s common for a photo to get lost in the usually crowded users’ Instagram homepage. A study by Over-Graph from July 2014 showed Instagram’s lifespan to be about 21 hours, but this new notification feature could make that time longer.

LinkedIn buys lynda.com:

On Thursday, LinkedIn announced that it bought online education site lynda.com for $1.5 billion. Details of how the two sites will be integrated are still unclear, but Ryan Roslansky, Head of Content at LinkedIn, painted a picture of what this partnership could look like: Job seekers will have the ability to see the required skills for a job, then instantly take a course to help obtain those skills. Roslansky said that both lynda.com and LinkedIn’s users value job talent — “acquiring it, training it, or retaining it.”

YouTube announces ad-free subscription service:

This week, YouTube confirmed that they plan to offer a subscription service for ad-free streaming. The video sharing site sent its partners an email this week, informing them of the upcoming move. The cost of a subscription service is still unknown, but according to Bloomberg, it could become available as early as this year.

Industry News Round Up: Facebook and Instagram Updates

March 26, 2015 by The Motherhood

It’s been a busy week for Facebook and Instagram. In case you haven’t had a chance to delve into the latest news, here’s a quick summary:

Three upcoming changes for Facebook

We may start to see news content hosted inside of Facebook, instead of links that direct users to another media site. This will make consuming content on Facebook more seamless, especially for those accessing it on mobile devices. Some initial media partners will include The New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic.
And while we’re all familiar with Facebook’s autoplay videos, the company is looking to take autoplay to the next level. This new feature will automatically play another related video when the one you’re watching is done — similar to how Netflix automatically plays the next episode of a series you’re watching.
Furthermore, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced at the F8 Developer Conference on Wednesday that the company will be turning its Facebook Messenger into a platform. When it launches, more than 40 third-party apps will be available to download directly from Facebook Messenger, allowing users to send one another not just texts, but GIFs, music, videos and more.

Through a new feature called Messenger Business, Facebook will also aim to replace work-related emails with Messenger. This means email addresses won’t be needed for common online business interactions such as sending direct messages, making reservations and checking business order statuses. Launch dates for these new features have not yet been confirmed, but look for them in the next couple of months!

Facebook Learn How — Photo source: Facebook

Facebook introduces educational resource for marketers

Do you advertise your brand on Facebook? If so, you might want to check out Blueprint: a new educational resource for advertising on Facebook. Released this Wednesday, Blueprint offers more than 35 online courses and includes in-person training and certification. This resource lets advertisers explore Facebook’s campaign optimization offerings, video ad options and effective ad measurement tools at their own pace. Anyone with a Facebook account can access Blueprint via desktop or mobile device.

If you’re a small business owner, Facebook created Learn How with you in mind. This new online learning center helps small businesses do more with their Facebook Pages and Ads. Facebook built the Learn How page to be flexible, saying marketers can “use it to cover a topic in-depth, or as a reference library to cover questions as they come up.” Like Blueprint, this resource is also available on desktop and mobile. To stay on top of Facebook marketing changes, follow the updated Facebook Business website.

With more than two million businesses advertising on the social media network, it appears Facebook saw the opportunity to improve their experience by creating a hub of information and answers for online marketers of both large and small businesses. Smart move!

Instagram rolls out new collage app

On Tuesday, Instagram rolled out a new app, Layout from Instagram, a feature that allows users to create collages of their photos. We love how incredibly simple it is to use this app! Unlike other photo collage apps, however, there are no filter, text or border color options.

While most third-party collage apps require users to choose the collage format before selecting the pictures, Layout does the opposite. Users simply click photos from their library (up to nine) that they wish to include in a collage, then choose the format from a variety of options.

Here’s an example of what it looks like:

After creating a collage, users can easily share their creations to their social media platforms.

Easy, right? First Lady Michelle Obama has already used the app, as have brands such as Sephora and Victoria’s Secret.

You can currently download this app for free in iTunes, and Layout will be available to Android users in the coming months.

Industry News You Can Use: How “The Dress” Went Viral

March 4, 2015 by The Motherhood

Here’s a look at a couple of topics that set online communities abuzz this week.

What #TheDress means for BuzzFeed’s ad revenue

Last week, the social media world was divided on the colors of “#TheDress.” Was it black and blue, or white and gold? No matter which colors you saw, one thing is certain: “The Dress” speaks volumes about BuzzFeed’s ability to make content go viral.

The post, which took only five minutes to create, earned 28 million views in 24 hours (more than 37 million views to date) and the hashtag #TheDress trended at number one on Twitter in the U.S. As more brands and advertisers look to replicate that kind of ubiquity, could BuzzFeed’s content plus distribution model be the key to unlocking such success?

Gian LaVecchia, managing partner, digital content marketing at MEC says, “It’s simply the latest example of how BuzzFeed owns, sustains, propagates the viral distribution game. They have clearly and consistently perfected the art (creative plus content) and scientific precision (algorithmic distribution) of this space and basically owned the internet for hours.”

(Image courtesy of BuzzFeed)

How the latest Pinterest monetization rules affect influencers

Recently, Pinterest eliminated the use of affiliate links in pins, causing much dismay among Pinterest influencers who frequently work with brands and agencies to create content. This once-lucrative business model for influencers is in jeopardy on Pinterest, since compensation from affiliate links has often relied on traffic driven to a brand’s website from an influencer’s pin. According to Pinterest’s data, approximately two-thirds of pins on Pinterest are related to brands.

Pinterest claims that their decision to ban affiliate links was because they were “becoming spammy and hindering user experience on the site,” and the social media powerhouse has no plans to replace affiliate links with its own system.

Tell us you feel about the new Pinterest rules and what it means for influencers.