by Fronetics | Oct 4, 2019 | Blog, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Also, this month in social media news: a court rules LinkedIn cannot stop third-party scraping public information and Facebook expands “Today In” section.
After a relatively quiet month in the world of social media news, social platforms have been hard at work making changes to provide a better user experience and cut down on spam accounts. This is good news for B2B marketers looking to stand out amongst all the competition.
With the growing influence of social networks, social channels have been challenged with making sure the information shared on their sites is authentic and “real” news. In response, social platforms have been working to sort through fake accounts and streamline ways to detect and remove these accounts, which often result in major losses of followers.
But this decline in user accounts does not mean that social media platforms’ influence is declining. In fact, social media usage is at an all-time high, and networks are pushing out new updates, features and policies to keep users happy.
Here’s your social media news for October 2019.
Facebooks announces new business tool for Messenger
Looking to increase leads and engage with new audiences? Facebook is trying to help. The social network introduced a new package of tools for the 40 million active businesses on Messenger, including booking appointments and lead generation workflows. As the new features were announced, Facebook also reported the Discovery tab will be phased out. According to Facebook, “Businesses engaging with potential leads in their preferred channel are seeing results, and finding it easy to continue the conversation and seamlessly nurture leads in Messenger.”
Twitter tests new ‘topics’ shortcut
Twitter users may soon be able to follow topics in the same way they would follow users. Users can see tweets about topics they choose (like digital marketing, supply chain procurement, or even sports) in the home feed. Individual tweets will be monitored through machine learning and chosen to be included in specific topics.
Though only in the testing phase, the new shortcut would help users discover the exact content they need and want without following a specific account. The Verge reports that Twitter is also working on other ways to improve the user experience, including searchable direct messages, the ability to re-order the photos in a tweet after you have attached them to a new post, and plans to add support for Apple’s Live Photos.
Court rules that LinkedIn cannot stop third-party data scraping of public information
hiQabs has been collecting public user information on LinkedIn to create analytics for employers that accurately identify employee patterns and help with retention efforts. But LinkedIn has tried to block the “data scrapping,” alleging that hiQ was violating the CFAA, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Until now, when a San Francisco appeal’s court told LinkedIn to take a step back. The court’s decision means the CFAA doesn’t apply to public information, including information collecting via social media platforms. This decision could have major implications for social platforms looking to protect user privacy. We’ll continue to closely monitor any updates from this case in next month’s social media news.
Facebook expands “Today In” section
“Today In” has been running in six U.S. cities since January 2018, and has over 1.6 million people who have opted to receive regular local updates from Today In within the newsfeed. Facebook just announced they’ll be expanding the news section to 6,000 more U.S. cities and towns, bringing local news to “news deserts,” areas with limited local news available.
“Today In” showcases the biggest news stories and happenings in local regions. With declining engagement rates, Facebook created the separate newsfeed in an effort to boost engagement and discussions around topics that matter to local areas.
Facebook clarifies privacy settings for Groups
Public, closed, or secret? What do these privacy settings mean? Users across Facebook’s platform weren’t sure, so the network has changed the wording describing the privacy settings for groups. To make these settings clearer, groups now have the option of public or private. Facebook writes:
“We’re making this change because we’ve heard from people that they want more clarity about the privacy settings for their groups. Having two privacy settings — public and private — will help make it clearer about who can find the group and see the members and posts that are part of it. We’ve also heard that most people prefer to use the terms “public” and “private” to describe the privacy settings of groups they belong to. “
The changes leave privacy settings more straight-forward. Public groups show anyone who is a member and all the content shared within the group, while private groups will only show members and content to users that join the group.
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by Fronetics | Sep 26, 2019 | Blog, Current Events, Marketing, Social Media
Having the right social media image sizes for each platform is a key part of creating visually appealing posts.
Highlights:
- Each social media platform has its own set of image guidelines.
- Choosing the right social media image sizes ensures that your content is as visually appealing as possible.
- We like Canva Pro for quick resizing of images and graphics.
Social media is all about the visual. Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, having the right image can make or break the effectiveness of a post. Social media image size might seem like a relatively unimportant facet of choosing an effective image for a post. But you might be surprised to discover how important it can be.
An incorrect social media image size can make your post less visually appealing than it could be, and it can even erode how the number of impressions a post receives. Because each platform has its guidelines for sizes — and because each image type (profile picture, cover photo, etc.) has different size restrictions — determining correct social media image size is no easy task.
The infographic below gives you a complete guide to the various image size requirements on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Once you know the correct social media image sizes, you can set your photo editing software to the correct dimensions.
Social media image sizes: by the network
(Made with Canva)
Facebook
Facebook is perhaps the crown jewel of social media platforms, boasting 1.5 billion daily active users. While the platform is text-friendly, images are key to creating engaging content on the platform. An important thing to remember when it comes to images on Facebook is that they will display differently on your page’s timeline as compared to a user’s newsfeed. This means that your choice of image dimensions should be based on where you want your viewers to see your image.
Image dimensions:
- Cover image: 800 x 312
- Profile image: 180 x 180 (though it will display as 170 x 170 on desktop, and 32 x 32 as a thumbnail)
- Shared post image: 1200 x 630
- Shared link preview image: 1200 x 628
- Event image: 1920 x 1080
- Highlighted image: 1200 x 717
Instagram
Instagram is all about the visual – which means that it’s crucial that your brand’s presence on the platform is driven by high-quality images. As a rule, the platform scales down photos to 612 x 612, but it’s still recommended that shared images be set to 1080 x 1080 to optimize quality.
Image dimensions:
- Profile image: 110 x 110
- Image thumbnail: 161 x 161
- Shared photos: 1080 x 1080
- Shared videos: 1080 pixels wide
- Instagram Stories: 1080 x 1920 (minimum 600 x 1067); maximum 4 GB
Twitter
Twitter has 313 billion monthly active users and has recently updated its image guidelines.
Image dimensions:
- Header image: 1500 x 500; maximum 5 MB
- Profile image: 400 x 400; maximum 2 MB
- In-stream image: 440 x 220
LinkedIn
While the network may not be thought of as a highly visual platform, images on LinkedIn make a big difference in terms of post engagement. With 467 million registered users, it’s the world’s largest professional network. Having polished, well-sized images on the platform can go a long way toward maximizing its potential for professional networking and industry visibility.
Image dimensions:
- Banner image: 1584 x 396; maximum 4 MB
- Profile image: 400 x 400 (minimum 200 x 200); maximum 10 MB
- Company Cover image: 1536 x 768
- Shared image: 350 pixels wide
- Shared link preview: 180 x 110
- Company logo image: 300 x 300; maximum 4 MB
- Company cover image: 1536 x 768 (minimum 1192 x 220); maximum 4 MB
- Company page banner image: 646 x 220; maximum 2 MB
- Square logo (appears in company searches): 60 x 60; maximum 2 MB
An insider trick for quick and easy resizing
As you can see, there is quite a bit of variability in social media image sizes. You could spend hours resizing graphics or images for the same post across multiple platforms… Or, you could do what we do, and try a design platform like Canva. Not only does it already have all the proper dimensions available as templates, Canva Pro lets you change the size of graphics you created in a single click. It definitely makes life a lot easier.
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by Fronetics | Sep 18, 2019 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Video Marketing
Here are 15 social video marketing statistics that every supply chain marketer should be aware of in 2019.
Highlights:
- 87% of business use video as a marketing tool.
- 83% of marketers report that video gives them a good ROI.
- Social video marketing trends to be on the lookout for: live video and 1:1 personalized video.
If you believe everything you read, you might think that social video marketing has taken a bit of a hit in the past year or so. Largely thanks to Facebook’s well-publicized inflation of video view metrics, companies are naturally wary of investing in video creation and promotion on the platform.
But Facebook’s transgressions shouldn’t undermine marketers’ confidence in the future of social video marketing. Both expert analysis and hard numbers support the notion that video isn’t going anywhere. As digital media expert Michael Humphrey puts it, “All the major upward trends still wrap around video.”
According to Lux Narayan, CEO of independent social analytics company Unmetric, audiences “are longing for more interactive experiences as well as long-form storytelling that only video can best achieve.”
Here are 15 social video marketing statistics we think supply chain marketers should be aware of.
15 social video marketing statistics for 2019
- 47% of internet users have watched brand advertising videos on social media within the past 3 months. (Toluna)
- Of the social media users who have watched branded videos in the past 3 months, 43% watched on Facebook, 38% on YouTube, 18% on Instagram, and 13% on Twitter. (Toluna)
- 87% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool, up from 63% in 2017. (Wyzowl)
- 55% of people consume videos thoroughly – the highest percentage of any content type. (HubSpot)
- 30% of users prefer video ads to text or still image ads, while 52% report having no preference. (Only 18% prefer text or still image ads). (Toluna)
- 83%of marketers say video gives them a good ROI, up from 78% in 2018. (Wyzowl)
- 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. (Invodo)
- 68%of people say they’d most prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a short video, over text-based articles (15%), infographics (4%), presentations and pitches (4%), and ebooks and manuals (3%). (Wyzowl)
- 48% of social media users have sought more information about a product or service based on social video marketing. (Toluna)
- 33% of survey respondents answered yes to having bought a product or service from a brand solely based on social video marketing. (Toluna)
- 88% of video marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing efforts on social media. (Animoto)
- 82% of social media users prefer live video from a brand to social posts. (Impact)
- 81% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads, and 84% say video has helped them increase traffic to their website. (Wyzowl)
- 61% of marketers have made more marketing videos in house in 2018 than they did in 2017. (Animoto)
- 67% of users said they would like to see more social video marketing in the future over other types of ads. The remaining 33% are indifferent, not opposed. (Toluna)
The future of social video marketing
Suffice it to say, the numbers bear out the fact that video marketing, and particularly social video marketing, is a trend that’s here to stay. Live video is increasingly popular, and savvy brands are incorporating it into their strategies.
In addition to live video, given the growing ease of shooting video on smartphones, another big trend is likely to be 1:1 video. Marketers can nurture leads via personalized video messages, rather than phone calls or emails, using video to offer additional content, product support, or simply to foster a relationship.
The bottom line is that video offers up the kind of engaging storytelling that users today want. And social media is the ideal distribution platform for video, making social video marketing a winning strategy.
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by Fronetics | Aug 29, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Also this month in social media news: Facebook adds Instagram scheduling to Creator Studio and Twitter launches 6-second video ad bidding.
Highlights:
- Facebook is adding an easy option for users to create a still-image slideshow in its Stories feature.
- LinkedIn’s new audience engagement insights will offer improved audience discovery, content recommendations, and industry benchmarking.
- Marketers can now use Facebook’s Creator Studio app to schedule posts on Instagram.
After a somewhat tumultuous July in the world of social media news, August has been calmer. Our updates this month are less concerned with reproaches of Facebook from the Fed and more with news that directly impacts marketers, particularly in the B2B sector. LinkedIn has partnered with third-party providers to offer a robust set of audience engagement insights, and Instagram made the welcome announcement that posts can now be scheduled the Facebook Creator Studio App.
As Stories’ popularity continues to grow, particularly on Instagram, Facebook is working diligently to make its native Stories feature an attractive place for users to post. As part of an ongoing series of updates, this month the social media giant rolled out two new Stories features geared to boost usage. Keep reading for more details on the social media news this month.
Facebook Announces Continued Updates to Stories
As the popularity of Instagram Stories continues to grow, Facebook remains tenacious in trying to encourage usage of its Stories feature. This month, the social network began testing a Stories update prompt displaying a split panel, encouraging users to share to their personal as well as business Page Stories.
Earlier in the month, Facebook added a slideshow option to Stories. The feature allows users to add a still image slideshow to their Story, providing a simplified way to add a stream of images that play out through Story frames. While it was previously possible to achieve the same result by selecting images one by one for each frame, the new option will make it easier.
Facebook believes that Stories are the future of social sharing. While reports indicate that Stories usage is growing, it remains to be seen whether the social media giant can position itself as the preferred platform for Stories content.
LinkedIn Adds New Audience Insights
As part of ongoing efforts by LinkedIn to develop more insight into central topics of interest among its users, the platform has rolled out a new expansion of its marketing partner program with new engagement insights. Responding to the challenge of “reaching and engaging the right audiences at scale,” LinkedIn is partnering with multiple third-party providers to offer a robust set of audience engagement insights.
According to the announcement from LinkedIn, “With these insights, you can better refine your content strategy and make smarter marketing decisions to help deliver better ROI for your LinkedIn ad campaigns and organic posts.” Benefits include audience discovery, content recommendations, and industry benchmarking.
LinkedIn has long been a preferred platform for B2B marketing, and this latest announcement strengthens the network’s credentials.
Facebook Adds Instagram Scheduling to Creator Studio
The latest addition to Facebook’s Creator Studio app is a welcome one for social media marketers. Earlier this month, users began to receive in-app notifications saying, “Instagram and IGTV publishing now available.” Since Instagram scheduling has proven a challenge for social media marketers, this update promises an improved experience.
The new option to schedule Instagram and IGTV posts through Creator Studio offers increased capacity, and it allows marketers to upload to Instagram from a desktop, rather than only through a mobile device. Needless to say, the new publishing and scheduling option will make Instagram marketing far easier. However, it remains to be seen whether posts coming through this process will receive less engagement, a concern in the past with third-party scheduling tools.
Twitter Launches 6-Second Video Ad Bidding
Twitter is launching a new video ad option, namely, 6-second video ad bidding. The ad bidding option means that advertisers will only be charged if their video ad is viewed for 6 seconds. According to the network, “With mobile video consumption at an all-time high, studies show brand impact happens almost instantaneously (within seconds) with video ads.”
Twitter cited the results of a study by EyeSee, which “determined short-form (under 6 seconds) sound-off videos with clear branding drive significantly better ad recall and message association on mobile than linear TVC style videos.” Advertisers will be able to publish on-platform video ads as in the past, but the new option means they can choose only to be charged when a video is viewed for 6 seconds.
Stay tuned for next month’s social media news.
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by Fronetics | Jul 31, 2019 | Blog, Current Events, Marketing, Social Media
Also this month in social media news: Facebook strives to attract content creators, and Pinterest debuts new video tools for brands.
Highlights:
- Less than a month after Facebook released details of its new cryptocurrency, the project has met a stumbling block from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
- Newly released statistics highlight key growth metrics and lay out expectations for digital marketing in the second half of 2019.
- Pinterest’s new video tools as well as updates from Facebook are geared to content creators and brands.
It’s hard to believe it’s already July and 2019 is at its halfway point. It’s a time when organizations are evaluating their performance thus far, and setting goals for the second half of the calendar year. To that end, both Mobile Marketer and Marketing Dive published key digital marketing growth statistics, and we’ve got the highlights for you below.
Last month, Facebook made news by releasing details of its new cryptocurrency, Libra. Now the social media giant has hit a roadblock, in the form of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell calling for a halt until serious concerns are addressed. Facebook is also making news this month by taking a page out if its competitors’ books in its attempt to attract more online content creators. Read on for details on these social media news items from July 2019.
Fed Chief Calls for Facebook to Halt Libra Project Until Concerns Are Addressed
Following closely on the heels of Facebook’s releasing details of its planned Libra cryptocurrency, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the project “cannot go forward” until serious concerns are addressed. “Libra raises many serious concerns regarding privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability,” Powell said before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.
The Fed chief’s tough comments not only underscore the regulatory hurdles facing Libra, but put pressure on the project, and dented the price of Libra’s forebear, bitcoin. The price of bitcoin fell by around 7% during his 3-hour testimony. Powell also called for regulatory review of the project to be “patient and careful,” while pointing to the fact that existing rules don’t adequately fit digital currencies.
“It’s something that doesn’t fit neatly or easily within our regulatory scheme, but it does have potentially systemic scale,” said Powell. “It needs a careful look, so I strongly believe we all need to be taking our time with this.”
Facebook spokeswoman Elka Looks responded to the testimony in an email to Reuters: “We are very much aligned with the Chairman around the need for public discourse on this,” wrote Looks. “This is why we along with the 27 other Founding Members of the Libra Association made this announcement so far in advance, so that we could engage in constructive discourse on this and get feedback.”
2019 Key Digital Marketing Growth Statistics Released
The midyear release of statistics from Marketing Dive and Mobile Marketer are important for brands and marketers to pay attention to. In the ever-shifting world of digital marketing, these statistics and trends offer valuable insight into where resources and time are best devoted.
Highlights from the reports include:
- Global online advertising spend is on track to grow 7% this year. That’s up from the 4% forecast in December 2018.
- Location-based marketing will likely grow 14%, reaching $24.4 billion in advertising spending by the end of 2019.
- 43% of all advertisers plan to increase spending on influencer marketing by April of 2020.
- Social referral traffic to retail ecommerce sites has grown by 110% in two years.
Facebook Strives to Attract More Content Creators
In an effort to attract more content creators to its platform, Facebook is giving videos more ways to make money. Observers have noted that the reigning social media giant is “pulling inspiration from other platforms to let you throw cash at your favorite video creators in the form of subscriptions or tokenized ‘stars’ that pay them a penny.”
Facebook’s announcement of its new video developments comes just ahead of VidCon, the world’s biggest conference for online video creators. It follows on the heels of three years of investments in the network’s video services and is in line with consumer trends toward video consumption.
Pinterest Debuts New Video Tools for Brands
Image-curating platform Pinterest is ramping up its video capabilities, in line with a larger consumer shift in viewing habits and a boost from advertisers in spending on social video. New video features include an improved uploader, video tab, lifetime analytics, and Pin scheduling.
The updated video uploader “enables businesses and creators to seamlessly upload video directly to Pinterest to engage with new and existing audiences, and access latest metrics,” according to the announcement.
Pinterest’s announcement points out that unlike on other platforms, videos don’t disappear (as they do on Instagram and Facebook Stories after 24 hours). To that end, their video analytics tool will allow businesses to gain insight into a video’s performance over its lifetime.
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