Welcome to this week's episode of Social Chatter where we cover the latest social media news from this past week.
Each episode of Social Chatter is available as a blog post or video.
Let's see what's new in social media this week with your hosts, Christian Karasiewicz and Nick Rishwain.
We're also joined by special guest, Vincent Orleck.
Watch This Week's Social Media Updates
Facebook Live Updates
In Facebook news, they have rolled out many new powerful features for Facebook live video.
Here is a rundown on what is new.
Facebook Live From the Web
Facebook live was already available on mobile.
It worked great, but a lot of times we are on a laptop and need the option to use Facebook Live there as well.
Now you can with Facebook Live video from the web.
To use Facebook Live from the web, you'll want to look for the "start a live video" option in the status box on your Facebook Page.
It looks like this.
From there, you can broadcast your Facebook Live video as you normally would.
Live Contributors for Pages
Sometimes a broadcaster needs to be able to broadcast live from a Facebook Page.
For example, your employees when they are working an event for your business.
Today, Facebook is rolling out the ability for pages to add multiple live contributors to a page.
Here is what that looks like.
By adding someone as a contributor to a Facebook Page, they will have the flexibility to stream live content from their mobile device on behalf of a Facebook Page.
If you plan to allow live contributors on your Facebook Page, make sure they have the right live video tools.
To learn how to setup live contributors on your Facebook Page, check out this guide.
Video Insights for Profiles
Over the coming weeks, Facebook is going to begin rolling out video insights to Facebook Profiles.
According to Facebook, "available for both individual live and regular public videos, these metrics will include total minutes viewed, total number of views, and total engagement (reactions, comments and shares). People will also be able to see aggregated insights for all the videos they post on their profile over 7-, 30-, and 60-day periods, including the total number of video posts, engagement, total views and minutes viewed, and total number of Profile followers."
Here is an example of video insights for Facebook Profiles.
Live Comment Pinning
Another update this week to Facebook Live videos is the ability to pin live video comments to the bottom of a broadcast.
According to Facebook, "This update lets publishers to personalize their broadcast and highlight specific comments for their viewers."
For those of you looking for a convenient way to access your videos on your Facebook Page, you can now go to "http://www.facebook.com/pagename/videos" to see your live, non-live videos and your library of videos in an easy-to-navigate format.
Why Facebook Live Video Updates Matter
This week, there were a lot of new updates to Facebook Live videos.
Everyone of these updates will be extremely useful for businesses as live video usage continues to grow in 2017.
We're particularly excited about the new live contributors for pages.
This is because previously, you had to go through a complicated process to make someone an admin just so they could use features.
Now, you can essentially have reporters who can broadcast on your Facebook Page, but still retain control of your Page.
You can read more about the new Facebook Live video updates here.
Facebook Ads In Videos
This week, Facebook is giving businesses more places to run Facebook Ads.
Now they are looking to add Facebook Ads during videos.
They call these "mid-roll" ads and they will be 15 seconds in length.
Advertisers will be able to pick the content categories they do or don't want their ads to interrupt.
Why Facebook Ads In Videos Matter
Videos must be 90 seconds to be able to contain mid-roll ads.
The new mid-roll ads won't start playing until after 20 seconds into a video.
In order to encourage users to run Facebook Ads, they are looking to incentivize publishers by offering them a 55 percent split of all sales.
As a business, pay attention to what some of the major brands are doing when video ads first start appearing.
While you may not be interested in running mid-roll ads for your business now, you can get some ideas for later.
You can read more about ads in Facebook videos here.
Crossposting Facebook Page Videos
In other Facebook news, they have added the ability for Facebook Pages to crosspost videos in their posts.
Here is what the new menu looks like.
Why Crossposting Facebook Page Videos Matters
Crossposting of videos between Facebook Pages is going to be a valuable tool for businesses.
This is because it will encourage you to build relationships with other pages because you can now restrict which videos can and cannot be crossposted.
Here is another shot of the crossposting feature for Facebook Pages.
To use the new crossposting feature on your Facebook Page videos, simply edit a video.
From there, look for the "crossposting" tab and choose which Facebook Pages are allowed to crosspost your videos.
Easier Facebook Page Management
Also from Facebook, they have revamped the Facebook Page status box area.
This is what the new area looks like.
Why Easier Facebook Page Management Matters
As you can see, it's a more graphical view.
If you're a new business just getting started with your Facebook Page, you probably think it is difficult to find things.
With this new look, Facebook puts everything right there for your business.
Some pages even have a feature that allows them to use Facebook Live from the web.
Facebook is trying to make the process easier for business owners who are confused with where to find things on their Facebook Page.
Overall, while this is great for new businesses, if you're a seasoned Facebook marketer, you might be searching for an option to disable the icons.
At the moment, there isn't one.
Ads In Instagram Stories
In Instagram news, they are rolling out two new features.
First, fullscreen ads in Instagram Stories.
These new ads will show up when someone is viewing Stories.
Here is a video showing what ads in Instagram Stories look like.
When you're running ads in an Instagram story, you will be able to "use targeting, reach and measurement capabilities."
This will help make your ads more relevant to the people you're wanting to reach on Instagram.
Some businesses that Instagram has been working with include: Netflix, Capital One, Buick, Maybelline New York and Nike.
Second, Instagram is including insights on Instagram Stories within Instagram business tools.
You will be able to see reach, impressions, replies, as well as exits for each individual story in Instagram business tools.
Here is a video on the insights you should see.
In order to take advantage of insights, you will need a business profile.
Why Ads In Instagram Stories Matter
Once Facebook figured out a way to monetize ads, you knew they were making their way to Instagram.
As a business, if you haven't created a budget for running Instagram ads, it's time to begin looking into one.
They can significantly help you get your content in front of the right audience when normal content sharing just won't cut it.
Regardless of the size of your business, focus on building an engaged audience.
This way you won't have to rely so much on running ads in Instagram Stories as your are building up your businesses online presence.
You can read more about ads in Instagram Stories and business insights for Stories here.
Snapchat Universal Search
In Snapchat news, they are rolling out Snapchat universal search.
With Snapchat universal search, there will now be a universal search bar that appears at the top of the app.
This will make it easier for you to find friends, groups, discover publishers and search stories.
This is what Snapchat's universal search feature looks like.
Why Snapchat Universal Search Matters
Previously, it was difficult to find someone on Snapchat.
With the new search bar, you will be able to instantly jump to a profile just by tapping on your bitmoji.
Universal search also not only makes it easier to find and connect with people, but this could also present interesting revenue opportunities for Snapchat.
For example, businesses being able to pay for placement at the top of search results. Think Twitter Ads.
Here is a video showing you how to use Snapchat universal search.
To read more about Snapchat universal search go here.
Snapchat For Breaking News
This week, we wanted to discuss the idea of using Snapchat for breaking news.
A lot of people write-off Snapchat.
They see it as a waste of time or silly - because of the filters and elements you can add to snaps.
Snapchat though can be a useful tool for breaking news.
Here's why.
Why Snapchat For Breaking News Matters
This week's guest, Vincent Orleck, had this to say about using Snapchat for breaking news.
Snapchat's Breaking News Coverage is Unlike Anything We've Seen Before via @Medium https://t.co/caQssbHQF6
— #NotAGuru (@VincentOrleck) January 7, 2017
One thing that differentiates Snapchat from its competitors is that they have their own news division.
We're talking about people whose job it is to report on news.
Couple that with the fact that individuals who are in or near a breaking news situation, can use Snapchat to record and document incidents.
Because you can capture ten seconds of video on Snapchat, this means you don't have to rely on having a reporter there.
The person breaking the news is the individual or group who is in the situation.
They now become the reporter.
If Snapchat really wanted to dominate social news, here's what I think they will do.
For starters, they will roll out Snapchat Spectacles to a wider market.
This allows anyone to capture and share news.
Within Snapchat, the news division will be responsible for building an influencer network with its users.
Not only will this help add credibility to what is being reported.
This will help differentiate Snapchat from its competitors and help push them to the forefront as a breaking news source.
For anyone who thinks Snapchat is a gimmick or useless, it's time to re-assess Snapchat.
Everyone will have the opportunity to report on breaking news and the news will be real news, not fake news.
To read more about Snapchat as a tool for breaking news, take a look at this article.
Tools
In addition to sharing the latest in social media news from this past week, we also highlighted some great tools and apps to check out.
Stash
The first tool we have for you this week is called Stash (web | iOS | Android).
Do you find you're always trying to find a link that you bookmarked, or was that emailed to you?
Stash is a smarter bookmarking tool that syncs your items between your desktop and your mobile device - this way they're always available.
What makes Stash unique is that you can save anything to it and it will automatically categorize it for you.
This way you don't have to setup a complex tagging system or spend time searching multiple places to find something.
Some examples include saving Facebook posts for later, tweets, Google Maps, webpages and more!
For those of you who already use other bookmarking services, Stash can import those as well.
A few that come to mind are Evernote, Pocket as well as Google Chrome
To see Stash in action, watch this short video.
Stash is available as a free app.
To start using Stash for smarter bookmarking, sign-up below.
Sign-up for StashTextExpander
The next tool we wanted to share with you is called TextExpander (web | iOS).
What TextExpander does is it let's you create snippets and assign an abbreviation.
Instead of typing out the complete snippet, just type the abbreviation and it will expand it for you.
For example, instead of typing out the link to our Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/socialchefs, we created an abbreviation of "scfb."
Whenever we want to add a link to our Facebook Page, we just type "scfb" and it will display the link to our page.
TextExpander is also extremely useful for typing out email addresses - say a personal and a business address.
One last way we use TextExpander is when people send us guest posts for our blog.
We have all of the requirements listed set up.
When someone asks us what we need, we type an abbreviation and everything is filled in.
One other thing we really like about TextExpander is that it syncs across your desktop and mobile devices.
This way you always have TextExpander with you!
TextExpander is a paid app. You can download it below.
Download TextExpanderTerminology
The last tool we wanted to share this week is called Terminology (iOS).
How many times have you been writing a post for your social media channels or blog on your mobile device and needed to look-up the definition to a word?
Instead of going to your browser and searching Google and then getting distracted, use Terminology instead.
Terminology can serve as a dictionary and thesaurus so you can focus on what you're writing.
Where it really shines though is that they also let you search Wikipedia, Google and more right from within the app.
Once you've found the definition, they have a handy "actions" feature to let you copy and cite definitions into other apps.
For example, we use their companion app, Drafts, to capture ideas for social media posts, blog ideas and more.
After launching Terminology, we can take the word or definition that we looked up and return right back to the app we were in.
Terminology not only helps us quickly look up words and definitions, but it also helps us vary the words that we use throughout our writing.
You can download Terminology below for free.
Download TerminologyWrap-up
That's it for this week's episode of Social Chatter.
Be sure to tune-in to our next episode of Social Chatter to find out what's new in social media!
If you have any questions about of the social media news or tools that were mentioned this week, please share them with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or in the comments below.
