Welcome to this week's episode of Social Chatter, the longest running social media marketing talk show where we cover the latest social media news from this past week.
As a reminder, each episode of Social Chatter is available as a blog post or video.
For those of you who missed last week's show, you can find it here.
We're also joined by this week's special guest, Cameron Murray.
Let's see what's new in social media this week with your hosts, Christian Karasiewicz and Nick Rishwain.
Watch This Week's Social Media Updates
Changes to Facebook Organic Reach For Pages
In Facebook news, they are making sweeping changes to Facebook organic reach for Pages.
Why Changes to Facebook Organic Reach For Pages Matters For Your Business
If your business has a Facebook Page, be sure you pay attention to this important update from Facebook.
Facebook has started to make changes to how they prioritize posts in the news feed.
Posts that "inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that's a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussions" will be prioritized in your feed.
As a result, Pages may see their reach decline (it's already hovering near zero).
According to Facebook, "Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease."
If you share posts that people don't react to or comment on, your Page could see the highest decrease in distribution in News Feed.
The bottom-line is that you should continue to update your Facebook Page, but you'll want to be sure you have a social media strategy in-place and that you're working towards building a community, rather than updating your Page and hoping people see your content.
We're not suggesting using fake engagement tactics, such as asking people to comment on a post if they agree or disagree. Instead, you should consider posting thoughtful posts that generate discussions amongst your audience.
If your Facebook Page currently lacks engagement, you may want to consider creating a Facebook Group and then link it to your Facebook Page.
By using a Group, you can use this as an opportunity to invite your best customers and begin to build a community.
For example, we have a Facebook Group that you can join and ask questions about social media marketing, get help for your business and more. You can join that group here.
To read more about this big change coming to Facebook here.
Facebook Watch Parties For Social Video
In more Facebook news, they are testing Facebook Watch Party, a feature where a Group can watch videos together.
Why Facebook Watch Party Matters For Your Businesseve
Facebook Watch Party is a feature to enhance Facebook Live videos.
Its no secret, live video generates a higher number of interactions among its viewers.
With Watch Parties, they're starting with letting Facebook Group watch videos together.
The way that it works is the Group admin or moderators choose a video (note: videos must be public. Group members can now watch, comment and react together.
As a business, this can be an especially useful feature and could lead to conducting webinars, trainings and more on Facebook and encourage people to tune-in at the same time to watch and engage around the video.
Facebook Watch Party could also be a good pre-cursor to Facebook moving into Television - last week we talked about the Golden Globes pre-show using Facebook Live over Twitter, or launching their own movie service and letting viewers collaborate, engage and react to what they are watching.
To read the announcement about Facebook Watch parties here.
Facebook Testing Local News and Events Feature
Facebook is also testing out a new section in their mobile app for local news and events.
Why A Local News and Events Section On Facebook Matters For Your Business
Facebook is testing a local news and events section to help surface content with the help of machine learning.
This new section looks like this.
If you're a local business, we know how difficult it can be to keep up with what is going on in your area.
By adding a local news and events section, this could be particularly useful for small businesses.
For example, instead of going to your favorite local news site, you could check Facebook to see what is going on nearby and then use this as an opportunity to have your business attend local events or give back and help people you read about who are in need through Facebook local events.
While this feature is only being tested right now, we hope that it gets rolled out to everyone, as it helps to quickly surface quality content that you may be interested in.
To read more about the local news and events section being tested on Facebook, click here.
Facebook Personal Assistant, M, Shutting Down
Also this week, Facebook announced they were shutting down its personal assistant, M, their personal assistant service.
Why Shutting Down Personal Assistant, M, Matters For Your Business
Facebook M was Facebook's text-based virtual assistant for Facebook Messenger.
With M, you could have it offer suggestions to help you make plans, payments and more through Messenger.
As a business, you may not have used Facebook M very often. I know we didn't.
While Facebook plans to shut down M on January 19, 2018, we don't think this is all bad news.
Last week, we talked about new video hardware called Facebook Portal.
Chances are, Facebook M was a test and you'll see it being used in Portal or in a future chatbot feature, as it definitely has some usefulness to it, although not necessarily at this time.
You can read more about Facebook shutting down its personal assistant, M, here.
LinkedIn Group Enhancements
In LinkedIn news, they are discontinuing the LinkedIn mobile app as of February 15, 2018 and launching a number of new improvements to LinkedIn Groups for the web and mobile.
Why LinkedIn Group Enhancements Matter For Your Business
According to LinkedIn, this is being done to "focus on re-integrating Groups back into the core LinkedIn experience."
LinkedIn appears to be following in Facebook's footsteps by discontinuing their mobile app for Groups as well.
With that, LinkedIn is adding two new enhancements.
First, they are adding in an easier way to discover and access Groups more easily.
Rather than having to search for LinkedIn Groups, you will be able to find them in notifications as well as in your LinkedIn feed.
LinkedIn is also adding new ways for you to have richer conversations in LinkedIn Groups.
You'll now be able to @mention group members and also reply to comments. In addition, LinkedIn is adding the ability to share videos in LinkedIn Groups.
While these are features that Facebook has had in Facebook Groups for some time, it is good to see LinkedIn is finally starting to make enhancements to LinkedIn Groups, many of which were sorely needed.
As a business, you might have been putting off using LinkedIn. Over the past several months, LinkedIn has continued to make great strides to improve the platform.
With these new features, it is time to revisit using LinkedIn on a regular basis. This includes sharing updates with your connections but also building your own LinkedIn Group for your business so that you can begin building a stronger community to better serve your customers.
You can read more about these LinkedIn Group enhancements here.
YouTube Partner Program Changes
In YouTube news, they are changing the requirements of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).
Why YouTube Partner Program Changes Matter For Your Business
YouTube has recently been in the news as a result of incidents surrounding YouTuber, Logan Paul, but not for the right reasons.
As a result of this incident (and many others), they're in need of protecting the YouTube ecosystem.
That's why on February 20, 2018, they are making changes to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).
If your business has its own YouTube channel and you're looking to monetize it, you will now need to meet the following requirements - 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers.
Channels that do not meet these requirements will not be able to earn money through their YouTube channel.
The good news is that when you meet these requirements on your channel, it will automatically be reviewed.
Your channel will still be able to use the Creator Academy, Help Center and resources available on the YouTube Creator Site.
To read more about these changes to the YouTube Partner Program, here.
Tools
In addition to sharing the latest news from this past week, we also highlighted some great social media tools and apps for you to check out.
Linkkle
The first tool that we have discovered this week is called Linkkle (web).
Would you like to add more links to your social media profiles?
Most of the time, they only allow you to add one.
While this might work for new businesses, more established ones might have other business ventures such as a podcast, training course and free guide that they want to share with their customers.
In this situation, you might have to create a schedule to change out the link in your bio, unless you use Linkkle.
One other way we find this tool especially useful is when you want to have multiple Instagram bio links.
With Linkkle, you can create one link to use in your social media profiles. When users click the link you create, it takes them to a separate page where they can access up to 10 links that you want them to see.
Overall, this can be a valuable time-saving tool that also makes it easier for your customers.
You can start using Linkkle for free from the link below.
Try LinkkleSentiOne
The second tool that we have for you this week is called SentiOne web).
SentiOne is a social listening and online reputation management platform.
What makes SentiOne especially useful for businesses is that you can discover who is talking about your business or brand, important keywords and more not just from your social media channels, but also blogs, forums and web portals in one convenient place.
In addition to social listening, SentiOne also includes sentiment analysis so that you can see whether conversations are positive or negative towards your brand.
The great thing about SentiOne is that it works on desktop and mobile so that you can manage your reputation from anywhere.
SentiOne starts at around $60 per month. If you want to track your overall reach on social media or conduct influencer analysis, they offer plans for those as well.
Try SentiOneWrap-up
That's it for this week's show!
To watch next week's episode of Social Chatter, your weekly social media marketing talk show, tune-in here to find out what's new in social media news!
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.
