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, video or you can listen to the Alexa Flash Briefing.
For those of you who missed last week's show with Phil Gerbyshak, Christian Karasiewicz and guest, Gary J. Nix, you can find it here.
We're also joined by this week's special guest, Andrew Grill.
Watch This Week's Social Media Updates
Facebook Subscriptions
In Facebook news, they are looking into Facebook subscriptions. This new model would let you have an ads-free version of Facebook.
Why Facebook Subscriptions Matter For Your Business
The obvious impact of having a Facebook subscription model is that it would decrease the effectiveness of Facebook Ads.
At the same time, what Facebook could do if they were to launch a subscription model would be to offer a revenue sharing option, similar to YouTube Red to generate revenue for businesses where customers have a Facebook subscription.
While this is just speculation right now, we think you'll see if in the near future, as users are growing increasingly more and more frustrated with seeing ads.
To read more about Facebook subscriptions click here.
Instagram Rolling Out Quick Replies, New Action Buttons
In Instagram news, they began rolling out quick replies for Instagram Direct along with more action buttons for third-party apps.
Why Instagram Quick Replies and New Action Buttons Matter For Your Business
Instagram is testing quick replies. These will let businesses quickly credit messages based on commonly asked questions.
Overall, they can save you a lot of time.
Instagram is also adding a number of new action buttons.
These action buttons for Instagram business profiles, will let your followers make reservations, purchase tickers, place an order, book a service and more right from Instagram.
These are some of the actions buttons that are available.
- Acuity
- Atom Tickets
- Booksy
- ChowNow
- Eatstreet
- Eventbrite
- Fandango
- GrubHub
- MyTime
- OpenTable
- Reserve
- Restorando
- Resy
- SevenRooms
- StyleSeat
- Tock
- Yelp Reservations
They're also looking to bring these to more apps such as Appointy, Schedulicity, SetMore, Shedul and more.
To read more about quick replies and action buttons, click here.
Stories Adding Instagram Music Stickers
Also in Instagram news, they are testing Instagram music stickers.
They would let you search for and add a song to your posts.
Why Instagram Music Stickers Matter For Your Business
Does your business have its own playlist? For example, do you run a gym or fitness center?
One way you could use Instagram music stickers, which are stickers you add to Stories that automatically detect a song you are listening to, would be to share the music you play in-store with customers in your Instagram Stories.
You could also look into holding a contest and encourage user-generated content, with the winner playing DJ with Instagram music stickers.
These are currently in testing. We'll let you know more when they are officially released.
To read more about Instagram music stickers, click here.
Selling Twitter Pre-Roll Ads Before Videos
In Twitter news, they are experimenting with selling preroll video ads that run at the beginning of a video clip.
Why Twitter Pre-Roll Ads Matter For Your Business
Twitter is testing selling pre-roll ads to publishers. These Twitter Ads would let you run ads before a video.
As a business owner, these could be especially useful if you have an engaged audience on Twitter.
For example, you could create pre-roll Twitter Ads to promote an initiative at your company before a video. For example, promote an upcoming event, a paid webinar or a new product you're launching. This way your Twitter videos can focus on what is important, instead of being packed with unnecessary fluff.
While they're still ironing out the details, Twitter pre-roll ads seem like they could be especially useful for businesses that have a lot to offer their customers, but not enough time to create content to promote everything.
You can read more about selling Twitter Ads before videos here.
PiP For Facebook and Instagram Video In WhatsApp
In WhatsApp news, you can view Facebook and Instagram video content directly in WhatsApp.
Why PiP For Facebook and Instagram Video In WhatsApp Matters For Your Business
As a business owner, your time is valuable. At the same time though, you want to be able to view videos and links your customers or employees send you.
Previously, if they sent you these over WhatsApp, you had to tap on a link and then launch Facebook or Instagram. Things are changing though for iPhone users.
Now, when you tap on a Facebook or Instagram link from WhatsApp, it will load the content in WhatsApp - no more unnecessary steps just to watch a video.
In addition, WhatsApp is also adding PiP or picture-in-picture. This will allow you to watch a video while still scrolling through your messages.
As a business owner, you'll be able to watch videos consultants might send you for approval and message them back while you're in the middle of watching it.
Right now, this new feature is only available for iOS users - update your WhatsApp mobile app to get it.
Hopefully we'll begin to see tighter alignment across WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, with the ability to further target users on each platform through Ads.
To read more about WhatsApp adding Instagram and Facebook video PiP for iOS 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.
Promo By Slidely
The first tool that we have discovered this week is called Promo by Slidely (web).
Instead of trying to find the footage and music for your video project and then have to edit it, Promo includes all of that.
All you have to do is include your message and your logo.
Overall, Promo can help you create videos that engage your customers, while helping to get your marketing message across. You also get access to stock footage and music, which overall, can be very expensive to obtain. Promo includes this.
You can try Promo by Slidely for free using the link below. Plans then start at $39 per month.
Try Promo By SlidelyPick Video
The second tool that we have for you this week is Pick Video (iOS).
For those of you looking to download Facebook Live videos (link) https://www.socialchefs.com/how-to-download-facebook-live-videos/, the process is pretty easy, but what if you want to download videos from Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo and more?
Fortunately, with Pick Video, you can save them for later in just a few steps.
Go to Pick Video. From there, enter the URL to the video you want to download. They will bring back options to save different quality versions.
While we don't condone downloading videos that aren't yours, sometimes you want to use them when you may be offline. For example, maybe you're traveling on an airplane and want to catch-up on some training you've been meaning to watch?
With Pick Video, you can save the videos you need to watch and put them on your mobile device for viewing later. This way you can stay on-top of your training.
Pick Video is available as a free tool. In addition to Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, it also works with Vimeo, SoundCloud, Dropbox and many more.
You can try it out using the following link.
Try Pick VideoWrap-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!
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.
