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.
On this week's episode of Social Chatter, your weekly social media marketing talk show, we explore Facebook Stories Ads, Snapchat visual search, GIFs In Instagram Direct and more with Christian Karasiewicz, Phil Gerbyshak and guest, Anh Nguyen.
If you like, you can watch or listen to Social Chatter on our blog, YouTube or the Alexa Flash Briefing.
For those of you who missed last week's show, you can find it here.
Let's see what's new in social media this week with your hosts, Christian Karasiewicz and Phil Gerbyshak.
Watch This Week's Social Media Updates
Pinterest Shop The Look Pins Now Available To Small Businesses
In Pinterest news, small business owners can now use shop the look pins/.
"Shop the look pins" are a free product-tagging tool for organic pins on Pinterest.
Why Pinterest Shop The Look Pins Being Available To SMBs Matter For Your Business
Previously, only large businesses could access this type of pin, which would add white dots to products in their pin that you could click or tap on for more information.
Now that small businesses will have access to this Pinterest tool, if you're having your products shared on Pinterest, you can now hopefully begin to have them tagged, leading Pinterest users to purchase more item from you.
If you're wondering whether these types of pins are effective, Pinterest reported that 67% of users have discovered a new brand or product from a business account.
To read more about shop the look pins on Pinterest, click here.
Pinterest Expands Content Marketing API
Also in Pinterest news, they have expanded the Pinterest content marketing API
Why Expanding The Pinterest Content Marketing API Matters For Your Business
Pinterest is expanding their content marketing API to third-party influencer marketing platforms.
What this means is that OpenInfluence, Hypr, Klear, AspureIQ, Mavrck, Izea, Influence.co and Obvious.ly will now have direct access to statistics on Pinterest profiles. These include stats such as monthly views and followers along with impressions, click-through rates, saves for pins and more.
As a business owner, if you're looking to work with Pinterest influencers, you'll now be able to tap into this data from these partners to help you better identify the right influencer from Pinterest to work with.
To read more about influencer marketing through Pinterest, click here.
Snapchat Visual Search
In Snapchat news, they are launching Snapchat visual search.
Visual search will let you scan a physical product or barcode. When the item is found, it will bring up an Amazon card to purchase that product or a similar one.
Here is what Snapchat visual search looks like.
Why Snapchat Visual Search Matters For Your Business
If your business lists products on Amazon, this can be a great way to drive exposure for your own products.
For those of you always wanting to find out what someone else is using, now you can take a picture of it or scan the barcode to find it (or a similar one) on Amazon.
This feature is currently being tested with a limited audience and will hopefully be available to everyone on Snapchat soon.
To read more about Snapchat visual search, click here.
GIFs In Instagram Direct
In Instagram news, you can now send GIFs in Instagram Direct Messages.
Why GIFs In Instagram Direct Matter For Your Business
Would you like to send more engaging direct messages in Instagram Direct?
Instagram thinks so and so they are adding a new GIF button to the composer bar in the Instagram app.
You can now send random GIFs by tapping the "random" button when sending a GIF. This will send a random GIF associated with what you searched for.
You can also choose your favorite GIF from the GIPHY library.
To get the latest version of Instagram with the ability to send GIFs via Instagram Direct, be sure you've updated your device to the latest version in your devices app store.
To read more about how to shop on Instagram, click here.
New Instagram Features
Also this week, Instagram began working on a host of additional features to include Instagram video tagging, emoji shortcuts and new Instagram superzoom effects.
Why New Instagram Features Matter For Your Business
Let's take a look at these new Instagram features to see how they can impact your business.
Instagram Video Tagging
Instagram is testing a new feature called video tagging.
This new feature, Instagram will recommend people to tag in your videos.
While it's much easier to tag someone in a photo, video tagging can be more difficult.
By adding a list of people to tag, Instagram is going to help you tag "people in this video."
As a business, this can be a great way for you to identify customers who may not have tagged your company.
This is currently still in testing and you'll only see it on mobile (for now - provided you have it).
You can check by updating your Instagram app.
To read more about video tagging on Instagram, click here.
Instagram Emoji Shortcuts
Instagram is also adding new emoji shortcuts as seen here.
That feeling when your favorite emojis are right in front of you 🙌😍 pic.twitter.com/QPF8eGc5yD
— Instagram (@instagram) September 6, 2018
The new emoji shortcuts are available when you go to post a comment on Instagram.
Now instead of switching to the emojis keyboard on your device, you can quickly access your favorite emojis to use in comments.
New Instagram Superzoom Effects
One last feature that Instagram is adding are new superzoom effects.
NEW @instagram Story Superzooms!! 🕺 pic.twitter.com/BkWHMA7gV1
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 6, 2018
Inside Instagram Stories, you'll be able to access 6 new superzoom effects.
These can be very useful for creating meme-worthy images to share on Instagram.
To get the new effects, update your Instagram app from your devices App Store.
If you're a customer, you will now be able to shop on Instagram.
First up, you can shop Instagram Stories.
What this means is when you're watching someone's Stories, they can tag products.
When you tap on these, you will be taken to a page to learn more about the item and then proceed to make a purchase.
In addition to being able to shop on Instagram Stories, Instagram is launching a shopping channel in Explore.
You can browse across your favorite interests.
To see posts from the Explore tab on Instagram that offer shopping, look for the shopping bag icon.
As a business, you'll want to first create an Instagram business profile.
Once your Instagram business profile is approved, you can add your produce on Facebook using Shopify or BigCommerce and then have Instagram review your account. You'll then have the ability to turn on shopping features on your Instagram business profile.
To get started, the first thing you'll want to do is upgrade your Instagram app from your devices app store.
To read more about GIFs in Instagram Direct, click here.
Instagram Co-Founders Leaving The Company
Also in Instagram news, their co-founders are leaving Instagram.
Why Instagram Co-Founders Leaving The Company Matters For Your Business
Is there trouble at Instagram?
Both of their Co-Founders are leaving the company (we've heard rumblings that it's because of Facebook messing with Instagram).
While they haven't outlined a successor, this could stunt Instagram's growth.
A lot of people joined Instagram because it was different. If it becomes just another Facebook-clone, will they struggle to keep people on the platform?
Right now, there's no reason to panic.
As a business owner, we would advise that you consider diversifying which social media channels you use. For example, if you haven't started to build your YouTube following, it might be a good time to begin conditioning your audience to check out your presence there as well.
We'll keep you posted as we learn about new developments at Instagram.
To read more about the Co-Founders of Instagram leaving the company, click here.
Facebook Stories Ads Are Here
In Facebook news, they are launching Facebook Stories Ads.
Why Facebook Stories Ads Matter For Your Business
Facebook has been pushing Facebook Stories for a while now.
With more and more users creating Stories as opposed to posting to their News Feed, Facebook needs to find a way to monetize this part of the platform.
Facebook is also noticing that "73% of people in the US use Facebook Stories to experience new things outside of their everyday lives" and some "65% of people in the US say Stories help them feel closer and more up to date with friends.
To do this, they are introducing Facebook Stories Ads. This is what they may look like.
While this is one such example, you'll now be able to create more engaging Facebook Ads in Stories.
To create your own Facebook Stories Ads, click here.
To read the announcement about Facebook Stories Ads, click here.
Facebook Launches CodeFWD Program
Facebook is launching CodeFWD to help inspire students to pursue computer programming.
The CodeFWD program is a free online education program that was created in partnership with Sphero with the goal of increasing the amount of "underrepresented and female students interested in computer science."
Why CodeFWD Matters For Your Business
Do you know who wrote the code that powers the software that helps you run your business?
Chances are it's someone who studied computer science.
In an effort to increase the number of people studying this field, Facebook is launching a free program.
CodeFWD as it is called, is launching in the United States for English and Spanish speakers.
It's a three-step program to help educators introduce computer programming to kids in 4th to 8th grade.
Once students finish the three-step program, the educators can continue to develop their students' coding skills by applying for a free classroom set of programmable robots.
To read more about the Facebook CodeFWD program, click here.
Facebook Pages Can Join Facebook Groups As Members
Also in Facebook News, Facebook Pages can join Groups as members.
Why Facebook Pages Joining Facebook Groups Matters For Your Business
Are you a celebrity, musician or public figure who primarily engages with your audience as your Facebook Page?
Chances are, you keep a separate Facebook Profile, but don't want to make these accounts the main focus.
Facebook has now added a setting to Facebook Groups to allow you to let Facebook Pages join your Facebook Group as a member.
This is what the menu option looks like in your Facebook Group.
You can find this new setting within your Facebook Group settings menu.
You can read more about Pages joining Facebook Groups 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.
Notion
The first tool that we have discovered this week is Notion (iOS).
Are you an Evernote user? Are you concerned that Evernote might be going out of business?
It may be time to consider using another note-taking app. That's where Notion comes in.
The Notion App can help you take notes, create to-do lists and more. You can also use it to set up a Wiki for your business with all of your organizational processes outlined and accessible to employees.
Notion can also be used to write and publish your blog posts, create social media ads and more.
When you're finished, all of your notes are easily synced across all of your devices - it also works on your Windows or Mac computer.
Notion is available as a free download. If you need more storage space or the ability to upload files, consider upgrading to their Personal, Team or Enterprise plans, which start at $4 per month.
Download NotionPrettyLinks
The second tool that we have for you this week is PrettyLinks (web).
PrettyLinks is a WordPress tool to help you create short links or short URLs using your website and domain name.
For example, maybe you want to tell people who watch your Facebook Live videos to visit a URL on your website. Instead of telling them to go to your website and then a complicated URL, you can tell them to go to "www.socialchefs.com/sc158," which will redirect them to the longer URL.
With PrettyLinks, you'll be able to quickly create short links for your WordPress website when you are creating a new blog post.
You can use PrettyLinks for free. You can also upgrade to PrettyLinks Beginner and Marketer plans, which give you more websites, the ability to auto create Pretty Links and more. Pricing starts at $57 per year.
You can try PrettyLinks using the following link.
Get PrettyLinksWrap-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.
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