Social Chatter Episode 63: Live Video for Instagram Stories

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!
 

Watch This Week’s Social Media Updates

Live Video on Instagram Stories

In Instagram news, they have added live video to Instagram Stories.

According to Instagram, "live video on Instagram Stories helps you connect with your friends and followers right now. When you’re done, your live story disappears from the app."

Here is a video on how live video works on Instagram Stories works.
 

To go live on Instagram, “just swipe right from feed to open the camera, tap the “Start Live Video” button and start sharing for up to an hour. Your friends may get a notification when you go live so they can tune in. While you’re live, you can pin a comment for everyone to see or turn comments off altogether.”

When someone you follow goes live, you’ll see “live” listed under their profile photo.

Instagram has also added disappearing photos and videos to Instagram Direct.

Your regular Instagram Direct messages won’t change.

If you want to send a private photo or video using Instagram, simply “swipe right into the camera to take a photo or video, then tap the arrow to send it privately.”

The photos and videos that you send will disappear from your friends Inbox once they have been seen.

It is also important to note that you can only send disappearing Instagram Direct messages to people who follow you.

Here is a video about this new feature for Instagram users.
 

Why Live Video for Instagram Stories Matters

We’re particularly excited about live video in Instagram Stories.

We already have Facebook Live video.

Because Facebook owns Instagram, this should make it easier to get Instagram users to use this feature because they are already comfortable with how live video on Facebook works.

We also like the disappearing Instagram Direct messages as well.

This gives you multiple ways to communicate with your audience.

You can choose to use live video, share photos or regular videos, send an Instagram Direct message or send a private message to certain people who follow you.

All of these updates push Twitter more out of the way as a communication tool.

To learn more about live video on Instagram, go here.
 

Facebook Creates Analytics Tool for Messenger Bots

Also in Facebook News, they have created their own Messenger Bots analytics tool.

According to Marketing Land, “developers, including brands and publishers, will be able to use the new branch of Facebook Analytics for Apps in the same way they use Facebook’s analytics platform to track how people are interacting with their websites and mobile apps, and will be able to connect those people across the three platforms. And like the other analytics products, the bot analytics tool will be available for free.”

This is great news as Messenger Bots continue to evolve and here’s why.

Why Facebook Messenger Bot Analytics Matter

If you are a bot maker using Messenger bots, you will be able to see whether messages that include calls to action for people to click on do better with certain types of people and worse with others.

You can then use the insights that you gain to segment the messages that you send to each specific audience.

This is just one example. As Messenger bots continue to be used by more and more developers, this will open them up to new possibilities and better tailoring of messages.

You can read more about the Messenger bots analytics tool here.
 

Facebook Overhauls Metrics, Adds Viewability

Also in Facebook news, they have overhauled metrics and added viewability.

According to Facebook, “we’re updating our metrics to give our partners and the industry more clarity and confidence about the insights we provide.”

They’re making these changes to metrics to help Facebook partners better serve their customers.

Here are some of the changes you can expect to your Facebook Page metrics.

1. In-product definitions. As we’ve routinely done in the past, we’ll continue to include updates in-product where partners buy ads or access our reporting. When we make meaningful updates going forward, we’ll continue surfacing them in-product.
2. Through our client teams. We’ll continue to communicate important updates to metrics that impact our partners directly through our partner teams.
3. Metrics FYI blog. We know how important it is to be open about meaningful updates we make to our metrics, so we’re creating a new channel for regular information on metrics enhancements.

Why A Facebook Metrics Overhaul Matters

The changes to Facebook metrics are important because Facebook wants to improve how they communicate about updates.

A lot of time, a business would be measuring their Facebook Page and then without warning, there would be a change.

These new changes look to make it easier to measure metrics (because you’ll know more about what each metric means).

You’ll also be made aware of the changes so your Facebook Insights you’re using turn out more accurate.

You can read more about the Facebook metrics changes here.
 

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.
 

Prime for Instagram

Prime for Instagram is a mobile app that helps you determine the best time and day of the week for your business to post to Instagram.

It is also a powerful Instagram scheduling tool.

This way you can determine when your business should be posting to Instagram and do all of the scheduling within the app as well!

Prime for Instagram is a free app.

Publish

The next tool we wanted to share with you is called Publish (iOS).

Publish is a mobile app that you can use to post to Twitter and Instagram simultaneously!

This way you can save time when sharing social media posts to multiple channels.

Publish is a freemium app. You can download it below.

OptinMonster

The last tool we wanted to share this week is called OptinMonster.

OptinMonster is a tool for bloggers to capture email subscribers and to generate new leads for their business.

We personally use OptinMonster on our site and it has contributed to a significant number of new customers and clients.

Besides adding pop-up forms, OptinMonster also has a powerful feature called “exit intent,” which will show customers an optin form when they go to close their web browser.

Wrap-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.

About The Author

Christian Karasiewicz Founder, Social Chefs Founder and CEO of Social Chefs, a digital marketing agency. I host two shows, #SocialChatter, the industries longest running social media marketing talk show and Social Snacks, 5 minute or less social media marketing tutorials.