Welcome to this week's episode of Social Chatter, your industry leading social media marketing talk show covering the latest social media news from this past week.
Just a reminder, but 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, Kim Boda, an entrepreneur and real estate professional.
Watch This Week's Social Media Updates
The New Instagram Direct
In Instagram news, they have launched a new version of Instagram Direct.
Why the New Instagram Direct Matters
Instagram wants to "make it fast and easy to turn any conversation into a visual conversation with photos and videos."
With that, Instagram is relaunching Instagram Direct.
Now, text, reshares, etc will appear in the same thread with photos and videos that disappear.
According to Instagram, here is how the new Instagram Direct feature will work.
Here's how it works:
"Simply swipe left into Direct and tap the new blue camera icon at the bottom to take a disappearing photo or video, or tap the blue camera icon in an existing thread. As always, swiping right from feed will take you directly to the camera.
Tap the arrow to send it to individual friends or groups of friends.
Keep track of who has seen your message through notifications within the thread."
If someone sends you a disappearing message, it will be highlighted in blue.
You can tap to view the message one time.
The sender will be notified if you replay it or screenshot their message.
To get the new Instagram Direct, simply update your Instagram app (iOS | Android).
You can read more about the new Instagram Direct announcement on the Instagram blog.
Call-to-Action Units In Facebook Instant Articles
In Facebook news, they are rolling out call-to-action units in Instant Articles.
Why Call-to-Action Units In Instant Articles Matter
When Facebook announced Instant Articles over a year ago, a lot of small business owners didn't get too excited.
This is mainly because while Facebook Instant Articles help present viewers with an optimized mobile view of an article from the Facebook news feed.
The user doesn't go off to your website.
This really isn't a big deal if the goal is to deliver content to a user and to do it quickly.
As a result, adoption of Instant Articles has been rather slow.
Fortunately though, Facebook is looking to further entice users with call-to-action units in Instant Articles.
Essentially, you will be able to include various call-to-action units throughout your Instant Article content to build your audience.
Some examples include:
- Signing up for an email list
- Liking your Facebook Page
Here is an example from the Huffington Post to drive email newsletter sign-ups.
Besides these call-to-action units, Facebook is also testing the following ones.
- Free trial call-to-action units
- Mobile app install call-to-action units
Overall, if a user was able to read your content more quickly and still are advantage of various call-to-actions that are similar to what you have on your website, would you use these?
Let us know in the comments below.
We definitely would and can't wait to experiment with them.
To read more about call-to-action units here.
Group Payments In Facebook Messenger
Another big announcement this week from Facebook was group payments in Messenger.
Why Group Payments In Messenger Matters
Previously, you could send and receive money using Messenger.
The only problem was that you could only do it person-to-person.
Sometimes though, you need to split payments with someone.
For example, maybe you paid for a meal with your business associates and need to get paid back?
If you're an Android or Facebook desktop user, starting today, in Messenger, people can send and receive money between groups of people for free.
To send group payments in Messenger, here's what you need to do.
"Simply tap on the plus sign in the bottom left hand corner of a group conversation to find more features, and tap the payments icon ($). Then, choose who to send or request money from. You can choose everyone in the group or only a few members. Enter the amount you want to request per person or the total sum to divide evenly, either including yourself in the calculation or not. Finally, you can specify what the money is for — maybe a pizza party, teacher gift or more. Once you're ready, tap Request."
Here's a short video showing you how to split payments with a group in Messenger.
To help you keep track, when someone makes a payment, a message will appear in the group conversation.
If you have additional questions about group payments in Messenger, let us know in the comments or take a look at the Facebook announcement here.
Better Insights Into How Facebook Ads Work
Also in Facebook news, they've rolled out a very useful article that covers insights into how your Facebook Ads work.
Insights About How Facebook Ads Work Matter
According to Facebook, "Your ad results should shape your marketing strategy, helping you make real-time decisions on current campaigns, or help you find direction for the future."
A lot of times though, it can be difficult for small businesses to understand the metrics they are looking at.
To make it easier, Facebook has redesigned the Insights dashboard.
"The redesigned Delivery Insights dashboard features an updated interface that provides in-depth auction metrics and guidance for interpreting fluctuations in performance. The tool displays trends in an ad set's impressions, amount spent, results and cost-per-result as well as auction metrics to explain those trends. Newly-released auction metrics include auction overlap for interpreting whether overlapping audiences between ad sets might be affecting your spend and audience saturation for interpreting whether increased frequency might be contributing to declines in your results or cost-per-result."
This change to help you better understand how your Facebook Ads are performing won't just make it easier for you to see the shifts, but to also start to think more about them and their performance.
In addition to these changes, Facebook is also adding "estimated daily results."
The purpose of these is to give you a better estimate on your daily results.
These include "website conversions and video views, factoring in your budget and other parameters like your audience, bid amount and placements selections."
These will be available as a budget curve as well as a slider bar.
This way you can get a better idea when working with your daily budget along with estimated conversions and unique reach as you increase or decrease your ads budget.
We're glad to see Facebook being more transparent with Facebook Ad insights.
This should help encourage more small business owners to advertise on Facebook and overcome the feeling that running Facebook Ads is too complicated.
You can read more about insights into how your Facebook Ads work here.
Suggestions From M In Messenger
Another announcement this week from Facebook was the addition of suggestions from M in Messenger.
Why Suggestions From M In Messenger Matters
This is a big announcement from Facebook.
Artificial intelligence will be here before you know it.
By adding suggestions from M in Messenger, this is helping to pave the way for further interactions with M.
Here are some of the suggestions from M available in Messenger.
- Sending stickers: M shares fun sticker suggestions for your daily life interactions like "Thank you" or "Bye-bye."
- Paying or requesting money: M recognizes when people are discussing payments and gives them options.
- Sharing your location: M can suggest an option to share your location during a conversation.
- Making plans: If people are talking about getting together, M helps coordinating a plan.
- Starting a poll (in group conversations only): M lets you set a poll topic and vote in group conversations.
- Getting a Ride: Talking about going somewhere? M suggests "Get A Ride" and shares an option of Lyft or Uber.
Here is a short video of suggestions from M in Messenger in action.
M is available in Messenger for iOS and Android in the US starting this week!
To read the announcement about M suggestions in Facebook Messenger, take a look at this article.
Shopping From Facebook Collection Ads
This week, Facebook launched Facebook collection ads.
Why Facebook Collection Ads Matter
With Facebook collection ads, business owners should get excited.
This is because customers can now shop from Facebook right from collection ad.
When you see Facebook collection ads in your news feed, you'll see a hero photo or video.
When someone clicks on the collection ad, it will open a catalog with up to 50 items that customers might purchase based on a list the advertiser included.
From there, people viewing your Facebook collections ad, can select a product and then view its product details and purchase it from within Facebook.
Here is an example of a Facebook collections ad sequence from Adidas along on how the process works.
To learn more about Facebook collection ads, check out Facebook's documentation.
Facebook Educational Tools Against Misinformation
Also in Facebook news this week, they have started rolling out educational tools to help combat misinformation.
Why Facebook Educational Tools Against Misinformation Matter
You've probably seen the Facebook hoax that Facebook is going to start charging to use their site.
Because of the power of social media, this information can quickly spread.
As a result, Facebook is launching educational tools to help control the spread of misinformation.
At the top of your news feed, you will start to see the following.
When you tap into this area of your news feed, Facebook aims to educate you on spotting false news.
This includes tips such as how you can spot fake news, checking the URL of the site before you share it, looking at the source of the content and more.
In addition, Facebook also includes a handy list to help you spot false news on Facebook.
Here's a look at that list.
We're glad to see Facebook taking a stance on educating users about fake news.
The more they can educate people on Facebook, this will help improve the quality of the content that appears in your news feed.
To read more about Facebook educational tools against misinformation, take a look at the announcement from Facebook.
Twitter Lite, Faster and Data-Friendly
In Twitter news, they are rolling out a new mobile experience that minimizes data usage and loads quickly on slower connections.
Why Twitter Lite Matters
One of the main benefits of Twitter has been its ability to reach people in developing countries who don't have access to fast connections or a large data plan.
With Twitter Lite, Twitter wants to make it easier for users to stay connected from anywhere.
According to Twitter, Twitter Lite is "a new mobile web experience which minimizes data usage, loads quickly on slower connections, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1MB on your device."
Here is a short video from Twitter about Twitter Lite.
Twitter Lite is a faster, data friendly way for people to use Twitter to see what's happening in the world.
👉 https://t.co/AIUgyCAFj0 pic.twitter.com/9EIG7pgK6O
— Twitter (@Twitter) April 6, 2017
In order to use Twitter Lite, you just need a smartphone or tablet - no specific ones are mentioned.
In addition to these enhancements that are available for Twitter Lite, Twitter is also rolling out a "data saver" mode.
This will further reduce the amount of mobile data that is being used.
Instead of showing an image at hi-resolution, the images in tweets will be blurred.
You can tap on them to show them.
Here is how the data saver mode works.
Twitter is also adding push notifications for Google Chrome and Android users.
There is also an offline support mode for those of you who are prone to losing your data connection.
These are handy additions if Twitter wants to increase the number of people around the world who use Twitter.
To access Twitter Lite, simply head to mobile.twitter.com.
So far, in our experience of using Twitter Lite, we've noticed it is extremely fast and makes us want to use Twitter more.
You can read the announcement about Twitter Lite here.
Changes to YouTube Partner Program
In YouTube news, they are increasing YouTube partner program requirements to monetize your channel.
Why YouTube Partner Program Changes Matter
In a recent announcement from YouTube, they are making a number of sweeping changes to their partner program.
First, they are looking to safeguard their program to protect creators.
Since 2007, millions of creators have been using YouTube to share their video creations.
With this growth, they have started to see cases of abuse.
For example, a creator would upload an original video.
Another channel owner would upload the same video and try and make money from it.
To reduce this risk and safeguard accounts, YouTube is increasing the number of required views a channel must have to 10,000 views.
This is being added to their partner program.
Now, when someone goes to apply for the YouTube partner program, YouTube will review their account when they hit 10,000 views.
If your account is found in good standing, YouTube will begin serving ads to your videos to help you monetize them.
Overall, we're glad to see YouTube make these changes.
We've build an audience of over 6,000 subscribers and 6,000,000 views.
It takes time and dedication.
By adding these restrictions, it should encourage creators who want to be part of YouTubes partner program to monetize their channel, to stick with it and build their channel ethically.
While 10,000 views may seem like a lot, if you publish quality content on a consistent basis, and optimize it properly - we suggest using TubeBuddy for that, you can quickly learn where you need to improve your video content so that you attract more viewers to watch your videos.
You can read more about these changes to the YouTube partner program 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.
Clips
The first tool we have for you this week is called Clips (iOS).
Clips is a new app from Apple for making fun videos for friends, family, and your business.
What is really great about Clips is that in just a few taps, you can create and share beautiful video messages, use it for storytelling and much more in seconds.
Previously, creating videos that look and sound this great would take hours to produce.
Now you can produce them right from your smartphone!
In addition, Clips has a great feature built-in that transcribes the words that you speak into animated text on your videos.
You can download Clips for free from the link below.
Download ClipsHype Type
The next tool we wanted to share with you this week is called Hype Type (iOS).
For those of you who want to add motion typography to photos and videos, but you're not a video editor, Hype Type can help.
In seconds, you can add text with different styles overtop your content.
Another benefit of Hype Type is that it can help your content stand out on your social media channels compared to others using the same tired set of design tools and styles.
Hype Type is a freemium app. You can download it from the link below.
Download Hype TypeWrap-up
That's it for this week's episode of Social Chatter.
To watch next week's episode of Social Chatter, your weekly social media marketing talk show, tune-in to our Facebook Page 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.
