1. New Facebook Instant Articles are the future of
online publishing
The main news of the
month was the Facebook Instant Articles! It cause many worries for publishers
and those who’s business depended mostly on the conversion to their websites,
but it, also, offered a new perspective on how content can be published
successfully on Facebook. This new type of post allows publishers to create
articles that load natively inside the Facebook app(iPhone only for now),
rather than having to send users to a separate website.
With
Instant articles, publishers can add high-resolution images that
can
be zoomed in and “navigated” through by tilting the iPhone left and
right.Videos will auto-play as you scroll through the articles and
publishers can also include interactive maps and audio captions.Plus, within-line commenting, the experience aims to be completely
social for users.
One of the benefits of
this new way of publishing is the ability to share on other social networks – Twitter included.
Before, without
Instant Articles, it was certainly not possible to share Facebook content on
other social networks.
Facebook launched its Instant Article
feature recently, giving
publishers, including both media outlets and brands, the ability to post more
interactive and readable content.
Launched in response to an
increase in users reading articles posted on the site, particularly on mobile
devices, Facebook is also hoping to please
publishers who are interested in
posting sharable content on the site to better interact and engage with
consumers.
The new feature not only meets
the needs of both consumers and publishers, but also points to a larger trend
of blurred lines between media outlets and brands and the rise in social media
as a news source. Consumers are increasingly turning to social media to monitor
current events and consume news, and brands have a desire to act more like
publishers and reach consumers with genuine, informative content.
This new feature is still
available to a very limited audience and supported by only a few brands, but,
it will be interesting to see how other brands will use it, how much it will
affect the social media marketing strategies, and how much it will affect the website
business around the world.
Maybe it is too early to ask, but
is the website era coming to an end?
2. Facebook adds limited support for animated GIF files
We have been annoyed for a long
time by the inability of Facebook to support GIFs, and how about you? The
social network finally announced support for the file format, but there are
still some restrictions. The GIFs will
only be animated if they are posted via links,
and not uploaded.
So far, the GIF links from
Tumblr did not display properly in preview mode, but worked fine after
posting, but now Facebook support for GIFs was extended to its flagship mobile applications, but not
to pages.
3. Facebook has added a link search engine in its App
Facebook has come a long
way to become one of the most mobile-oriented social media platform. Today,
more users than ever access Facebook via the mobile app, which is urging some
advancements to be made, and one of them is making sharing links to external
websites from app easier.
Thankfully,
it seems like Facebook has found a way and is currently testing it in the US.
Even though, links are the most
engaging content, there’s only now way to share them from the
app, and that is: copy & pasting, and we all now how clumsy that can be,
especially from a mobile device.
The
good news that right now Facebook is testing something quite awesome:an in-app keyword search engine that lets you find websites and
articles to add to your status updates!
A
bunch of users in the US got early access to the new feature and are seeing a
new“Add a link”option under their status update,
where you already see buttons to add your feelings or location.
The
rest of the world will have to wait a bit longer for this option, but, hey,
it’s worth a wait!
4. Facebook
tests security checkup tool for passwords and log ins
Facebook security has been a
concern since its foundation. And Facebook as done a lot to improve it along
the years, but there is still more to be done. During the month of May Facebook
announced the test of a new security related tool, Security Checkup, which
allows users to change their passwords, activate log in alerts and clean up
log in sessions.
Even though this option is still
in the testing phase, it is good to know that Facebook is still focused on the
security of its users.
5. Six more
countries getting Instagram Carousel Ads from June 1st
Carousel Ads on Instagram were a
big news during the previous period, and they cause a big fuss, in a very
positive way! In March Instagram announced that the carousel ads option it
debuted in the U.S. in April, and during the month of May, Instagram announced
that it will be extended to six more countries since June 1st.
Starting June 1st, carousel ads
on Instagram are available in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany, France and
Brazil.
6. Socialbakers adds Instagram & Paid Social Analytics!
We all love Socialbakers, don’t
we? The news is that Socialbakers, a Facebook Marketing Partner,made a flurry of announcements during
May at its Engage conference in
Prague.
Socialbakers now has the ability
to include Instagram in its analytics suite, in addition to Facebook, Twitter
and YouTube. Socialbakers clients will also have deeper insights into paid
posts, and they can also see how often competitors pay to promote their social
content. Other additions to the Socialbakers suite include video analytics
and upgrades to the executive dashboard.
Socialbakers clients can now view
a variety of Instagram metrics, including:
· Evolution and
Distribution of Interactions
· Filter Effectiveness
· Follower Growth
· Top Content
The updates to Socialbakers’
analytics suite also gives advertisers better insight into their paid efforts. How
often do you turn to Socialbakers for information, and will these new metrics
be useful for your business?
7. Video
Calling via Facebook Messenger Available Worldwide
We have informed you before about
all the news regarding the Facebook Messenger, haven’t we? In April Facebook
announced that it added video
calling to its Messenger applications in 18 countries, but, as
always, it took some time until the new feature went global.
The vice president of messaging David Marcus announced the
expansion of Messenger’s video calling feature in a Facebook post Tuesday:
Quick
update on video calling in Messenger: We’re happy to share we’ve now rolled out
the capability globally, with the exception of a few countries we’re still
working on improving quality for. So make sure you get the latest and greatest
version for iOS and Android, give it a try, and as always … tell us how we can
make it even better for you!
8. LinkedIn adds robust analytics for content marketers
How familiar are you with
LinkedIn and have you used some of it’s tools for the promotion of your
business? LinkedIn is well known in the
tech industry as the place to go for anything work related. However, users seem
to be interested in publishing content, and content marketing. They have had
some tools to help them, but there wasn’t a robust support system for their
content. Now, LinkedIn is offering publishers on its platform full suite of analytics.
Until this point, LinkedIn
content analytics were limited to a content marketing score for B2B marketers, and some information on
trending content. The new analytics provide content marketers with demographic
data on their readers, with breakdowns for industries, job titles, locations,
and traffic sources.
Each of these metrics provides a
top four, with each category being represented by a percentage. Currently the
analytics only gives details on posts made within the last six months, but it
provides data on likes, comments, shares, and page-views. The analytics also
only provides data on logged in LinkedIn users, but it identifies each of those
users.
With this information, users will
be able to target their content much more effectively, and the new tools will
provide them with even more
metrics of success for their campaigns.
9. Some Facebook page admins see response rate, response time
Some Facebook page administrators
are seeing a new feature: response rate and response time in their admin
panels.
Response rate was spotted on some pages in Italy in
April, but now it seems to be going worldwide. We are seeing this new
feature administrating and it started appearing a few days ago. Are you
seeing them on the pages you're administrating too?
10. The Coming Months will be, let's say, very eventful for Facebook events
Facebook announced in May that it
is planning to add several improvements to its events feature over the next few
months, and they are as follows:
· Events will be
featured more prominently in News
Feed.
· When users RSVP to
events in their News Feeds, a drop-down Related Events will appear underneath,
offering suggestions for similar events those users may be interested in.
· Users will be able to
share events directly via the Facebook Messenger applications.
· One-on-one chats in
Messenger between event hosts and invitees will be enabled, and events will be
shared as attachments, similar to photos or
audio files.
· Facebook is working
on the ability to invite non-Facebook users to events,
· Hosts of private
events will be able to tell if invitees viewed their invites.
We’re looking forward to seeing all this happen, what about you?
11. Facebook adds Call Now button for Local Awareness Ads
Facebook has added a cool new
button, a Call Now button,
to its local awareness ads.
The new call-to-action button joins the Get Directions button, which was
part of the launch of local awareness ads last October.
When Facebook users click on the
Call Now button, their phones will automatically dial the advertiser’s number,
enabling them to get information or make reservations or appointments.
However, this new button is not
available worldwide, but only in Australia,
Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.
Have you already spotted it
somewhere? Let us know!
12. Facebook Carousel format now available for mobile app ads
Facebook announced in May that
its carousel ad format is
now available for mobile
application ads.
The social network said in a Facebook for Business post that
the carousel format for mobile app ads will support up to five images, with links, adding that advertisers using
the format have seen costs per conversion 30 percent to 50 percent lower than
single-image link ads and costs per click 20 percent to 30 percent lower.
Facebook also said early analysis
shows that the new format has helped boost click-through rates by an average of
12 percent compared with carousel ads when advertisers let the social network
automatically optimize their order of images.