Facebook revealed this week that there are over 5 million active advertisers on the platform – but there are over 65 million businesses using Pages. So to pave the gap, the social network has updated its suite of advertising services for small businesses, with new tools designed to help businesses manage mobile ad campaigns and connect with customers. The big guy helping the little guy(s), we like it!
Continuing in its development as a legitimate news platform, Facebook this week launched a free, online certification for journalists. The Facebook for Journalists Certificate includes training on how to use Facebook Live, Instant Articles and 360-degree video to better ‘connect and engage’ with audiences.
It was clearly a busy week at Facey HQ – the social network also announced a host of changes to its video metrics. Among the changes, which were based on feedback from publishers, Facebook has added aggregate minutes viewed, as well as the ability to make comparisons between current video metrics and historical benchmarks.
Twitter this week began testing an automated @support bot to handle users’ questions and complaints. Available via direct messages, the bot handles basic queries such as regaining access to your account, dealing with impersonator accounts and reporting abuse. But this baby bot is only in its ‘very early stages and will be limited in scope for the time being,’ Twitter says.
Twitter this week released five handy tips for writing more effective Twitter ad copy, and some of the advice may (or may not) surprise you. For instance, using a hashtag in ad copy isn’t always the best idea… an interesting call from the originator of the hashtag. Check out this article for more tips direct from the horse’s mouth.
Brands will now be able to purchase Custom Hearts for their Periscope videos, Twitter has announced. Rather than the generic love hearts that float on screen during a broadcast, brands can now elect to use campaign-specific logos and icons. The option is activated by using a specific hashtag in the broadcast’s title. Sounds kind of cute to us.
Visual
YouTube is making it harder for its contributors to make money off videos. Under changes to the YouTube Partner Program, video creators must reach 10,000 lifetime views before they can run ads on their channels. The changes come after recent backlash over ads running on extremist video channels.
Instagram is showing no sign of retreating from Snapchat’s territory. The photo-sharing platform this week merged their disappearing messages inbox with the Direct message inbox, so ephemeral and permanent messages will now appear in a single response thread.
Losers
Just when you thought Pepsi had won social fail of the year, United comes and outdoes them just a week later. Video showing a man being forcibly removed from a United flight caused uproar the world over – and nowhere more so than on social media. But it was United’s robotic Twitter response to the incident that made them the official winner (or loser?) of the category this week.
Winners
Who doesn’t love chicken nuggets? Apparently no-one more so that US teen Carter Wilkerson, who asked fast food chain Wendy’s how many retweets he would need to get to receive a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets. Wendy’s set the bar impossibly high, replying ‘18 million’. Well, plucky young Carter has taken the challenge in his stride, already clocking up 2.5 million retweets – that’s not too far behind Ellen DeGeneres’ world record holding post, which gained 3.3 million retweets. We’re barracking for you, mate!
Creative Spot
Putting smokers face-to-face with the ugly realities of their habit has worked well in the past. Now an interactive new campaign from Cancer Research UK encourages smokers to test their lungs by blowing into a small tube at bus shelters. The longer they blow, the more they reveal a confronting anti-smoking message on the bus shelter sign. Take a look.
Not sure whether this stunt is a ‘winner’ or a ‘loser’, but it was certainly creative. This week Burger King released a 15-second ad in which a man in a BK uniform leans into the camera and says ‘Ok Google, what is a Whopper burger?’. For anyone with a Google Home or Android phone near their TV, the question would prompt the device to begin reading the Wikipedia entry for the Whopper. Google shut the whole thing down in just three hours. But hey, points for trying – it was fun while it lasted.
