This Week in Social brings you the latest news from the most popular social platforms, with some creative inspiration thrown in too.
So, what’s been happening in the world of social this week?
Move over Meerkat and Periscope, Facebook is launching a live streaming feature. ‘Live’ is currently only available for celebrities and will appear on your news feeds should you follow any of the famous individuals who decide to broadcast.
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In a bid to help improve the communications between customers and brands on Facebook, the channel has developed the following new features: direct messages via awareness ads, the capability to respond to customers via private messaging, and a ‘page responsiveness’ badge.
Facebook decided to lessen the impact of the ‘hide’ button on news feeds which may effect Facebook Insights metrics. Users will no longer be able to completely hide from content, and some will now receive even more.
Starting in the US, Twitter has started to roll out a ‘News Tab’ experiment. This new feature is designed to help make content easier to find, and ultimately lower it’s barrier to entry – a beneficial impact given it’s current slow growth.
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How To: Maximise On Platform Customer Service
This week Twitter has released a playbook on transforming customer service on the platform. It covers everything from high-level opportunities, to key steps and best practices in creating ‘world class social care’.
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Similar to Periscope, this new video chat app allows users to like conversations in a video chat box (with what Blab called ‘feels’). The difference is that as many as four users are able to stream within the shame chat, while audiences view, comment and switch in.
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YouTube has decided to retire its ‘301+ views count’ in favour of a more up to date counter. Originally put in place to deter users from ‘gaming the system’, 301+ was a placeholder used until YouTube could verify the actual number of views a video had gained.
Instagram now allows brands to buy ads on the platform via self-service, rather than through a salesperson. This opportunity lets marketers include Instagram within their ads buying strategies, aligning the channel with other social media services.
Social Winners
Brands #TubeStrike While The Iron Is Hot
Yet another London Tube Strike this week, and brands such as Fitness First, Renault, Direct Line and Carlsberg were quick to share and ease our pain!
Very.co.uk’s Shoppable YouTube Ad
Very.co.uk has teamed up with UK artists Rizzle Kicks to produce a shoppable YouTube music video (and features Jazzy Jeff!)
Social Losers
And The Winner Is… Already Announced
Australian MasterChef accidentally revealed the TV show’s finalists on Twitter hours before the episode aired.
There’s some people you just don’t mess with on social channels, and William Shatner is one of them…
Creative Spot
Netflix has taken a group of ‘Sense 8’ fans, and used their brainwaves to create a symphony to promote the telepathy show.
