Between an outage and a competitor’s innovation, Twitter’s under pressure This Week in Social. Read on for more, plus a round up of the latest social media news.
Twitter
Pressure From Weibo
Twitter is facing some pressure from China’s microblogging social platform ‘Weibo’, as it expands it’s posting limit from 140 Chinese characters to 2,000.
Facebook
One For The Sports Fans
In a move that takes on both Twitter and ESPN, Facebook has launched a new feature named “Facebook Sports Stadium”. This hub will allow fans to follow games, get stats and live commentary all in one place. Just in time for the Super Bowl!
Mentions Update
Facebook heard your grievances, and they’ve taken action! The new iOS update for Mentions brings users better filtering, landscape video, and reply options.
3D Touch
For anyone with an iPhone 6S – this new feature is for you! Facebook has updated iOS for 3D Touch actions supporting “peek and pop”. This should be available to all in the next few months.
Video/Visual
Instagram Targets Small Businesses
To help bolster it’s advertising offerings, Instagram is targeting small businesses through further Facebook integration. We should see an increase in ads on the channel from these smaller businesses should everything go to plan.
Super Bowl AdBlitz
As millions await the highly anticipated Super Bowl ads, YouTube is offering brands to preview clips of their adverts ahead of game day. This tactic promises to generate over two times more views gained during the actual event!
Social Winners
Obama
As 90% of the world’s leaders make their way to Facebook, Barack Obama has been named the most popular politician on the platform with 46m likes on his page.
Brands Beating #BlueMonday
Whether or not you felt truly blue on the supposedly ‘most depressing day of the year’, you can’t help but smile at some of the attempts made by brands on social media to lift our spirits!
Social Losers
#TwitterDown
The channel was down Tuesday morning and afternoon leaving users unable to access the platform. The outage included website, mobile and third party application access worldwide.
Fashion Faux Pas
This ‘faux pas’ relates to one male journalist’s need to Tweet about the recent appearances of three high profile women. It wasn’t long until he was put in his place by SNP Leader, Nicola Sturgeon.
Creative Spots
St. John Ambulance
SJA had to find a way to educate parents in what to do if their baby was to choke. With an integrated approach, the campaign’s star asset is a clever animated video with some very recognisable voices.
New York GIF Trip
An animator named James Curran made 30 clever looping GIFs to illustrate and celebrate his 30 days in New York City.
