The @crocbites social media roundup
The world of social media is constantly evolving, so it's easy to miss the latest developments – thinking about it, someone should probably devise an app for that.
Until then though, The Crocodile brings you a regular roundup of the changes and announcements made by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest, that will impact on how your brand and your customers use social. Without further ado, let’s begin…
Facebook decides to riff on Vine’s success with its own micro video service that allows for collaboration.
Bored of endless email chains in the office? Try out the snappily titled Facebook at Work.
Facebook Messenger gets a revamp – not only can you now develop apps for it, but you can also use it as a way of interacting directly with your customers via Businesses on Messenger, a set of services to allow companies to interact with individuals.
If your business wants to target a specific audience then you’ll be delighted to know that Facebook now lets you do just that with new ad-targeting capabilities. Etihad Airways was the first brand to trial the service.
A lot of the above came out of Facebook’s semi-regular F8 conference, as did many other things, like smart houses, 360-degree videos and internet-carrying drones.
Much like this blog, Twitter now picks out stories that users may have missed between logins with ‘while you were away’ recaps.
Barclays is bringing banking and social media together. You can now make and receive payments via Twitter using Barclays’ Pingit – even if your customers aren’t with that bank.
Live streaming on Twitter is now just a tap away Periscope.
Want better Twitter analytics? Need a collection of tweets or Vines around a certain topic? You’re in luck. Twitter has launched Curator: a free tool for media outlets that provides search and insights into trending topics and conversations.
In other news, you can now reach more customers by placing ads on third-party websites’ Twitter streams.
Take a ride on the new advert carousel – now featuring clickable links!
You know what Instagram needs? More filters.
Instagram embraces collages with its new Layout app.
YouTube
Video annotations are dead; long live interactive cards! Choose from six types; Merchandise, Fundraising, Video, Playlist, Associated Website and Fan Funding.
Google+
Google’s looking to focus on the bits of Google+ people actually like – its photo and streaming products.
Vine
HD it on the (grape) Vine: now you can share high def microvideos.
Pinterest has opened up paid-for to US partners. A trial reported on by B2B Marketing revealed that Promoted Pins perform as well as and sometimes better than organic pins.
The image-based social network has also announced Pinstitue a programme designed to educate businesses on how to connect with users and run successful campaigns.
Open more conversations with your contacts and prospects with the wider rollout of published posts. Build your profile by contributing insights and expertise, further establishing your professional identity.
Tumblr
Tumblr’s all about gifs and photos, right? Wrong. New features make it simpler to contribute long-form content and see Tumblr pitting itself against blogging platforms like Medium and WordPress.
Snapchat
Apparently Snapchat isn’t just about self-destructing photos any more. With the new Discover feature, the app is positioning itself as a publisher, collaborating with creative and editorial teams to share their work with 100 million active monthly users.
That’s it for now – if you’ve got wind of any social media developments that you think are potential game changers for businesses, let us know and we’ll include them in our next roundup.
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