Social Media Developments Trom October 2016 That You Cannot Afford To Miss!
There is certainly big news in October. Facebook launches a new platform whilst Twitter kills off one of theirs. Viewing video on TV is about to become a whole lot easier and LinkedIn are finally catching up. Have a quick read below to find out what we think are the big developments from October.
Goodbye Vine
I personally love Vine and still do; but I stopped using it months ago! Maybe even over a year ago. This seems to be the problem with this platform. Although well used and love by many, it no longer has a place at the social media table.
There is a simple reason for this. When launched in January 2013, Vine was very much needed. Instagram did not support video until June 2013. The prospect of uploading was a huge risk in terms of data cost.
For an overview of the Vine story, look at The New York Times “Twitter’s 4-Year Odyssey With the 6-Second Video App Vine” by Mike Isaac.
The question many will be asking in the social media world is whether this is the beginning of Twitter’s final demise. Stories have circulated recently about Twitter’s falling stock price and its inability to find a buyer. As a social platform Twitter works fine but as a corporate tech giant it seems to be struggling.
What do you think? Will Twitter weather this storm or is it slowly dying?
Facebook at Work!
How do you get away with using Facebook at work? Well, it’s quite simple. You get your employer to subscribe to Workplace by Facebook, a new platform for sharing projects. The catch? Well it’s for work so all the updates on the platform will be about, you got it, work!
Released to the masses quite recently this is a project that has been under development from Facebook for years. It is unclear at this point if this new product/platform will become widely successful but it does look like it is being targeted towards larger organisations.
Does your place of work use Workplace by Facebook? Would you want them to use it?
Stream Videos from Facebook
With just a few simple clicks you can now stream video content from the Facebook App to your TV screen. A small but significant move towards Facebook becoming the centre of media on the internet.
Over the past year Facebook have been tweaking their video features to encourage users to upload and video more media within their platform. This stream feature has been present on YouTube for quite some time making it a welcome addition to the Facebook platform.
At last! Audience Demographics on LinkedIn
While delivering social media training across Lancashire we have been asked about this feature many times. Everyone wants to know how to view analytics on LinkedIn and until this update it was not easy. In some cases, it wasn’t even possible.
LinkedIn have stated “These insights are available in our LinkedIn mobile app globally, and will be available on our new desktop design soon. We hope you like the new experience and look forward to your feedback.”
So, for now, they will prove very useful for mobile use to see which of your updates performs well. There has always been a silent majority on LinkedIn. Now we have just a little insight into those that view but do not interact with content.
Updates for Endorsements
As well as the above developments LinkedIn has also tweaked their endorsements. Originally lacking a little value, endorsements will now be re-ordered on a user’s profile using a machine learning algorithm.
What does this mean? LinkedIn endorsements are about to become just that little more valuable as this machine learning algorithm will display the most important endorsements. So, for example, let’s say that the person viewing your profile knows someone who has endorsed you. This endorsement will be made much more clear because it is from a known person and not someone random!
Pinteresting Ideas Lead to 150 Million Monthly Users
Quickly becoming the ubiquitous online scrapbook Pinterest is the place for ideas and creative research! Overall it has achieved a very nice niche in the social media world that all the larger platforms seem to be leaving alone.
A recent post from Pinterest CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Silbermann, states there are now 150 million people on Pinterest each month.
Famous for its wide appeal to women, Pinterest also finds sign up’s from men increasing by 10%. Now men make up 40% of new users on Pinterest with woman falling to 60%.
“People don’t come to see what their friends are doing. (There are lots of other great places out there for that!) Instead, they come to Pinterest to find ideas to try, figure out which ones they love, and learn a little bit about themselves in the process.” says Ben Silbermann.
Being an innovative creative director of a leading Lancashire digital marketing agency our very own Terri Juniper uses Pinterest for ideas. How do you use this creative platform?
I hope you have enjoyed these unmissable developments in the world of social media. Have I missed any? Which of the above do you think is most important?