As social media becomes a more significant component in a company’s marketing strategy, keeping up-to-date on the changes happening in some of the more popular sites also grows in importance. Whether you own a business, sell digital media, or manage digital salespeople, it is important to know what is happening in the world of social media.
There have been some big announcements in the past few months. Here is a look at seven of the more impactful changes that you might have missed if you weren’t looking closely:
1. Facebook targeting off-line behavior:
In April, Facebook announced partnerships with third-party vendors that would allow them to not only target by the details in your profile and the pages you like, but also by the behavior that you exhibit off-line. Some of the behavior that they would be able to incorporate into their new targeting capabilities includes the sites that you visit once you leave Facebook, as well as the products that you buy in a brick-and-mortar store.
2. LinkedIn Mentions, purchasing Pulse, new mobile apps and rich media updates:
LinkedIn has been busy in the last couple of months. They started by adding Mentions, which is similar to the Facebook Like and is designed to build engagement on the site with users and companies. They also acquired Pulse in the month of April, a popular newsreader for the web and mobile, and then in May, they announced integration of Pulse and LinkedIn where users can easily share stories with their professional networks on LinkedIn.
In addition, LinkedIn announced major upgrades to their mobile app and introduced a new LinkedIn Contacts app. The updates to the existing app focus on a more interactive activity stream, whereas the new LinkedIn Contacts app brings together all of your contacts from LinkedIn, your email accounts, phone contacts and calendars to keep you up-to-date in one place. The new app will also notify you of job changes, and birthdays as well as the ability to make notes or set reminders. Lastly, they added the ability to directly upload photos, documents and presentation to your homepage updates. This new feature began rolling out on May 30th.
3. Yahoo takes over Tumblr
Yahoo acquired the social microblogging site, Tumblr in late May for $1.1 billion! Just 10 days after the acquisition, ads were rolled out to users in their desktop dashboards. The goal of the ads is to remain true to the site’s feel and blend in with content, but Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has already indicated that they will continue to experiment with advertising.
4. YouTube subscription channels and original programming
YouTube recently launched paid-subscription channels, which allows some creators of video content to charge a monthly fee to gain access to specific content on the site. The new model has already attracted new video creators who get to retain about 50% of the monthly subscription rate. 30 video creators will pilot the program and will charge an average of $2.99 per month.
5. Pinterest introduces Active Pins
The new feature rolled out by Pinterest is designed to make pins more useful, especially for advertisers. The new pins allow advertisers to embed information about products, movies and recipes. Here is some of the information that users will be able to find in the new active pins:
- Product pins provide details on pricing and where to buy things like furniture, clothing and products
- Movie pins contain details on cast members and film ratings
- Recipe pins can include information on ingredients and servings for specific recipes
6. Twitter's self-service model
Twitter recently switched from an invite-only advertising platform to a new self-service interface that allows any user, company or individual to purchase Twitter ads. Users can select a daily budget and pay only when users follow their Promoted Account or interact with their Promoted Tweet by retweeting, adding as favorite, replying or clicking a link within the Tweet.
7. G+ redesign
May brought a complete redesign of Google+. The redesign helps to bring consistency with the social network across devices, and depending on what device you are using to access Google+, you might find you get one, two, or three columns of content. So if you are looking at the site on a mobile device, you might get one column of content, whereas users accessing the social network on a PC might get three columns of content. The new site boasts a slew of automated features like the automated addition of hashtags, and several automated features around photos like backup, enhancements and animating sequences of photos.
What are your thoughts on all the changes happening in the world of social media? Share your thoughts with us.
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Alina Diaz is a Senior Consultant at The Center for Sales Strategy
