James Allen runs through the latest in social media marketing news, including Facebook’s implementation of ads in Messenger, Snapchat’s new features, and Facebook’s plans to take their ads to TV.
Facebook has added a permanent form of advertising to its Messenger platform.
Since April 2016, Facebook has been testing an advert format within Facebook Messenger called sponsored messages. On 8 November, Messenger updated to v1.3, bringing sponsored messages as a permanent feature.
The news was first announced in an update post on the Facebook for developers’ page.
Launched as a test in April 2016, a sponsored message is a highly targeted, in-context ad type that allows businesses to re-engage people who have an open, existing conversation with their business. Sponsored messages give businesses the ability to send targeted updates, information about promotions, reminders and other relevant messages.
There are some limitations to the new sponsored messages feature - each message can contain only one image and one link, and campaigns can’t be modified to run along with other social platforms. Due to these limitations, Facebook is allowing all advertisers to run an ad that links to their messenger profile as a way to start conversations.
Snapchat has added some new features that are noticeably similar to those found on Instagram.
In August, Instagram launched a feature called ‘stories’, which in many ways replicated the long-running ‘stories’ feature on Snapchat. Now, Snapchat appears to have released a number of features that resemble those currently on Instagram.
The first of the updates brings the ability to rewind stories. This feature has been present on Instagram for some time, and Snapchat has now adopted it. The second update makes images from users stories shareable – but only in private messages to friends. This is identical to the feature that Instagram has, which also allows users to share others stories with friends in private chats.
As well as copying these two features from Instagram, Snapchat added a third feature – World Lenses. World Lenses allows users to take photos that augment reality with things like virtual flashlights, and snowfall.
Facebook is looking to expand its ad network massively, taking video adverts to television.
The plan is for Facebook to stream video adverts from their ad network on television services with internet connectivity, like set-top Apple TV boxes and Roku boxes. The feature is currently an idea which will be moving into a test phase, and to go forward with the test Facebook has partnered with two brands – A+E and Tubi TV.
Facebook is yet to lay out any important features like ad format and the length of time that adverts will be shown for. Some features are planned out, however. Facebook knows that it will use its Audience Network to deliver the adverts in the same manner as it does with other platforms, like websites and apps.
Pinterest has simplified the way its different sections work, to establish a more user-friendly layout.
In their blog, Pinterest announced the simplification of a number of different pages.
You may have noticed that the place you go to check your Pinterest notifications and messages just got a whole lot simpler. All the same info you’re used to seeing is still right there, we’ve just combined some things so it’s easier for you to understand who’s loving what, and maybe even discover a few new ideas along the way.
The ‘You’ tab has been removed from Pinterest, and anything that is normally found in that section will now be found in the ‘News’ tab. This isn’t the only feature that has been changed with the update, as notifications will now be lumped together to make them more manageable. They will be “consolidated into one simple story that you can tap into for more details.”
Pinterest have also added a number of tappable buttons that make notifications easier to read and navigate. They’ve created a new inbox for private messages, which they state in their blog is still rolling out, and may not be visible for all users as of yet.
Read last week’s social media news roundup: Instagram Tests Out of Ad Shopping With Retailers
Want to improve the performance of your social media strategies? Find out how with a Social Media Audit from our experts.