James Allen runs through the latest in social media news, including LinkedIn’s new Company Pages, Twitter’s Rewarded Videos, Pinterest’s announcement of Pin Collective, and more.
LinkedIn to Update Company Pages
LinkedIn will soon update the way that its Company Pages work, bringing a whole range of new features.
On 26 October, project manager of LinkedIn Company Pages, Sparsh Agarwal, gave us an exclusive early insight into the updates that the feature will soon see.
New Design - LinkedIn Company Pages will see a complete design overhaul that LinkedIn says will make it “even easier to introduce your company to LinkedIn members.”
Dedicated Admin Experience – Company Pages will be made much easier to edit and manage with the update – including easier in-line editing.
Expanded Analytics Dashboard – A new, expanded analytics dashboard will be implemented to help Company Page owners to “measure the impact of (their) content and optimise performance.”
These are the three big features that marketers will see when the update is rolled out. Take a look at the LinkedIn Company Pages Beta to explore the new view.
Twitter Launches Rewarded Videos for the MoPub Marketplace
Twitter has launched rewarded video ads for the MoPub Marketplace. Twitter’s RTB exchange for in-app ads allows advertisers to “directly serve rewarded campaigns through the MoPub ad server.” This rewarded video ad distribution is available through 70 demand-side platforms from MoPub.
For the initiated, rewarded video ads are adverts that users choose to watch in return for a reward on a mobile app/game. A common example of a rewarded video ad would be a user watching a video advert in return for premium currency on a mobile game.
Twitter’s senior manager of exchange product marketing, Elain Szu, announced the launch:
“We’re beyond excited to announce the GA launch of our rewarded video solution, which now includes over 70+ demand-side platforms (DSPs) from the MoPub Marketplace, and the ability to directly serve rewarded campaigns through the MoPub ad server. Over the past year, we’ve seen a major increase in video spend from our demand partners on MoPub Marketplace—and strong adoption of video inventory overall from our publishers. Rewarded video, in particular, has become one of the hottest formats since we launched network mediation for rewarded video last year.”
The development is the latest in a series of changes to the platform, as it looks to increase revenue generated.
Facebook Changes the Way It Ranks News Feed Stories
Facebook has made yet another change to the way its News Feed works. The latest change has been implemented in order to speed up user experience.
The social networking site aims to provide all users with a fast experience on Facebook, even for those users with poor internet connectivity. In another step towards creating the fastest possible news feed, Facebook has changed the way that News Feed stories are ranked.
Facebook says that News Feed stories are now ranked on the client side – meaning stories are sent from the server to a user’s news feed and put into order dependent on their then-given ranking, as the user scrolls.
On Facebook’s engineering blog, two Facebook engineers posted an article explaining how the new feature works.
“In our new architecture, instead of waiting to show new stories until after you’ve seen the stories we already ranked, the next best story is selected from a pool of both new stories from the server and unseen stories from the persistent cache, and then rendered in feed. This happens each time you scroll down one story. Every time the server sends another story, we can rank the story on the client and insert it in the appropriate spot in your News Feed in real time, even on a poor connection.”
Pinterest to Launch Pin Collective
Pinterest has announced a new feature called Pin Collective, a service aimed at connecting businesses with Pinterest’s top content creators - allowing them to work together to drive results.
It was announced on the company's blog:
“Today we’re excited to unveil the Pin Collective, the latest addition to our creative ecosystem. The Pin Collective connects businesses with Pinterest’s best content creators. Our team hand-selected a group of publishers, production shops and independent creators who know the nuances of what makes content successful on Pinterest. These experts will work directly with brands to create content that simultaneously delights Pinners and drives business results.”
Whether they are independent content creators, production shops or publishers, Pinterest will hand pick top content creators to work alongside businesses, and they’ve already begun. The Pin Collective currently consists of a small amount of content creators.
Publishers – PureWow, Brit + Co, Refinery29 and Tastemade.
Independent Creators – Peter Lombardi (photography & design), Gary Arndt (travel), Kyla Herbes (home design), Sarah Barnes (food) and Amanda Holstein (millennial advice).
Production Shops – Monent Studio, The Mill, McBeard and Loop88.
Pinterest said in its blog that it’s interested in getting more people on board with the Pin Collective, so we are likely to see significant growth of this platform in the near future.
More Social Media Marketing News and Advice
Read last week’s social media news roundup: Facebook to Overhaul Its Audience Network
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