The Week in Social: Snapchat, Super Chat, and Dynamic Targeting

Facebook’s Dynamic Ad Targeting

Facebook has announced the new ad model that stands to leapfrog traditional retargeting. Previously, a brand could serve a Facebook ad to you because you viewed a pair of jeans on that brand’s website. Now, Facebook will allow that brand to target you based on your viewing jeans on any website at all. Targeting users by their activity will certainly be more powerful than targeting on stated interests. We’ll be watching how effective the new ads are in the coming year.

Facebook Live from a laptop

Some brands will begin seeing the option to stream to Facebook Live from their laptops and desktops. The new feature was announced this week, which will enable brands to provide blogs and video content from a more stable platform. In addition, Facebook also announced that page admins can designate, “Live Contributors” so that multiple people can post live streams without exposing the page to security risks. Now, all you need is your next big content idea.

Instagram inserts video ads

If you’ve become a faithful follower of your friend’s Instagram Stories, get ready for the ads. Nike, AirBnB and McDonald’s will all be part of the pilot program that serves short video ads in between your friend’s stories. As with any story content, the videos can be liked, commented or shared. The feature is similar to Snapchat’s full-screen video ads, but Instagram claims the difference is that the ads come with the precision and power of Facebook’s ad targeting systems.

YouTube Super Chat

YouTube continues to keep its competitive edge to remain king of video content viewing. This week, YouTube announced a new feature that aims to keep content creators on their platform, and reward them directly for doing so. Super Chat will let viewers pay money directly to content creators to have their in-stream comments stand out from the crowd. The boosted comments will also remain pinned to the top of the content stream for up to 5 hours.

Europe’s data privacy legislation

The telecomm companies have long been strictly regulated in how they can use their subscribers’ information. The regulations, rightfully, limit what data your cellular provider can gather when you use your phone for calls or SMS. Meanwhile, mobile apps and their platforms have no such regulations. New proposals from the European Commission will extend the privacy rules to apps like Facebook and WhatsApp in regard to what they’re allowed to collect from your usage. While we feel privacy is a good thing, the potential reduction of ad targeting on mobile could be a huge financial cut for the social giants.

Deep Linking in Snapchat

Snapchat is testing a new deep linking feature. This new feature will enable content providers to skip past simple URLs, and open target pages within other apps on the viewer’s mobile device. Brands on Snapchat can explore new options, such as a link that opens a track in Spotify, or directly opens a product page inside Amazon. The feature promises to make content linking fluid and seamless, provided advertisers can use it effectively.

Snapchat Searches

It’s finally here! At long last, Snapchat is rolling out a search bar. Users can search for friends, stories, and brands at any time from the universal search that appears at the top of the app. The new search bar also comes with “Quick Chat” suggestions which let Snapchat suggest brands and influencers to their user population. How brand’s will be able to access those suggestions will remain to be seen as Snapchat seeks to continue it’s growth in 2017.

Snapchat growth

Snapchat has come a long way since its introduction in 2011. An infographic from Delmondo reports that 2016 brought Snapchat up to 150 Million active users who view more than 10 billion videos per day. Projections show that snapchat will bring in more than $934 Million in revenue in the coming year. Naturally, with announcements like new features and a new CEO, we’ll be looking for Snapchat to strengthen its value for brands in 2017.

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Machine Learning and the Customer Experience

The desire for a fluid, intuitive customer experience is growing faster than technology can keep up. Today’s consumer is less forgiving, and more likely to act out following a bad experience. An excellent article by Graham Cooke discusses how Machine Learning is not a magic bullet for solving the problem of creating an optimal customer experience.