The week in social: Snapchat analytics, Pinterest organization, and Facebook Spaces
Snapchat now offers more robust analytics for select creators
Snapchat has historically had very light analytics, making it difficult for marketers in certain cases to justify spend on the platform. In response to this, the company is now offering creators who make Official Stories a greater set of data points to help show off impact of content they create. Among the new stats include total Story views in the last week, time spent viewing Stories, daily unique Story viewers, and audience data and demographics. These stats or similar stats are already available for content on other major social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Read more on TechCrunch.
Pinterest launches new tools to help users organize their content
In an effort to give users more ways to arrange and rearrange their content, Pinterest has introduced a host of new features aimed at organization. First of these features it the ability to archive a board. Archiving of content is available on some social networks already, like Instagram, but on Pinterest archiving content means that users will no longer receive automated recommendations for additions to those boards. Further to this, there is now also an option to reorder sections on a board, where sections in and of itself was already a recent addition on the service. Lastly in one requested feature from users, the ability to rearrange Pins on a board has now been introduced, and users can also sort boards based on different criteria.
Read more on Pinterest Newsroom.
Facebook adds more features to Page insights
Facebook is working to equalize how it measures certain stats for Pages as part of greater updates to the overall Page insights for marketers and brands. One of the major changes is with respect to how Page reach is calculated, which will now be consistent with how reach is measured for an ad, where one reach is considered when a piece of content is within the screen of a user, versus just being delivered in the news feed. The other major change is that Page insights will be redesigned for mobile to make it more intuitive and useful, prioritizing top required information, such as general page diagnostics, results from actions take, and previews of new Page engagement.
Read more on Facebook Business.
Snapchat is offering advertising credits to marketers
As a competitive play from other social networks that offer advertising, Snapchat is giving credit to advertisers who purchase ads on other networks. This is specific to vertical video ads on Instagram for now, and advertisers must show proof of their ad buy through a submission form to be eligible. Snapchat presently places its ads through a programmatic system, but because there are fewer advertisers on the platform, ads come in cheaper.
More information on Recode.net.
Facebook launches a brand new Lists feature
A new addition to the status update box, Facebook Lists function as a way to make status updates more personal. Users can create a list from a number of different subjects and then share these out in colored templates as a status update. Examples may include New Year’s resolutions, planned travel destinations, and more. The feature has been slowly rolling out globally as of earlier this week.
Read more on TechCrunch.
Snap maps are now available on the web
In a move that continues Snapchat’s push to get its content in different locations in addition to the app, Snap Maps are now available to view on the web. Snap maps are interactive maps that show the greatest concentrations of Snapchat activity using heat-map style visuals. Snapchat removes usernames for the public version of Snap Maps to protect the privacy of its users. On the app, Snap Maps shows users as Bitmojis, and also shows public Stories from global sources.
More information on The Verge.
Facebook now lets Groups jump into Spaces
Facebook Spaces is the virtual reality interactive space where Facebook users can connect with each other in real time in the virtual world. Previously the feature was limited to friends and connections, but now it is being expanded to interest Groups in a hope to get more people interacting on the platform. Users can connect with up to three other people at a time in these Groups. Facebook has said that it will incorporate feedback it receives in Spaces into the development process so it is possible that more features will be coming to the platform soon.
Read more on Fast Company.