The Week in Social: Holiday Spirit, Hard Times, #Winning and Data

IN THE SPIRIT, INSTAGRAM GIVES A LITTLE MORE THIS HOLIDAY

The industry’s innovation and technology are in overdrive, so it’s no surprise that platforms are too. This one, however, I find surprising it’s only just being introduced. Instagram, an almost entirely visual service, is rethinking its approach for users with visual impairments. The accessibility-focused update rolled out last week offers two options to give visually impaired users alternative text descriptions of what’s happening in posts.

OH SNAP, LINKEDIN YOU DIDN’T! (BUT THEY DID ??‍♀)

Really, LinkedIn, why you got to be like that! The other week Ireland’s Data Protection Commission via TechCrunch highlighted unfriendly activities conducted during the first six months of 2018. In the complaint is read that LinkedIn “processed hashed email addresses of approximately 18 million non-LinkedIn members,” and then targeted those individuals with ads on Facebook.

Are times getting hard, LinkedIn? If you ask me, I call that foul play! Although they pulled a naughty little trick, we have to give it to them for stepping up and admitting their mistakes. In a statement they said, “We’ve taken appropriate action, and have improved the way we work to ensure that this will not happen again.” What are your thoughts, should LinkedIn be on Santa’s naughty list this year?

GOOGLE YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, #WINNING!

Google is always on in the background, fixing glitches, updating systems, and looking out for the next opportunity to make its products that much more convenient for the lazy user! (Yes, that’s right – lazy, just admit it already! Technology does the busy work for us, making sure we get right to where we need to be and doing what we love to do).

Google Maps now allows you to add hashtags to reviews of local businesses and enabling readers to tap them to find out more about a particular topic. (Watch out businesses; now even more chances to get a good or bad review.) So, if you’ve got a date you want to impress or an out of town guest, you can search via hashtags for where you should be #datenight #celebrityspotting. That’s not the only feature being rolled out. Check them out and let us know what you think or what you would like to see next. We know a few people on the inside!

DATA, DATA – BADDA BING BADDA BOOM

With over 1 billion users on Instagram, it would be hard to say we’ve never wondered about the techniques used in generating various follower profiles. We’re curious people working in social media anyway. You know the pressing question on your mind is: where do I sit in using the key strategies? (Relax Gina, you’ll get more followers. Just keep on posting those gems, girl!)

Lucky for us, Quintly has done the grunt work. They’ve analyzed six categories by follower profiles: Follower development, post type performance (images, carousels, videos), length of posts, usage of hashtags, emojis on Instagram, posting time. But, before I leave you with the juicy stuff, I just want to flag one major disappointment I came across: 55% of profiles don’t (yes, I said don’t) use emojis. Say what! #Boring

THE RISE OF STORIES

We are all too familiar with how Facebook has taken a turn from a personal sharing platform to a major advertiser. It seems now only 1 out of 5 posts are from an individual that you are interested in seeing and the others are sponsored posts or unrelated brand posts. With that it is no surprise that they are starting to give a harder push to the story feature. Working in the industry we understand the importance of staying ahead of the curve and the need to adapt our content to capture the attention of the user in the first few seconds. And as we quickly approach 2019, we are hard at work developing strategies that will keep us relevant in the new year. Here are four ways you can begin to use Stories for your business and ensure you’re riding atop the next big social media wave.

Take your audience behind the scene: Stories offer a perfect way to share unfiltered, authentic content with your audience.
Cross-post between Instagram and Facebook: This is a great way to get started and learn a little about what your audience enjoys on both platforms.
Experiment with Stories ads: Stories ads are a new addition to Facebook’s ad inventory and enable brands to share image-based or short video ads.
Share user-generated content to Stories: Stories offers businesses the chance to repost content from their audience at a more frequent pace than in the feed.

So, as you sit at your desk this Monday morning try thinking out of the box and dare to test new features and content ideas. The best part about social media is that it’s always adapting so when one thing doesn’t work it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just gives you another opportunity to try something new.