Our weekly social media news roundup helps marketers to stay on top of every social platform’s latest updates, insights, campaigns and more.
YouTube TV Service Is Now Available In Every US TV Market
YouTube TV nationwide rollout concludes in a small Montana town, officially making the service available in every TV market in the country.
Why it matters: Advertisers can now reach audiences in 210 US television markets with YouTube offering the same service at the same price to everyone in the US, which can’t be said about regular cable TV.
The details: It’s important to mention that some of the channels are not available in certain areas. Availability can be checked by zip code on the YouTube TV website.
Facebook Introduces A New Ad Library And Report
Facebook announced on Wednesday that it will catalog all ads run by all Pages, and not just ads with political affiliations.
Why it matters: The Ad Library offers insights about who saw the ad, as well as its spend and impressions and keeps ads for seven years.
The details: Ad Library updates will include: “Bringing in all active ads any Page is running—not just ads related to politics or issues—creating one place to see ads on Facebook,” “Adding more information about Pages in the Ad Library” and more.
Twitter Partners With Samba TV
Adweek reported on Thursday that Samba TV, television data and analytics company, is partnering with Twitter in the effort to help measure the social network’s effectiveness in driving tune-in.
Why it matters: This collaboration will give programmers vital information about the engagement on Twitter and tune-ins to better primetime broadcast and cable TV programming, streaming originals and sporting events.
The details: Tim Perzyk, Twitter vice president of market insights and analytics, said, “Twitter is home to the world’s most valuable audience when they’re most receptive, and that includes when they’re watching TV. As advertisers look to enrich their marketing strategies with complimentary TV and digital media buys, Samba has emerged as a key partner in helping us evaluate and improve our partner performance.”
Instagram Brings Interactivity To Its Stories Ads
This week, Instagram introduced Interactive Stories ads.
Why it matters: Interactive Stories ads aim to help bring people closer to brands. They’ll allow businesses to be more creative and playful on their feeds in order to build better connections and even encourage people to watch longer. Thus, according to the company, in 9 out of 10 beta campaigns, the polling sticker increased 3-second video views.
The details: Some advertisers have already tested the polling sticker in ads. Dunkin’ achieved a 20 percent lower cost-per-video-view using the polling sticker, and Next Games’ polling ad drove 40 percent more app installs.
“We’re always open to testing ad products that give people a new experience and memorable touchpoint with our brand. Delivering ads in Instagram Stories with the polling sticker showcased our new product story seamlessly and encouraged participation while driving results that matter,” said Melanie Cohn, Senior Manager, Brand Stewardship at Dunkin’ Brands.
Here is how to start using Interactive Stories ads:
- In Ads Manager, choose Instagram Stories as your only ad placement
- Check the box “Add an interactive poll,” where you usually upload your creative and edit your ad’s text
- Add the polling sticker
Instagram Spotted Testing a Video Scrubbing Option
Social media code hacker, Jane Manchun Wong, caught Instagram testing video seek bar.
Why it matters: This new feature should add a new way to search through posted videos, enabling the user to find specific moments, and therefore increasing engagement with video content.
The details: Instagram already has a similar feature on IGTV, but the new video seek bar will make it easier to locate specific moments within uploaded content. It will allow seeing how far along the user is in the video, fast-forward, rewind and watch an elapsed part without having to wait for the video to restart.
Adobe, Microsoft And LinkedIn Collaborate To Boost Account-Based Marketing
LinkedIn announced in a blog post on Wednesday, a collaboration between their parent company, Microsoft and Adobe to challenge account-based marketing competitors.
Why it matters: By extending LinkedIn account-based marketing capabilities to Adobe Experience Cloud users, LinkedIn will help them identify and target the right audiences on the platform with the right content and therefore, improve the success of their campaigns.
The details: According to GeekWire, the new features combine certain data sources and provide marketers with useful information about the teams and individuals that make buying decisions. The goal of the collaboration between the companies is to build a more personalized and targeted experience for sales teams. The LinkedIn integration aims to create extensive profiles in Adobe’s Marketo Engage and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales.
“The ability to leverage the power of data to find the right opportunities and use insights helps marketing and sales to plan their next move with a member of the buying committee,” said Alysa Taylor, corporate vice president of business applications and global industry at Microsoft, in a statement. “Together with Adobe and LinkedIn, Microsoft can help to deliver an end-to-end solution that ultimately accelerates lead conversion and can create opportunities for improved servicing and better cross-sell, resulting in the higher lifetime value of the account.”
There Are Very Few Brand Deals For Creators On Snapchat
Digiday reported that while Snap CEO Evan Spiegel promised that the app would build “more distribution and monetization” opportunities, creators are seeing a dramatic decline in the availability of brand deals and communication from Snap.
Why it matters: Could it be a sign that Snapchat is losing the fight to Instagram, TikTok and other platforms?
The details: Both brands and influencers are turning away from Snapchat. Their reasons, however, are different. For brands, it is a lack of audience insights and discoverability limitations, as noted in the Digiday story by one executive. For influencers, it’s the mysterious disappearance of branded content from their feeds.
EMarketer Predicts Reddit Crossing $100 Million Mark In 2019
According to eMarketer’s latest ad forecast, online blog platform, Reddit, is on the way to crossing the $100 million mark this year and doubling its ad revenue by 2021.
Why it matters: “Reddit’s users are tech-savvy and highly engaged, making them attractive to advertisers,” Monica Peart, director of eMarketer forecasting, said in a statement.
The details: Per the forecast, in 2019 Reddit will reach $119.0 million in net US ad revenue, giving it a 0.1 percent share of the US digital ad market. And by 2021, its revenues will more than double to $261.7 million, bumping its share to 0.2 percent.
“The company has retooled its ad offerings over the past year, which included the launch of new ad formats like autoplay in-stream video, cost-per-click, app install and ‘Top Post Takeover,’ which allows brands to have their ads appear on the site’s front page,” Peart said. “Like most of the companies for which eMarketer produces estimates, advertising is not Reddit’s only source of revenue.”
YouTube Launches Its First Ever ‘Experiential House’
On Tuesday, YouTube introduced the ‘YouTube House’ pop-up in New York, which showcases a range of different elements of focus for YouTubers and showcases the various aspects of the platform’s offerings.
Why it matters: In a blog post about the pop-up, the company said that its goal is to demonstrate that “YouTube isn’t just a place for watching random videos, but a community where people congregate for music, fitness, food, culture, and so much more.” This is likely an overall brand campaign.
The details: YouTube House features dedicated areas for YouTube TV (YouTube’s recently expanded TV-alternative offering), YouTube Gaming, virtual reality, a fitness studio, a kitchen and YouTube Music. In addition, YouTube will also offer creator merchandise for sale.
Twitter Invites The Fans Of @MLB 2019 To Choose A Featured Player Every Day
Traditionally, Twitter offers a virtual space for The Major League Baseball fans to view and discuss live video and near-real-time highlights of the games. The most exciting piece of news, though, is that this year, the fans will be able to choose which player’s at-bats will be featured live on Twitter that day.
Why it matters: The sports event and the new initiative will bring more engagement to the platform and provide great opportunities for compelling content creation.
The details: AdWeek reported that every day in the morning, starting on Opening Day and running throughout the season, @MLB will tweet a reminder for fans to choose that day’s featured hitter. Live-streamed shows on @MLB for events will also be produced, including the London Series (bitter rivals the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will face off in London Stadium June 29 and 30), the Home Run, the All-Star Game, the trade deadline and the postseason. In addition, highlights of every home run hit during the season will be posted on @MLB, for the first time ever, and special hashtag-triggered emojis for all 30 MLB teams will be available in English via @MLB and in Spanish via @LasMayores.
Thirty-Seven Percent Of Mobile Internet Traffic Worldwide Comes From YouTube
The report conducted by Sandvine reports that YouTube generates 37 percent of mobile traffic around the world.
Why it matters: This matters because of the sheer magnitude of traffic (upstream/downstream) going through YouTube.
The details: According to the report, users consume more content (per megabyte) on YouTube than on any other app. This includes social media and other video-centric platforms such as Netflix. To compare, the report revealed that Facebook generates only 8.4 percent of mobile web traffic and Snapchat–8.3 percent.
EU Approves Article 13: Controversial Copyright Law
On Tuesday, The European Parliament voted to pass Article 13, a controversial new law that will reform the ways in which copyrighted content posted online will be governed.
Why it matters: Under Article 13, all internet platforms will be liable for content uploaded by users. Some popular online services might suffer greatly from the new law. “YouTube, Facebook and Google News are some of the internet household names that will be most directly affected by this legislation,” the European Parliament said in a statement. However, memes, gifs and snippets will be protected more than ever before.
The details: Here are some notable parts of Article 13:
- Internet platforms are liable for content that users upload
- Some uploaded material, such as memes or GIFs, now specifically excluded from directive
- Hyperlinks to news articles, accompanied by “individual words or very short extracts”, can be shared freely
- Journalists must get a share of any copyright-related revenue obtained by their news publisher
- Start-up platforms subject to lighter obligations
eMarketer Foresees Snapchat Ad Business Will Grow In 2019
According to eMarketer’s predictions, Snapchat’s U.S. advertising business will grow at 24.3 percent this year.
Why it matters: Monica Peart, senior forecasting director at eMarketer, said, “Self-serve programmatic buying has expanded Snapchat’s reach to more advertisers, especially small and medium-sized businesses that can invest in ads at lower bid prices. However, moving the vast majority of their ad inventory into this lower cost structure has tempered earlier growth estimates.”
The details: Previously, eMarketer lowered Snapchat ad revenues forecast twice because of the company’s shift to selling ads programmatically, which negatively affected its ad prices. EMarketer expects Snapchat’s U.S. monthly user base to decline 2.8 percent this year to 77.5 million. But, they expect Snapchat to increase its worldwide monthly user base 11.3 percent to 297.7 million in 2019.
YouTube Delivers This Year’s Upfront Pitch
Digiday reported on Tuesday that YouTube is targeting TV advertisers with its 2019 upfront pitch.
Why it matters: YouTube’s main goal with this year’s upfront pitch is to convince advertisers that it can effectively compete with traditional TV. The catch, though, is the minimum spend commitment.
The details: The video platform will consider production quality and the likelihood that people will view videos on TV when selecting channels to include in its Google Preferred program, which packages the top 5 percent of YouTube channels into category-specific bundles that advertisers, Digiday reported. YouTube will also manifest its streaming TV service as a standalone inventory option and will start to roll out its free, ad-supported YouTube Originals shows.
Most Social Media Users Share Info Privately
According to a study by WeAreSocial and GlobalWebIndex, 63 percent of users share information via private messengers and so-called “dark social,” or those channels that are difficult for marketers to track.
Why it matters: If it’s harder for marketers and platforms to track user data, it’s harder to serve them relevant ads. This could be the reason Facebook is pivoting to focus on encrypted messaging.
The details: Facebook Messenger is the most popular private messenger (82 percent), followed by WhatsApp and Instagram DMs. Entertainment was the most popular subject in ‘dark social’ channels, followed by games and then clothing.
Snap Actively Pitches Ad Space To Pharmaceutical Companies
CNBC reported that Snapchat’s owner, Snap, is currently attending pharma marketing conferences to attract pharmaceutical companies for advertising on the platform.
Why it matters: To achieve this goal, Snapchat is positioning itself as a social media platform that is friendlier to young people than Facebook and Twitter, making users more comfortable in sharing private information.
The details: In February, Snap representatives spoke at DigiPharma Connect conference, which is regularly attended by pharmaceutical companies’ digital marketing executives, including companies like Roche, Bayer and Amgen. One of Snap’s selling points was the positive culture that reigns on the platform, which might serve the companies well. Legally, pharma companies must report any adverse events about their products to federal agencies. That includes social media comments. A more relaxed atmosphere on the platform could lead to less negative comments about the product, especially if there is no space to leave a comment next to ads.
Pernod Ricard On Reddit
According to Digiday, Pernod Ricard, the alcoholic beverage conglomerate, is buying ads on Reddit with good results.
Why it matters: “Reddit is a very raw and organic platform,” said Simon de Beauregard, Pernod Ricard’s U.S. director of engagement told Digiday.
“This experience has proven that the platform could deliver extremely solid results and we now know better how to maximize its potential to offer the best seamless engaging experience to our audience, so we could test it more in the future.”
The details: Some of the important takeaways include:
- Video ads for Absolut played automatically in subreddit forums dedicated to specific topics on both mobile and desktop versions of the site between October and December
- Absolut targeted the ads to key audiences in subreddits on topics, such as “funny” and “LGBTQ”
- Video completion rates were used to measure the shorter 8 to 10-second video ads (which were 2.5 times higher than Reddit’s benchmark)
- 70 percent of the views for the shorter video ads happened on mobile
Nilla Wafers Announces The Result Of The Anniversary Social Video Campaign
The cookie brand, Nilla Wafers, announced results from the company’s last year’s 50th-anniversary campaign, dedicated to the release of lemon-flavored wafers.
Why it matters: According to the case study, the Nilla Wafers’ Facebook and Instagram campaign boosted ad recall by 32 points and reached 11.9 million users of the social networking apps from March 15-31, 2018.
The details: As a part of the campaign, vertical video ads designed to be mobile-first on Instagram Stories were served to U.S. women ages 18 to 54. The video creative showed a box of Nilla Wafers straining to contain the new cookies and then exploding to send cookies and confetti flying across the screen. Each ad showed a “shop now” call-to-action button, linking to the product website.
Jeffy Bell, partnerships manager at social video ad platform Vidmob, which helped in campaign creation, said in the case study, “Instagram Stories assets elevated the media mix by captivating attention with full-screen vertical video.”
Editor’s Note: Our weekly social media news post is updated daily. This installment will be updated until Friday, March 22. Have a news tip? We’re looking for changes to and news surrounding social media platforms as they relate to marketing. Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.
