Social Media Essentials: Friendless news feeds, instant article analytics, and WhatsApp hits a milestone
Welcome to our weekly summary of what’s happened in social media this week. We highlight the top stories to help you stay up to date with social media, here is what caught our attention this week.
Spotlight Story: Google’s friendless news feed
Google has just rolled out its own take on the news feed. They have designed a personalized stream of articles and videos based on our choices, searches, and past behavior online. In December 2016 Google launched an update to its app which included two sections:
‘A feed that keeps you current on your interests like sports, news, and entertainment, and a section for your upcoming personal info, like flights, appointments and more.’
Google’s news feed combines the most important news stories of the day with topics you’ve previously searched. What makes this feed different is you don’t need to ‘friend’ anyone, like posts or scroll through endless pictures of babies and ridiculous memes. Instead, Google is allowing you to discover, explore and stay connected to what matters to you. Find out more about the app and whats included.
Facebook instant articles analytics tool
Facebook publishers can now measure how their articles perform compared to mobile web alternatives. Instant articles should help publishers make informed decisions on what content to share and when. According to Facebook ‘We have found that people are less likely to bounce when articles load fast, more likely to share Instant Articles than mobile web links, and on average people read more articles when they see Instant Articles in their News Feed’. Therefore businesses should see increased growth and added value using this program.
LinkedIn tells businesses who are visiting their website
LinkedIn has introduced a tool to show businesses who is visiting their website. The Website Demographics tool allows businesses to break down their website visitors into eight categories. This tool will help businesses analyze who are actually visiting their website via LinkedIn and help them adjust their marketing efforts to target the correct audience. This tool is available to anyone using the company campaign manager.
WhatsApp hits 1 billion daily users
This week WhatsApp hit a record of 1 billion daily active users. It has been reported that WhatsApp users send over 55 billion messages per day, including 4.5 billion photos and 1 billion videos. Their rapid growth will be due to introducing new features such as stories, voice and audio calls, and its core purpose text messaging.
WhatsApp is increasingly being used more by brands and presents a massive opportunity for marketers. It can enable instant customer service and highly targeted marketing.
Instagram stories or Snapchat?
One of the most popular debates around social media in recent months has been between Snapchat or Instagram stories? Since the launch of Instagram Stories in 2016, Snapchat and Instagram have been neck in neck attempting to release the best features and gain the most users.
As Instagram’s features become very similar to Snapchat, it has become confusing for marketers to determine which platform is best to use for their business. We decided to look at their differences to help you decide which platform are best for your business.
Let us know what you think of these updates by connecting with us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Don’t forget to join us next week for another weekly round up.
If you are looking for ways to improve your social media strategy check out our social media marketing toolkit. Helping you create full proof social strategy using step-by-step guides and resources.