This Week in Social and Digital (Week of May 1)
This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.
Bloomberg and Others Partner with Twitter for Exclusive Live Video
Bloomberg will be producing exclusive 24/7 news content for Twitter called #What’sHappening. The news outlet is the first among many Twitter hopes to recruit as it looks to become a source for always-on live video, and this announcement came just ahead of NewFronts, which are currently underway.
The partnership is light on details, but one thing it offers Twitter is ad space adjacent to brand-safe content. Bloomberg will be the 24/7 partner, but Twitter also shared it has 16 other video streaming partnerships, including BuzzFeed, The Verge, Vox, Viacom, the PGA and the WNBA.
Just last week, Twitter COO Anthony Noto shared hopes for the company to become a source for 24/7 streaming video content. And after losing the NFL streaming rights to Amazon, that live video future was put into doubt. It now looks like Twitter will almost certainly bounce back, especially after coming off of a strong earnings report by Twitter’s standards the week prior that showed positive user growth.
Twitter is ideally suited for some kind of live video offering. It worked well with the NFL, and the fact that users can view content alongside the conversation happening around that content is a unique trait Twitter brings to the table. It makes sense for one of the first partners following this new vision to be a news source given the fact that news breaks more and more on Twitter.
This may be part of a larger shift for Twitter as it looks beyond text to original, curated programming, but it faces a slew of competition in that space.
Snap Inc. Launches Viewability Score for Snapchat
Snap Inc. is now allowing certain advertisers to see viewability scores around their Snap Ads on Snapchat. The scores are validated by Moat, which uses Media Rating Council guidelines to assign scores to ads to determine if the impressions are chargeable. This criteria means at least 50% of an ad’s pixel should be in focus on a user’s screen for at least two continuous seconds.
Ads may also be paid for if a user shows a strong interaction. In the case of Snap Ads, that action is swiping up on the ad to get more content.
The scores will become more widely available in June.
Snap’s moves come at a time in which advertisers are becoming more aware of where their ads are being viewed and whether or not the impressions are valuable or not. These demands have put pressure on Facebook, YouTube and all players in the digital space, and it appears Snapchat falls into that camp as well. While imperfect, the steps are encouraging for advertisers looking for more reason to invest in digital.
Facebook Messenger Launches Instant Games
Messenger users can now play turn-based games inside the app with friends. Previously, users could play games by themselves and then challenge friends to beat their scores. But now turn-based games like 8 Ball Pool and Words With Friends can be played simultaneously with other users.
The push into gaming is inspired by the gaming features available in other messaging apps based in Asia.
The messaging space is incredibly competitive with multiple players vying for user attention, including built-in apps like iMessages. Messenger sees gaming as a key point of differentiation, and gaming certainly offers a stickiness factor to the platform.
Facebook, as evidenced by its VR efforts, sees itself as a way to not only enable communication between friends but interactions as well. Gaming is one way to spark that interaction.
Snap Continues to Cater More to Brands
Snap, Inc. has been taking pretty significant steps as of late to cater to marketers. This week it launched a new self-serve tool for advertisers to buy full-screen placements on Snapchat.
This announcement comes after updates that allowed brands to buy through third-parties last year and updates that gave them more control earlier this year. Now, brands are completely in the driver’s seat, at least they will be when the tool rolls out fully in June. These Snap Ads will be able to be bought directly by the brand, just like they can with sponsored geofilters.
That’s not the only thing Snapchat launched. It also now has Max Reach ads, which offer a way for a brand to reach everyone in the United States who views a Story in a single day. It’s essentially the Snapchat version off the home page takeover. Anyone who watches a Story in the U.S. will see the ad.
Snapchat’s taking a couple different approaches here, and both are meant to appease advertisers. Self-serve ads make the platform so much more approachable for all advertisers, small to large. The control and speed in which ads could be launched is much more palatable, and the price is likely to get more competitive with Facebook and company. Max Reach offers something for advertisers with big budgets looking for mass awareness.
Snapchat’s come a long way for a company that once despised advertising. Going public changes everything it seems.
Facebook Can’t Stop Won’t Stop Winning
Facebook reported its Q1 2017 earnings, and once again, the social network delivered, despite concerns around brand safety in the context of live video and a growing lack of inventory. Facebook ad revenue grew 51% over last year, hitting $7.86 billion. Instagram, video and a growing user base led to this. Changes with how Facebook works with Instagram have made the two platforms perform better together than separately, making the buy on both more attractive.
Facebook did say that inventory int he News Feed has been maxed out, and it is working to find other avenues for ad placement, including Instagram Stories. It also shared that it now has 1.94 billion monthly active users, which is about a quarter of the world’s population.
Facebook has its share of challenges, including brand safety, ad viewability and inventory, but that hasn’t stopped it, not even a bit. The social network has one thing no other platform can touch, almost 2 billion users. That number alone gives advertisers little reason to look elsewhere, and it buys Facebook time to figure out some of its other issues.
News Quick Hits
- Facebook has promoted Alex Hardiman to head of news product. Hardiman has been with Facebook since last year after coming from The New York Times. Hardiman’s new role will be to promote the Facebook Journalism Project.
- Facebook is testing loyalty QR codes that allow users to gain discounts and rewards whenever they buy something in specific stores. The feature works by having users open the Rewards feature within Facebook and then having the QR code displayed scanned at various locations.
- Facebook Marketplace has gotten an update, which includes an icon-based approach to individual categories of items for sale.
- YouTube.com/new is giving users a preview of the updated YouTube that will be rolling out. That updated look includes a dark theme that will reduce glare for users, the removal of visuals that distract from browsing or viewing content and a look based off of Google’s Android look and feel, Material Design. It’s also built on the Polymer framework, which will run faster than the previous version of YouTube.
- Users can now react to comments on Facebook. Previously, Facebook Reactions were limited to the post itself, but now users can express like, love, laughter, surprise, sadness and anger in the comments of posts. The reactions are available by hovering over the like button.
- Facebook has hired a team of 3,000 that will join its global operations team as part of its content-safety division, which already had 4,500 employees prior to the hiring. This team will be responsible for monitoring and trafficking reports of violent and unsettling content on the social network. The move comes after a rise in people using Facebook Live to broadcasts murders and suicides.
- Hulu launched its live-TV streaming service, which comes in at $39.99 per month and offers both on-demand and live programming from about 50 channels. Beyond that users have 50 hours of recording and up to six user profiles. Hulu joins YouTube, SlingTV, Playstation Vue and others in offering live TV streaming, but it also boasts an impressive catalog of on-demand content.
- Twitter Moments are getting a Snapchat-inspired update. Now they’ll include full-screen vertical video ads.
- YouTube’s taking brand safety very seriously and doing what it can to create more inventory for brands to invest their dollars. The platform just launched 40 new programs from celebrities, including Kevin Hart, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen DeGeneres and others. Notably, Johnson & Johnson has already signed on after it cut budget from YouTube in headline-grabbing news earlier this year.