It seems social platforms are becoming – or being forced to become – more transparent. Whether it’s telling us more details about the way the Pinterest algorithms work, sharing the results of a bias audit or giving video data to the Pew Research Center, we’re seeing more of what happens behind a traditionally opaque curtain. It’s up to us as digital marketers to put that transparency to use.
The Press Herald: Facebook makes small tweaks following anti-conservative bias report
If we asked what category of brand would be most affected by the changes Facebook is making as a result of an anti-conservative bias audit, you might guess political or even news brands. Surprisingly, healthcare brands are the ones that seem like they will be most affected. Previously, Facebook would reject any ads with photographs showing medical tubes connected to the body. Now, those pictures are allowed. The reasons are complicated, but the outcome seems to be generally positive if you want to promote a patient story or condition with a visual that involves medical tubes.
Marketing Land: Twitter Introduces 6-Second Viewable Video Ad Bids
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound? Similarly, if your ad plays on someone’s screen but they only watch one second will they really recall your brand?
Fortunately, we won’t have to guess the answer to that question now that Twitter is rolling out a new video ad bidding option that allows advertisers to run 15-second or shorter video ads, but only be charged if the ad is viewed for a full six seconds with pixels at 50% in-view. If your brand is focused on substantive view rates, this option could be a great one for you.
YouTube
Pew Research Center: A Week in the Life of Popular YouTube Channels
Pew’s research supports what most social media marketers already knew: kids and dogs are social media gold. On YouTube, however, it seems that kids have the upper hand. Content by and for children received more views than other videos. See what other insights are included, like the video title keywords associated with increased view counts.
Pinterest: Pin2Interest: A scalable system for content classification
We’ve been saying it for a while now: posting to Pinterest is really more of a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy than a social one. Pinterest engineers recently shared some of the secrets that go into the black box that decides what people see on the platform. Understanding how Pins are classified gives you the ability to optimize your Pin/needle so it can be found in the haystack of Pinterest content.
Wired: Reddit Now Lets You Livestream. What Could Go Wrong?
According to their VP of Product, change on Reddit is a positive thing. He says, “Not long ago, before the platform supported video, jugglers had no place to go on Reddit. Now there’s a whole tribe of them and a thriving community tossing balls around.” Jugglers aside, we peeked at the new livestream feature this week and saw pianists and puppies, not drastically different from what you’d find on a live-streaming service like Twitter’s Periscope. It’s only a test for this week, so we’ll wait to see what differentiating features Reddit might introduce in the future.
On the Blog:
- Uber’s IPO Continues to Fizzle, In Part Due to Non-Stop PR Issues
- Guide to Boosting PPC Performance With Ad Extensions
Project Highlight:
Alvarez & Marsal | Simplifying Descriptions of Services Using Video & Animation
CenterTable’s digital team scripted, storyboarded, designed and animated a series of playful videos to better illustrate A&M’s offerings.
