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social media advertising Tag

08 Jun
6

Instagram Continues to Add Features to Keep Up with Snapchat

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

selfieInstagram is continuing its battle with Snapchat as it continues to add similar features to allow for a greater level of competition. Their newest update includes a range of similar features including the ability to add face filters with live special effects. Instagram users can select the new face icon at the bottom of the screen and use these different types of filters when taking pictures on rear facing or front facing cameras and even creating Boomerang video clips.

 

Other features that are also part of this update included the ability to record video and play it in reverse, something that Snapchat had already developed. Another addition is the ability to add hashtag stickers that link to that hashtag, allowing users to explore similar pictures or videos that have been tagged with the same hashtag. They’ve even added a feature that allows users to cover a picture with color and then erase certain areas of the picture in a creative way.

 

Over the last year or so, Instagram has been quickly adding a lot of new features so that they can continue to compete with similar apps. Many of these features aren’t that different from ones that Snapchat offers already. Instagram has been adding all kinds of different features that are ones that match with Snapchat as this application is one of its biggest competitors. Offering features that are similar or better than Snapchat may help them to stay relevant in the long run.

 

New features including face filters, hashtag stickers, and the erase tool are available in the newer versions of Instagram. They are available in version 10.22 and newer. To update the Instagram version that you are using visit the iTunes app store or the Windows store where you can install the new version of Instagram. Once this is installed, you’ll be able to enjoy experimenting with all the new features.

01 Jun
6

Facebook Updates Albums to Include More than Pictures

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

facebook albumToday, Facebook is rolling out a new update that will change the way that Facebook users experience albums on Facebook. Previously, Facebook albums could only include photos, but with the new update, Facebook users will be able to add a lot more to these albums. Facebook’s update to the albums will make it so that people can share much more than photos when sharing memories with friends.

 

In their revamp of the photo album feature, Facebook has made it possible to add different videos, check-ins, and text posts to the albums. This will make it so that users will be able to compile additional information into the albums rather than just putting pictures into them. Facebook users will be able to have a lot more flexibility when it comes to creating albums and choosing a variety of items to include within them.

 

With the new update, users will now be able to drop basically any post from their social network and save it into an album. The feature is a bit like scrapbooking where a person gathers bits and pieces to transform these into a complete album to store memories. In addition to this, Facebook has made it so that you can display a featured album on your profile page as well. These updates are meant to allow people to more easily store memories and bring further focus to their albums.

 

In addition to these updates, users will be able to follow and unfollow different albums so that they will be able to stay in the loop on what their friends are adding to their albums. The notifications are easy to turn on and off making it so that Facebook users can more easily decide how to work with these albums. The new changes are currently available on Android and will be rolling out on iOS soon.

18 May
7

Facebook Makes Further Steps to Shut Down Clickbait

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

clickbaitIn a continuation of their battle against misinformation and misleading news, Facebook has announced further updates that target clickbait specifically. They have been working to create a tool that can identify clickbait based on specific articles and posts rather than certain sites that often create clickbait type articles. An initial update was focused on just illuminating repeat offenders or websites that put out a lot of clickbait type articles, while this is focused more on individual posts and their headlines.

 

The new tool that Facebook will be using is going to be focused on the headline of an article and whether or not this headline is hiding key information to inspire people to click it or exaggerating certain information for the purpose of clicks. Posts that are found to have some key identifiers that make their headlines likely to be clickbait, will be pushed down in the news feed so that viewers are a lot less likely to run into them and click on them. This is good news for Facebook users that commonly are attracted and disappointed by these different types of posts.

 

Facebook’s anti-clickbait tool has been trained to focus on specific signals that generally show that a page is clickbait. They focus on which words often are seen in clickbait headlines and not in reputable news articles. The tools have been extended to recognize clickbait headlines even when articles are not in English. This is going to be a process that is automated throughout Facebook to match different phrases with clickbait criteria that has been previously identified.

 

Ever since the US presidential election, Facebook has been working to clean up its platform to make sure that it can eliminate misinformation and sensationalized headlines. The new update is yet another one targeted at eliminating misleading news and preventing the spread of this throughout the platform.

04 May
5

Small Businesses Can Reach More Customers With a Quality Social Media Campaign

In Social Networking | No comment

social media marketingWhile social media has been around for a long while now, many small business owners still aren’t using social media to the fullest potential. Many of these business owners just aren’t on social media or are using social media in a way that doesn’t help with gaining customers or sales. It is important that all business owners use a quality social media campaign to connect with customers and advertise their business.

 

Some business owners have already discovered the ways that social media can help their business, but a recent survey found that nearly half of small businesses don’t have any formal social marketing strategy that they are using. A big part of this is that many business owners aren’t sure how to use social media to their benefit. Others are overlooking important new tools. For example, Instagram is becoming a much more valuable marketing tool, but only one in three small businesses polled were even using the site.

 

Of course, just getting your business on social media isn’t enough. Business owners need to make sure that they are able to use the different social media sites in a way that is actually good for their business. Too many business owners find that they are able to increase sales in the short term using social media marketing and then start to think that the more posts they put in the more sales they’ll see. Unfortunately, this can lead to the marketing soon becoming annoying to those following social media accounts, which can negate any benefit the social media marketing might have had.

 

Another common mistake is business owners not updating their strategies to branch out to new social networks or new features of the social networks that are available. With live video becoming popular on the various social platforms, business owners may want to begin using this feature and others like it to promote their business. As with anything that is part of social media marketing, quality content is important so focusing on creating content that is engaging, interesting, and entertaining for those following a business can be key to making social media marketing count.

23 Mar
6

Instagram to Release a New Update to Help Businesses Using this Platform

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

instagramWhile many updates to different social media sites, include updates that help make different items much more user friendly, many social media sites have begun to work on making their social media sites appeal much more to businesses as well. Most recently, Instagram announced that they would be adding a new update that would allow users to schedule appointments with businesses from Instagram pages. This update is one that will allow customers and businesses to connect more easily.

 

There are at least eight million businesses that have accounts on Instagram, so adding an update to help these businesses thrive makes a lot of sense. The idea of this update is to make it so that businesses can easily transfer people looking at their pictures to actual customers. People who see things that they like within the business Instagram account will not only be able to like pictures, but schedule appointments based off of them.

 

The main benefit of this new update is that businesses will be able to see the way that their Instagram campaign actually contributes to their business itself. They’ll be able to track customers coming from Instagram to see how sharing photos on this site can turn followers into paying customers. This will also allow Instagram to compete with websites like Yelp and OpenTable as many of the features they offer will now be similar to ones on these websites.

 

While the new update is not intended to change the focus of Instagram as a platform, the intention is to allow businesses new ways to connect with customers. By providing an easy way for customer to make appointments after seeing photos that inspire them to go to a certain business, Instagram is extending the way in which people and businesses can interact on their platform.

16 Mar
6

Facebook Policy Update Prevents Data from Being Used for Surveillance

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

facebook surveillanceThis week, Facebook announced a new update to their policies that more clearly forbids developers from using Facebook as a place to gather data for surveillance tools. Facebook feels that tools that use the data on their platform for surveillance discourage users from sharing openly on Facebook. Part of the goal of the new policy is to help people feel safer when they are using Facebook so that they don’t have to filter what they say on social media as much.

 

The update is partially a result of Facebook’s work with the ACLU and other civil rights groups. A recent report by the ACLU uncovered that police were using a surveillance tool that acquired data through Facebook to keep tabs on protests in Oakland and Baltimore. If people worry that police might be targeting their posts and keeping an eye on them, they might be less likely to use Facebook in different ways. Since Facebook is concerned with civil rights, they are implementing this update to help prevent apps connected to Facebook being used to spy on members of the Facebook community.

 

The main focus of the update is to make it easier for Facebook to shut down apps using Facebook data for surveillance purposes. The updated policy is intended as a barrier against developers who could use their access to Facebook information to provide information to law enforcement or other agencies. Facebook hopes that the language of the new update will make it clearer what isn’t allowed so that apps can easily follow the policies.

 

The new update to this policy is just another update on top of previous updates that have helped to prevent discrimination within the platform through third party sources. Other recent changes to the policies have includes ones to prevent discriminatory adds and using Facebook data to help in the process of approving or denying loans.

10 Mar
6

Newest Twitter Update Helps iOS Users Free Up Storage Space on Their Phones

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

iPhoneA few days ago, Twitter rolled out a small but helpful update to iOS users. On their iOS app, Twitter has made it so that users will actually be able to see how much space is taken up by the various photos, files, and web data stored within the Twitter app. The update has also made it possible for users to begin deleting this information, effectively freeing up space on their device. For many Apple users, this new update is extremely helpful.

 

Twitter’s newest update is focused on making it a lot easier for users to manage the storage space taken up by their Twitter app and to even regain some of their devices internal storage by deleting cached data. For some users, this may free up a huge amount of internal storage space as regular Twitter users may have 1 MB or more filled with information that Twitter stores. Anyone with limited phone storage is sure to love Twitter’s update for this reason.

 

Prior to the update that Twitter has now implemented, users would have had to delete the Twitter app entirely and then reinstall to get rid of the cached information taking up so much of their internal storage space. The new update makes the process a lot easier allowing users to just go in and clear their cache whenever necessary. This update is especially great for iPhone users who have iPhones with limited memory as people trying to choose between apps or pictures, will now be able to free up space used by Twitter.

 

To clear the cached information that Twitter uses, start by updating the iOS app on your device. You’ll then be able to click on the gear icon to go into your settings. From there, simply click on Data Usage under General. There will then be two options, Media Storage and Web Storage. By going into either of these, you’ll be able to see how much data is being stored and you’ll be able to clear it, freeing up storage space on your phone.

24 Feb
6

Instagram Launches New Update Allowing Up to 10 Pictures and Videos Per Post

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

instagramThis week, Instagram announced an update to allow users to post up to ten pictures and videos within each post that they make. The update will make it so that these pictures and videos are displayed in a carousel format so that friends can scroll through the photos to get even more. This allows people to share pictures from one event or even create a step by step tutorial for something. The new update brings Instagram in line with competitors like Facebook that already offer the ability to put multiple pictures into a post.

 

When users utilize the new function, they’ll find that they are able to share up to ten pictures and videos at a time. They’ll even be able to mix pictures and videos together so that there are pictures and videos from an event within the same post. Once the post is live, friends will be able to see only the first photo initially when it appears in their feed. They’ll also be able to see an icon that shows that there is more to see, allowing them to scroll through the other images or videos. The new feature will allow users to share a lot more without having to post one picture at a time, filling up people’s feeds.

 

Instagram says that their main reason for making this change is that they have received a great deal of feedback from people saying that they wished they could share more than one picture from an experience and that it was often a challenge to pick just one. Their goal with the new update is to help people add additional depth to their post and share more with their friends.

 

To use this feature simply open your Instagram account and hit the plus sign. Here you’ll find an option that says “select multiple”. You’ll then be able to choose up to ten photos and videos from your phone’s library. Once you’re done tap next. This section allows you to select the order of the pictures and what filters to use on each one. From there you’ll be able to post this group of pictures and videos in a single post.

10 Feb
6

Facebook Steps Up Measures to Stop Discriminatory Advertising

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

facebook policiesAfter Facebook was criticized for having different advertisements for housing and employment that were excluding people of ethnicities visible on their site, Facebook announced in November that they would be making changes to fix this. We are finally beginning to see the new changes rolling out now. Facebook has updated rules for advertisers stating that ads should not be discriminatory. They’ve also added some new tools to prevent discriminatory ads from going out on their website.

 

The first part of Facebook’s update actually changes the advertising policies for the website to make it clear to advertisers that this kind of advertising practice will not be allowed. They have added a section which not only outlines the new anti-discriminatory policy, but also provides advertisers with a range of resources from government agencies and civil rights groups to help further educate advertisers on the subject. As advertisements for housing, employment, and credit opportunities that exclude groups on the basis of ethnicity are in violation of federal anti-discriminatory laws, these are the ones that Facebook is currently targeting the most.

 

In addition to the changes to advertising policies, Facebook has implemented some new tools that will flag advertisements that might be in violation of the policy. These tools evaluate the ad to see if it is about employment, housing, or credit opportunities and prevent the ad from appearing on Facebook if it is found to be an ad like this that is using multicultural affinity targeting as well. The information about the violation is then sent to the advertiser.

 

While these new tools target specific ads and keep them from showing up on Facebook if they are in violation, advertisers still have ways to appeal these decisions. Since these tools might not identify the subject of the ad properly, advertisers will be able to request a manual review if they feel that their ad is being wrongfully blocked. Facebook’s new policies and tools are just the start to preventing discrimination in advertising on their website.

01 Feb
6

Twitter to Launch Additional Features Targeting Harassment in the Following Weeks

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

verbal abuseOn Monday, Twitter announced that Twitter users will be seeing a series of new features that will be used on the platform to limit abuse and harassment. Among the top feedback that Twitter received about the use of the website, was the fact that abuse and harassment makes Twitter a lot less fun on the whole. In a platform focused on the flow of conversation and opinion, such abuse halts the natural flow and discourages users from participating. For this reason, Twitter has renewed its dedication to weeding out this kind of behavior.

 

This week Twitter announced that they are going to be taking a completely new approach on abuse that occurs on their website. Over the coming days and weeks, they are planning to launch fixes to existing features and to add new ones to prevent abuse. These will include fixing the mute and block features and adding new ways to prevent repeat offenders from creating a new account when their account is suspended. By approaching safety on Twitter in a more aggressive way, the website hopes to break the pattern of abuse on Twitter.

 

One of the first changes to Twitter has already been rolled out, although it is a relatively minor one. Twitter will now allow users to report any Tweet that mentions them even if that user has blocked them on Twitter. This will prevent the common problem of people being unable to stop the flow of abuse from a user who hides behind the shield that blocking provides. While this isn’t too big of a change, it is a step in the right direction.

 

Preventing abuse and harassment on Twitter is of top importance to the company. Since they have received so much feedback about the abuse on Twitter and how inhibitive this can be, they are finally taking many steps to stop the harassment that is flowing through Twitter. While Twitter has tried some things in the past, they are promising much bigger changes in the future. By changing the climate for abuse and harassment on Twitter, they are hoping to make their website a place that is more welcoming to new and existing users.

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