Take a look at some of the latest happenings in the social media world:
Remember the news feed redesign Facebook talked about last year? Facebook finally unveiled the updated news feed design for desktops and laptops! Get ready to witness yet another change in your Facebook news feed design. This time around, Facebook has based changes on what their users liked. Facebook tested a new design and noticed that while users found bigger images more appealing, they felt it was harder to navigate. Using feedback from users, the new design will mirror their mobile design and flaunt the layout and navigation users prefer along with bigger images and new fonts for Macs and PCs (Arial for PC and Helvetica for Macs). The updates to the news feed are entirely cosmetic for now and do not include updates to story ranking or content surfacing. These changes will not be implemented on mobile devices. Here is a preview of what your homepage will look like soon:
Microblogging giant Twitter has rolled out promoted accounts in search: Twitter recently allowed Promoted Accounts to show up as a search result. This is entirely different from promoted tweets and accounts showing up in your timeline. This feature allows businesses to interact with consumers just when they desire relevant information and results. Twitter will automatically place these accounts based on relevant search queries and targeting information, and requires no additional effort from the business. This interface will allow users to simply follow the promoted account in one click. This change is extremely important for Twitter marketing, a recent study by Twitter showed that users are 72% more likely to make a purchase from a brand they follow or engage with on Twitter. Take a look at the example Twitter provided for when a user searches for latte art:
WhatsApp, the world-famous messaging service that was recently acquired by Facebook will soon add voice calls to the service. WhatsApp CEO, Jan Kaoum, confirmed the news at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The motivation behind adding this feature is to reach 1 billion users. Facebook’s recent purchase of WhatsApp has solidified its involvement in messaging – which was the earliest most basic use of mobile Internet. Therefore, adding voice services to its portfolio will enable Facebook to expand its capabilities on a smartphone.
In an attempt to leverage the ever growing space of mobile marketing, LinkedIn has expanded their Sponsored InMail feature to mobile devices. With more than half of LinkedIn Inbox page views coming from mobile devices – this move will definitely give businesses an unprecedented advantage when trying to target audiences with personalized content even when they’re on the go.
Facebook will also now show users stories about topics they like! What does this mean? For example, if you like the “Paul McCartney” page, you will not only see updates from his page but you will also see stories about him on pages like the “Beatles” and “Rock of the 1990’s.” This surfacing of stories is based on how connected these pages are. This provides marketers and companies with the opportunity to leverage tagging and integration to their advantage!
And for the most important update this week: Ellen Degeneres’ tweet from the Oscars breaks all retweet records including President Obama’s famous “Four more years” tweet!
If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
