The Latest Updates on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest
By Big Raven Media | Sept 20, 2019
A Message from our Head Raven,
Joleen Emery:
Hello, my Friday Roundup Ravens!
The weekend is upon us, and as much as I love September and October, I always feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to… fall? (Ha! Fall! Get it?! I probably shouldn’t quit my day job as a digital marketing expert…)
And speaking of digital marketing… have I got something new for you! Three things, actually:
First up, Facebook rolls out new video tools, plus Instagram and IGTV add scheduling features. These new video tools are going to be INCREDIBLY helpful to those of us who broadcast live on Facebook. The most important change, in my mind, will be the ability to rehearse with your live setup without actually going live! This will allow you and your production team to adjust lighting and camera angles and sound without actually being seen by anyone except your team until you’re ready. However, there’s a lot more to this — keep reading below to find out everything that’s changing…
Second, Facebook is announcing the expansion of three new ad formats, namely Poll Ads, Playable Ads, and… Augmented Reality Ads?! Cool! (Keep reading below to find out more about these.)
Finally, Pinterest adds new features to its Group Boards with the addition of reactions, the ability to sort Pins and a new way to communicate with group members directly via the board. (It’s good to see Pinterest beginning to show some love to its board interface. It was beginning to seem a little stale; perhaps this is the start of a new Pinterest revival?)
That’s it! Have a great weekend!
— Joleen
The only predictable thing about Digital Marketing and Social Networks is change. The instant you feel like you've got a handle on the way things work is the very moment when new things take over. To help stay up-to-date on all the latest news in social media and digital marketing, we scour our favorite blogs, follow industry thought leaders, and engage in digital communities. We pull all that information together and share it with our community in our weekly Raven News Round-up. Hopefully, all of our creeping will save you time and bring you valuable nuggets-o-wisdom.
To help you prioritize what to read, we’ve created a ranking system of 1 - 3 ravens. The bigger the flock, the greater the importance. If you want more than our summary, click the title for the full article.
-
Facebook on Monday announced a number of updates aimed at video creators and publishers the highlights include better ways to prep for and simulcast live broadcasts, ways to take better advantage of Watch Party events, new metrics to track video performance and a much-anticipated option to schedule Instagram/IGTV content for up to six months in advance.
-
Live video - publishers can now use a “rehearsal” feature to broadcast live only to Page admins and editors in order to test new production setups, interactive features and show formats before going live to a full audience, and they will also be able to trim the beginning and end of a live video, and can live broadcast for as long as eight hours.
-
Watch Party - Facebook additionally announced a few new updates which include the ability for Pages to schedule a party in advance to build anticipation, support for “replays” that will let others enjoy the video after airing, the ability to tag business partners in branded content and new analytics; two new metrics are being added to Creator Studio: Minutes Viewed and Unique 60s Viewers (total number of unique users that watched at least 60 seconds in a Watch Party); and the Live Commenting feature, which allows a host to go live in a Watch Party to share their own commentary, is also now globally available.
-
Creator Studio - the dashboard will add a new visualization layer in Loyalty Insights to help creators see which videos loyal fans want to see by measuring which videos drive return viewers. Creator Studio will also now support 13 more languages for auto-captioning: Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, Italian, Malay, Russian, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese.
-
Instagram & IGTV scheduling - publishers and creators will be able to publish and schedule their Instagram Feed and IGTV content for up to six months. The feature is now open to all creators and publishers with Facebook Pages, whereas before some were seeing it labeled only as “coming soon” or were not able to get it working.
.jpg)
-
Facebook is announcing the expansion of three interactive ad formats.
-
First, it says that poll ads (which you may already have seen in Instagram Stories) are moving to the main feed of the Facebook mobile app.
-
Second, the augmented reality ads that Facebook has already been testing are moving into open beta this fall.
-
Third, Facebook is making playable ads available to all advertisers, not just gaming companies.
POLL ADS
-
Sponsored polls are a way for advertisers on Facebook to understand how people they're trying to reach feel about their ads (example: finding out whether someone likes an ad). If you see an advertiser-sponsored poll in your News Feed, it may mean that you're someone that the advertiser would like to reach.
PLAYABLE ADS
-
Playable ads are an interactive video ad that allow mobile app advertisers to offer a short preview of their app before a person chooses to download it. Playable ads are available on Facebook Newsfeed, Audience Network Interstitial and Audience Network Rewarded video (see how the experience looks for each placement).
AUGMENTED REALITY ADS
-
What is Facebook AR?
Facebook's Camera Effects Platform includes AR Studio, a new tool that lets 3D artists and developers create interactive photo and video effects for the new Facebook camera. -
AR advertising is a mobile ad unit which uses the smartphone camera to superimpose 3D assets, such as game characters and scenarios from the advertised game, onto the user's real world surroundings. AR ads can run on both iOS and Android in-app traffic, within rewarded video and display placements.
Pinterest Adds New Features to Its Group Boards
Reactions, sorting Pins and new ways to communicate
Source: Adweek
-
Pinterest beefed up its group boards with the addition of reactions, the ability to sort Pins and a new way to communicate with group members directly via the board. Its new sorting feature enables users to organize Pins by reactions and comments so that they can prioritize the most popular ideas. Pinterest said it will soon add the ability to sort by the Pinner who added the idea and when the idea was saved.
-
In the coming weeks, it will roll out a redesigned space that will let group members communicate with each other directly on the board, enabling them to track the latest thoughts in one place.
-
The updates are rolling out globally across all platforms, starting Thursday.
Schedule a Free Strategy Call With
Our Head Raven, Joleen Emery!
Brainstorm, Troubleshoot, Design Your Social Media Action Plan.
In 30 Minutes, Joleen will help you come up with something tangible!