Welcome to this week’s Social Marketing Cluster Facts! Every week we dig into the social media marketing news scene and uncover the goods. What’s up this week?
Pokemon Go eyes sponsored locations, LinkedIn flirts with video, YouTube enhances shopping and Facebook Messenger bots take over — sort of. Watch SMCF!Â
Transcript:
| Hey, Marketers! Facebook messenger bots are getting real. For this week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, BuzzFeed is launching BuzzBot, a reporter bot that gathers information from folks on the convention floor and at protests outdoors. Users are able to continually report news to the bot and upload videos and images. BuzzFeed sees this as a way to gather information from all angles — it’s not replacing reporters, it’s just helping them out. |
| Is video coming to LinkedIn? In a recent podcast, Alex Rynne of LinkedIn said he’s excited for the platform to “crack the code” on video… but isn’t giving many specifics. That could be good news for marketers. We’ll keep an eye on that story for ya. |
| YouTube added two new features to beef up its TrueView shopping campaign. Firstly, you can now have an interactive “companion banner” that let’s users shop for relevant items, with the most up-to-date product information, while a video is playing. Secondly, the optional “product picker” lets advertisers pick and prioritize which of their products will be featured in the TrueView cards. Don’t fret if you don’t think you can handle all that power, the features are optional. |
| Twitter Kit now brings vines to apps through tweets after an update last week. Now Vines will automatically expand and loop in your Twitter feed. All you have to do to take advantage of this feature is update Twitter Kit to the latest version. |
| We’re all used to signing into different websites and apps with Facebook. Now we can sign in with Twitter. According to Twitter, it can “be used to let your customer opt into linking their Twitter account to your customer database during or in advance of a customer service interaction.” Once the customer has connected, they’re good to go for the longterm. Want to get it going for your business? Twitter’s blog offered 9 best practices for businesses. Check’em out. |
| Pokemon GO is slowly taking over the world. So far the game is free to play, but with some in-game purchase options. However, last week, Niantic CEO John Hanke said the game will receive sponsored locations. In-game, the locations are called Pokestops and in the future, businesses will be partnering with Niantic to have their location on the map as a Pokestop. The first rumored partnership is said to with McDonalds. It’s a great way to get players in to your business, and possibly the most effective way to interact with your customer. Side note, I just got to level 16 yesterday so, catch up. |
| And that does it for this episode of Social Marketing Cluster Facts.
Make sure to subscribe to our blog! I’m Al LeBlanc. We look forward to seeing you soon. |
Sources:
BuzzFeed’s newest political reporter is a bot, @BenMullin, Poynter
The Next Big Thing For LinkedIn, @JohnNemoPR, Business 2 Community
YouTube Enhances Shopping Experience With New Ads: This Week in Social Media, Social Media Examiner
Best practices: Using Sign in with Twitter to link customer accounts, Twitter Blog
Pokémon Go to join with business sponsors to get buyers in stores, @LegsFrank, Polygon
