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?
Twitter NFL, LinkedIn picks out the losers, and Facebook expands live video. Want more? Watch SMCF!
Transcript:
I’m Al LeBlanc from AIMCLEAR and this is Social Marketing Cluster Facts.
Facebook is expanding functionality to its wildly successful live video. New features include live video for groups and events, interactive features including live reactions, replay comments and some very Snapchat-esque live filters and lastly they’re adding more ways to discover live videos including inviting friends, live video maps and live video destinations.
Beyond new features, Re/Code is reporting that Facebook is paying big media companies like Buzzfeed and The New York Times to use live video. About the paid content, Fidji Simo of Facebook said “We’re working with a few partners, and in some of the cases that includes a financial incentive”. Sounds like the plot of a John Hughes movie where the rich nerd pays a cool kid so they can impress the popular girl. We’ll see how the plot unfolds while live video gets a Facelift.
Facebook fumbles and Twitter picks up a live streaming deal with the NFL. CNBC is reporting the reason is because differences between NFL and Facebook with the NFL claiming “Facebook undervalued content rights and has a poor monetization model”, while Facebook claims they didn’t get turned down and totally never asked the NFL to prom in the first place. Either way, Twitter walks away with a touchdown and will be live streaming 10 NFL games this year with exclusive behind the scenes content and national advertising.
LinkedIn is rolling out a tool that will tell you if you’re a loser — kind of. The new service will tell users how likely they are to get a job and improve your possibilities. LinkedIn was awarded the patent this week for the system that will score your strengths and weaknesses and give you feedback when you apply (and are rejected) for a position. There’s also a “predicted date of achievement” for how long it is likely to take to get the job offer.
Just like Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is opening up its self service ad platform the the UK and is heavily focused on building out its monetization priorities overseas. Pinterest serves a whopping 100 million users globally, so the next logical step would be international expansion. The UK’s user base has grown by nearly half in the past year, which if you ask me like totally mental.
Q1 numbers are in and Twitter reported “Data licensing and other” reached $70 million last quarter, up 48% over last year, and matched their advertising growth rate. Data was once 75% of Twitter’s revenue and now is number 5 on CEO Jack Dorsey’s list of priorities. Data licensing isn’t expected to pass by advertising but it’s an important part of the revenue that helps advertising succeed. “Wall Street has largely discounted its importance…” “But others believe the success of the data business is a good indicator for the health and value of Twitter’s ad ecosystem.” There is much more to this story, check it out on Fortune.com
Twitter announced, starting May 1 they will be offering parents… “gender-neutral” parental leave, guaranteeing any parent up to 20 weeks of fully paid time off.” The goal is to expand how parental leave is thought about and to have happier employees in light of today’s family structure having equal parenting responsibilities
Twitter dropped three updates to our conversion lift reports. 1) spend optimization using daily updated results, 2) cross-device insights access, 3) You can see reports directly within your Twitter Ads dashboard. Whoa dude. Number 3 is one totally gnarly update. I have to wonder, what does it mean? Which leads us into our last segment, the World Wild Web.
Our own Rachel Malone-Olson noticed some changes to the Twitter UI this week. “Until today, ad groups had only been available via the API… you will now be able to see ad group performance in your Twitter ads dashboard.” Hopefully, this is the first step in additional ad group functionality.
And that does it for Social Marketing Cluster Facts. Make sure to subscribe, follow, share, like and comment below. Check out the AIMCLEAR Blog for more of what we do. I’m Al LeBlanc. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Sources:
Exclusive: Twitter to Give All New Parents 20 Weeks of Paid Leave, @mlevram, Fortune
Optimizing campaigns with conversion lift reports, Twitter Blog
Introducing New Ways to Create, Share and Discover Live Video on Facebook, Facebook Newsroom
It’s Not Just Celebrities — Facebook Is Paying Media Companies to Make Live Video, Too, @KurtWagner8, Recode
Why the NFL went to Twitter instead of Facebook, @mishcastillo, CNBC
LinkedIn thinks it can tell you how likely you are to get a job, @bizcarson, Business Insider
UK users can now buy Pinterest ads, @tamar, MarketingLand
