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?
Snapchat explores the world of augmented reality, LinkedIn expands its blog format and Instagram rolls out filter to combat online harassment. There’s more! Watch SMCF!
Transcript:
Since Twitter dropped the 140 character limit in direct messaging, they have seen usage increase and now they implemented some updates to make your DMs more familiar. In short: Read receipts are now available even for group messages. If you don’t want people to know when you are reading a message, you can pop into your settings and shut the feature off. Also, when someone is responding, you’ll see the 3-dot typing indicator and when sharing links, Twitter will now provide a link preview.
Writers on LinkedIn now have a little more space and tech capabilities to work with. The new LinkedIn Publishing platform has expanded room and allows for the use of multimedia content and includes new options for text formatting and font.
LinkedIn also just rolled out a program for veterans seeking employment. The new service helps veterans build a professional identity on the platform and comes with free 1-year Premium Job Seeker & Lynda subscriptions. To check it out head over to veterans.linkedin.com
We’ve been seeing a lot of evidence that Snapchat has been working on its own augmented-reality glasses, and now they’ve become a member of The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, adding fuel to those rumors. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group oversees the development of Bluetooth standards and the licensing of the Bluetooth technologies and trademarks to manufacturers. Snapchat is staying quiet on the issue, but we’ll keep an eye on this story as it develops.
Rumor Patrol. We’re seeing several stories claiming Snapchat is in talks with investment bankers and could potentially go public near the end of 2016 or early 2017. While there’s no concrete plans or new hires that suggest a firm timeline, CEO Evan Spiegel hasn’t been shy about his desire to go public. Having said, “We need to IPO. We have a plan to do that.”
First Instagram copied Snapchat stories and now the Facebook owned WhatsApp unrolled an image-sharing interface that looks nearly identical to Snapchat. It includes the ability to draw on, add text, stickers and emojis to photo messages. Is it just me or has Facebook been more focused on imitation rather than innovation lately?
Instagram rolled out a new feature that it didn’t even steal from Snapchat! Now users can filter custom and default keywords in the comments to combat online harassment.
Lastly and definitely leastly, Google+ got a makeover, which includes the ability to add links and photos to your comments AND a new notification center with the ability to send push notifications in Chrome. But so far the major buzz has been around:
– How buggy the system has been
– Notifications actually coming through in Chrome
– Its outage on Thursday AAAAAAAAAAAND
– Who actually gives a fact?
And that does it for this episode of Social Marketing Cluster Facts.
Check back next week, and subscribe to our blog for more social scoops and inside snoops.
Sources:
Twitter now acts more like a messaging app with read receipts, typing indicators & web link previews, @sarahintampa, Tech Crunch
LinkedIn unveils its new blogging platform, @eileenb, ZDNet
LinkedIn makes job searching for veterans easier than ever, @actbrilliant, New York Post
SNAPCHAT COULD BE WORKING ON ITS OWN AUGMENTED-REALITY GLASSES, @mekosoff, Vanity Fair
Snapchat Discussing IPO Filing with Bankers, The Information
WhatsApp straight up copies Snapchat’s drawings and stickers, @napilopez, The Next Web
Instagram Rolls Out Custom And Default Keyword Filtering To Combat Harassment, @Kantrowitz, BuzzFeed
Google+ suffers brief outage, FOX News
