If you’ve checked your news feeds lately, you may have noticed that there’s a whirlwind of social media updates happening across all platforms. It’s tough for even a seasoned social media expert to keep track of it all and digest the changes. So, to help you find the most valuable, easily digested information to incorporate into your strategy, I’ve compiled a short list to help. Here’s the social skinny for 2015 thus far:
Facebook Releases ‘Call to Action’ buttons for Business Pages:
Announced back in December, most of the pages I manage were updated with the call-to-action Facebook buttons just a few weeks ago. Your page likely received the same update, allowing you to choose from one of seven “call-to-action” options: “Sign Up,” “Shop Now,” “Contact Us,” “Book Now,” “Use App,” “Watch Video,” and “Play Game” on your business page. You can only choose one to display at a time. This new option sits beside the ‘Like’ button on your Facebook page, making it an important element in allowing fans to quickly access your e-store, a landing page on your site, a featured video you’re wanting to drive traffic to, or a phone app that allows for a quick click-through to something like an event schedule or game.
The button you choose will obviously depend on what you would like to drive your fans to do. Be sure your content encourages use of the call-to-action. Could fans perhaps quickly access your event calendar? Let them know in the content that they have the option to click the button on your timeline to take them there. To keep tabs on the click-thru-rate for your button, check the column on the right-hand side of your timeline that lists a brief overview of your weekly analytics.
Facebook’s New Video Features:
You can now choose a featured video to display at the top of your video tab. This update also included a more visually appealing display of your entire Facebook video library along with the option to create a video playlist. The videos included here are only the ones that you have uploaded directly into Facebook, which many are saying is a direct way to throw thumbs up against Youtube (get it—thumbs up. Eh eh). Now is the time to cross-reference your Youtube playlist and begin directly uploading any videos that you wish to have featured on your Facebook video tab.
Pinterest Targets Men:
Back in November of 2014, TechCrunch shared Pinterest’s reports of a significant rise in their male demographic. Apparently, “more men are using Pinterest in the U.S. than read Sports Illustrated and GQ combined,” according to the Pinterest crew. With these new stats that suggest more and more men are looking to Pinterest to organize their wardrobes, tattoo designs, and hairstyles for the summer (or cute cats and hot rods—whatever that particular man may be into), Pinterest announced new features to help their new users navigate the sea of pins. Now, when searching for, ohhh, “camping ideas,” Pinterest returns a top navigation allowing you to choose whether you’re looking for camping ideas for women, teens, men, family, etc.
From what I have noticed in playing with this updated search feature—man pins (yes, I guess that’s a thing now) show useful information on survival skills and tactics for actually roughing it while women and girls both display summer camp ideas and survival kits (UGH—big thumbs down on gender stereotyping). The good news? There are now easy-to-use options to find exactly what you’re looking for, man, woman, child, or the whole fam. I like easy-to-use organizational options in my online perusing, don’t you?
Twitter launches Quick Promote
An advertising option to quickly throw a little advertising budget into a tweet. You can access it from your Twitter analytics dashboard. It’s essentially the same concept as Facebook boosting but with fewer options for audience targeting.
I’m sure by the time this post publishes there will be yet another update and added feature to one of the world’s growing list of beloved social platforms. I’ll keep you updated with resources and information to help navigate the ever-changing social seas moving forward.