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In digital marketing, we’re utterly brilliant at creating confusing titles and acronyms. Given the volume, you’d be forgiven for thinking industry had employed a Head of Wanky Titles. I only wish our Head honcho had created these abbreviations with the wit and humour of the late great Robin Williams in…

Of course, copywriters and designers need a creative flair. However, when it comes to social media, the art of social creativity is elevated. It becomes a marriage between art and science. With so much audience data from behaviours and interests, to real-time and ‘moments’, there’s an opportunity to create thumb…

I must confess that lately I find myself spending less and less time on Facebook and quite a bit more on Instagram. Maybe it’s because I prefer pictures over words but a lot of it is to do with Stories. Generally speaking, my Instagram feed is fairly staged.

Investing money in advertising can feel like a bit commitment, however deploying paid on social doesn’t need to be scary. As long as you have a plan in place before you start, social is a great way to test campaigns and creatives easily, with real-time feedback. Here’s how to…

Facebook Watch, the video-on-demand service, is launching globally after previously only being available in the US. The video destination proved to be somewhat of a success in the US. According to the head of video at Facebook, Fidji Simo, the time spent watching videos has increased by 14 times since…

Earlier this month, Facebook acknowledged the growing number of game developers who advertise and make money on the platform. The platform rolled out a couple new additions to its offering for game advertisers and, most notably, playable ads. It’s a genius solution for social media gamers to…

Time poor, but feeling creative? Fret no more. A couple of weeks ago Facebook announced its Creative Shop, a simple way for brands and marketers to easily convert static images into video. You may be lucky enough to have a wonderful design team who can whip up some amazing…

Add a Pixel to your Group Since GDPR, Facebook has stopped collecting or using data for behavioural targeting and removed thousands of targeting options. According to Marketing Land, Facebook removed a further 5,000 ad targeting filters to fight discrimination against religious and ethnic groups. So now, in this post-GDPR…

We all know that the trend of taking photos of your food and sharing them on Instagram is nothing new. However, now it seems we’re not only taking photos of our food to document what we ate, but to help others decide where to eat too. More so than ever,…

If you said LinkedIn Groups to me, I’d break out in a cold sweat thinking of all the spammy emails I used to get on a daily basis trying to persuade me I wanted to pop over to the platform to participate, so I was really interested to…

Mobile usage has increased over time, but did you know that 66% of the global population now has access to information online? That’s 5 billion and 16 million human beings! And the fact that the time spent on mobile devices continues to increase year on year makes it…

Earlier this year, Instagram launched IGTV, which lets users upload videos up to an hour in length. Until then, video content on Instagram was limited to 60-seconds in feed and 15 seconds for each Stories frame. It’s no secret that vertical video is quickly becoming…

Snapchat’s Q2 report was a bit of a surprise in the industry. It has lost 3 million users compared to the previous quarter. There are various reasons why we saw this coming and we’d put the controversial redesign down as the main reason. A whopping 1.2 million…

On this week’s Serious Social, Annabelle and Katy discuss the findings from our latest insights report – Devouring the GBBO Social Opportunity. Bake Off is responsible for a huge level of conversation, with almost 1M mentions on Twitter alone last year. You don’t have to be a baking…

Facebook recently announced a new requirement for managers of large pages to go through an authorisation process to ensure their accounts are legitimate. The process follows Facebook’s widely available two-factor authentication offering, meaning that it will be less likely that Page Manager accounts will be compromised or fake.

This week on Serious Social we discussed our philosophy of why you wouldn’t buy a one player football team…so why should your social media team be any different? Despite all the platforms and tools available, you still need a social media team in place to ensure you have the…

Video content is kind of a big deal when it comes to social media marketing, or any marketing come to think of it, but you probably already knew that, didn’t you? So how do you make the most of your killer video on social? Here are a few pointers to…

Mark Zuckerberg once said that Facebook’s main purpose is “bringing the world closer together.” When I moved away from home to go to uni, I eventually gave in and created a Facebook account for one reason – to keep in touch with friends I was no longer around anymore. It…

After Facebook introduced the WhatsApp Business app in September last year, it’s looking like it’s set to be their next moneymaker. In contrast to the standard app that revolves around conversation between family and friends, the Business app is designed for businesses to interact with their customers by providing real-time…

I want you to think about the last video you published. How many video views did it get? 10s, 100s, 1000s? Now imagine the positive impact on your brand if you could garner hundreds of thousands of views from your prime audience – and, specifically, boardroom decision-makers. There’s a myth…

Following Keith Weed’s statement at Cannes Lions, we’re talking about the must-dos and the should-dos when it comes to influencer marketing. Learn how to approach it as an on-going relationship, kindling the right brand-influencer match and building a mutually-beneficial partnership. Join us for a…

So, the latest news is that the Video Giant now caters for vertical video. More specifically, the desktop player automatically adjusts the video’s aspect ratio to suit a computer’s screen size. So, whether your video is 16:9, vertical, or 4:3, YouTube aren’t going to frame any videos…

Have you been part of Facebook’s Watch Party testing? If not, you’ll be excited to hear the functionality has finally launched to all Groups around the world. Watch Party allows Group members to watch a video (either recorded or Live) at the same time and interact with each…

Since 2017, brands and publishers have been getting far less traffic from referrals on social platforms and the sharing of content has been in decline. Not only has this increased the pressure on content marketers, but it has exposed the dire need for quality social content that ensures engagement, in…

The strenuous competition between Snapchat and Instagram/Facebook goes on. Last year we saw Snapchat’s fortune decrease following the launch of the IPO at the beginning of March. Source: Google The profit decline can be blamed on a mix of overpromising and underdelivering in terms of customer growth, but also…

Here’s the headline – for the first-time, subscriptions to streaming services like Netflix, NOW TV and Amazon Prime have outstripped traditional pay-TV subscriptions. Not my snappiest headline! Here’s why this is important. While the difference in the number of streaming subscriptions against pay-TV is small now, just…

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been giving you some tips and hints about planning and filming your very own content for social. Now, we know that one of the most daunting parts of starting out is the equipment and knowing where the blooming heck to start. You might…

Snapchat have been working on improving their visual identification offerings for a while now, with the view of expanding the list of features available for users. Late last year, Snapchat introduced object recognition in the form of filter and slogan suggestions that were relevant alongside different scenery/objects in your photo.

Twitter Ads offers a world of paid media opportunities. There’s so much to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start. But, it’s vitally important that you clarify this before you even think about touching the platform’s Ads proposition! Twitter recently offered a few tips to think…

Facebook is constantly developing new tools to complement the ‘time well-spent’ movement that Zuckerberg is supposedly focused on. Earlier last week, Instagram launched the ‘All Caught Up’ notification- this will appear in a user’s feed once they have seen all the new content posted by everyone they follow. Instagram’s current…

You’ve probably heard us bang on about social listening. And, that’s because we love it. But if you’re not 100% sure what it is, how it can be used or what it can achieve, then this blog’s for you. For starters, social listening is the monitoring of online conversations surrounding…

Fasten your seatbelt – there’s yet another Instagram Stories update coming your way – just as you were getting used to polls, emoji sliders and music stickers. Are you ready to ask open-ended questions to your followers and get the answers privately via DM? The new feature, currently in testing…

Mastering photography and video skills usually takes a lot of patience, practice and time. Filming something well is almost identical to taking a great photo – same principles apply. Get to know your camera, work out all the different settings and what they do. Invest in some basic filming…

IGTV is Instagram’s new dedicated solution for long-form vertical video solution. Don’t worry, it isn’t here to replace Stories! And it isn’t stepping on YouTube’s toes – not yet anyway… In this week’s Serious Social, we’re having a natter about which platforms are doing it right when it comes…

Having promised the world that they would improve the visibility for all ads running, Twitter has announced the launch of their Ads Transparency Center. This feature allows anyone to view more information about the ads that are being served to them, especially the political ads, such as those used for…

Well, it looks like developers at Instagram’s HQ have been super busy. Last week we spoke about the launch of Instagram Lite, today we’ll be looking at the new video chat feature that lets you have a 4-way conversation while still browsing through Instagram, the Explore section…

Last week Instagram announced that they’ve hit the 1 billion user mark and they launched IGTV. This week, they’ve released a stripped-down ‘Lite’ version of the app for Android users. Is there anything they aren’t doing at the moment to win more followers? Instagram Lite aims to target emerging markets…

As this World Cup gets underway, it’s worth reflecting on how changes in social media engagement are coinciding with the major shifts currently taking place in sports consumption. These converging trends are positioning social at the centre of sports entertainment, not just as a way of connecting with fans away…

Light. Camera. Action. And there you are in front of the camera, nervous as hell and trying to remember what you planned to say. Your throat works madly. You fluff your lines. Gah! Being in the limelight is not for everyone. Yet, when it comes to social video it…

Content creators on Facebook are in for a treat with a few new updates! The platform itself has released a detailed description of all the newbie tools and updates to current features. But don’t worry, we’re rounding things up and making it simpler. Connect Facebook wants fans…

Our very own Katy Howell has been out and about, chatting to all sorts of organisations from B2B to consumer. What about? Social media of course – their methods and their challenges. In this week’s Serious Social, we get chatty about where to start when it comes to structuring your social media – especially…

After years of turmoil in the broadcast media industry, we could be seeing a wave of change that will disrupt the social media landscape. After a growing buzz, Instagram finally launched IGTV less than a week ago. It’s still early I know, but it might already be time to think…

Every week it seems that Facebook releases an update to its ad platform, so when one of its competitors releases something truly interesting, I immediately sit up and take notice. via GIPHY This week at Cannes, YouTube announced a new set of tools, collectively…

We’re all aware of the potential video has for brands and marketers on social media. Audiences are consuming more and more short-form video content and there’s no doubt that it’s here to stay. However, the greater challenge is capturing the consumer’s attention for long enough so that they commit to…

Having made the strategic decision to show less news on Newsfeeds, earlier this year, we all witnessed Facebook decide to take steps that would ensure it became a space where meaningful conversations take place, between friends and family members. This move impacted publishers and over time referrals from Facebook fell…

We’re bringing you the latest on platform transformations. If you wanna show your audience that you’re on it and up-to-date with the latest tech changes, make the most of these opportunities on social! So what’s going on? Facebook ships out 3D posts to innovate and change how VR content…

For many businesses, producing and outputting video content can be costly in terms of time, money and skills. With the meteoric rise of video across Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, you’ve got to have the video know-how to remain relevant. Where do we come in? We’re here to debunk the myths…

Of course, the best social media results come from paid social. We allocate budget to really squeeze the pips out of our audiences and to reach them directly. Social media is what we do, so we get super excited about new formats and additions to platforms, especially when it comes…

Once upon a time, a captivating picture and a smart line was all you needed to advertise your business. Now, those times are long gone. We all know that Facebook, who still leads the way in social advertising, recently came up with a feature that requires ads to be moving…

This year, Pinterest’s growth has improved by leaps and bounds. So much so, that it’s ahead of Snap & Twitter. Should you hop over see if Pinterest advertising could be for you? In this week’s Serious Social, we’re chatting about Pinterest’s move towards eCommerce, targeting options and ad formats.

If you didn’t know already, we’re serious about social. We believe that at the heart of every good social media campaign or strategy is a good understanding of customer behaviours. For that understanding we use data and turn it into insights that inform our content and the way we communicate…

Instagram may launch long-form, professional videos: Heard the rumours? Instagram want an even bigger portion of Snapchat’s market share. They are even trying to compete with the video giant we all love: YouTube. Why not? A report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that Instagram could…

According to Pinterest, the platform has seen a 180% uplift in video views in the last year. That figure tallies with what the other social media giants are saying about video, which cements the idea that brands, and social offerings, have to be on the front foot…

The photo-sharing powerhouse is set to undergo another algorithm change in the near future, and this time the focus is on users only seeing content that is relevant to them. This comes as a result of Instagram wanting to understand its community better, both where users and brands are concerned.

When Facebook was founded 14 years ago, it was designed to bring communities together – initially based around Harvard, then other Boston colleges, and eventually opening up to other universities. Two years after launching within educational institutions, anyone was able to sign up to Facebook, and, whilst you…

Earlier this month, Facebook spoke of some very exciting planned updates for Instagram to be rolled out throughout 2018. Given the platform’s Stories feature now has 300M active daily users alone, viewing organic and brand-based content, it makes absolute sense for substantial investment. It really is the perfect…

Facebook is building a Branded Content Marketing search engine to allow brands to find the best influencer partnerships for their marketing, particularly where Facebook ad campaigns are concerned. Brands can search based on certain parameters like location, interests, gender and education. You can save selected creators in a private list…

Instagram want businesses on their platform, so new, useful features are the right way to go about it. A few additions have been made to Insta’s business profile offering. Action Buttons can be added to profiles, and the Direct Message feature has been cleaned up! Ahh, much better. It’s…

Conversations between a brand and a consumer are no longer a one-way street. Today’s consumers are empowered and connected like never before, and they’re producing content like it’s going out of style. It’s our job as marketers to produce lots of great content that will engage the consumer. This can…

Snapchat redesign V2.0 Snapchat recently revealed an all-new layout which quite frankly was unpopular amongst most of its users. Here is a list of some of the dreadful changes that were made: The addition of more navigation buttons The removal of Creators from the Stories list Messages and Stories from…

It looks like Facebook-owned Instagram has a new little trick up its sleeve! As reported by TechCrunch, a bit of snooping inside Instagram’s Android app has revealed a string of code that mentions “music stickers”. Although one can only speculate (Facebook refused to comment on the subject),…

Facebook’s F8 Developer conference has been full of announcements, and we’re excited about two in testing that’ll improve customers’ relationships with brands. First up, using AR for your brand yet? Thought not… Facebook’s still trying to change all that with the launch of…

In this week’s Serious Social, we’re bringing you a roundup of Twitter’s Q1 results, released on the 25th of April. It was a successful quarter for Twitter and results were better than expected. They were pleased with their revenue growth acceleration, profitability and audience growth, but what contributed to…

Let’s talk about the video giant, YouTube. YouTube viewership is increasing on TV. Its apps for smart TV and gaming consoles are growing and growing among viewers who prefer to watch on the big-screen, instead of the little screen in their pockets. In the past, YouTube saw…

This week Instagram have announced two new updates that will streamline the functionality of the platform, both for personal and business use. The first is a multiple photo upload feature, meaning you can add up to ten photos or videos to your Story at one time. You can edit each…

In this week’s Serious Social, we’re chatting about the new Facebook Premieres feature! It’s Facebook’s solution to keeping pre-recorded live videos within the platform, and will make it easier for publishers to post videos without the expensive external software! It’s a solution that will certainly encourage more video content,…

Facebook reveals an increased use of pre-roll ads and more… We’ve all heard of Watch – Facebook’s platform for shows. Having released this to a small US-based audience in August 2017, Facebook shared episodes — live and recorded — that followed a storyline or theme. With promising results, Facebook are…

Users love new, inspiring features on social media – that’s no secret! Remember earlier this year, when Snap debuted an in-app AR ecommerce experience for Nike’s Jordans? Well, it clearly wowed customers, because Snap has released a new feature that it’s calling “Shoppable AR”. What does it…

Just when you thought Facebook couldn’t better its video proposition, it’s done it again – the platform is using a select group of creators and broadcasters to test a new format called Premieres. To the average Facebook user, the videos will look a lot like Lives – viewers will be…

Facebook’s new Loyalty Prediction ad tool We’re all familiar with Facebook’s targeting. Together with detailed demographics, user preferences and past actions, we’re able to deliver relevant messages to refined audiences through the platform. A confidential document, examined by The Intercept suggests that Facebook may be working on…

Facebook Stories haven’t exactly taken off, particularly in comparison to Instagram, however the platform isn’t giving up, and have recently added two new features that could take Facebook Stories from mediocre to masterful. Facebook have access to AR driven digital object detection and spatial recognition tools, and they’re making use…

As marketers, we’re always looking for the best way to interact with our customers and to create meaningful and engaging interactions with them. We do this through email marketing, TV and print advertising, social media, and now some brands are doing it with virtual and augmented reality. As we’ve mentioned…

Following recent news that partner data will be removed from Facebook Ad targeting options on 25th May, the platform has also announced new GDPR compliance for Custom Audiences. Since 2012 we’ve had the ability to produce Custom Audiences for ads on…

YouTube have had some great updates recently, from their new YouTube Studio with improved metrics, to their new dashboard. It seems they’re currently pulling out all the stops. To add to the new Studio interface, this week they’ve announced the option to buy shorter, skippable ads through their new product,…

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Facebook. Understandably, many are disappointed by the delayed reaction and slow apology for the Cambridge Analytica data breach. With GDPR on the horizon, EU citizens have more rights than ever before with regards to who holds their data and why. Users from…

UK-based e-retailers! You’ll step up your social when you hear this… Instagram are giving UK online retailers the chance to publish shoppable posts. Shoppable Instagram posts have been on the horizon for a while. The feature was available to American businesses last year, so it was only…

It’s taken Instagram a long time to respond, but for the past year, users have been complaining about their feed and the way in which the app displays posts based on relevancy. Initially, Instagram used a chronological ranking system and users saw the latest posts when they opened the app.

With the jump in Twitter’s share prices earlier this year, it seems that the social giant is going from strength to strength. Considering the playground of pundits and the cerebrally astute, how do brands cut through the rants and opinions and make the most of this platform?…

Recent news from Twitter suggests there are plans in the pipeline that could see us all the proud owners of our very own blue ticks in the future. Twitter verification has been under scrutiny for a while now, with most users seeing it as a symbol of endorsement or credibility…

There are plenty of tactical ways to use social media for B2B marketing. The first question… which channels are you using? Well, we all know that B2B loves LinkedIn. But, how should you be using LinkedIn? There has been a huge focus on LinkedIn over the past year. The platform…

The latest news out of Google is that they’re opening up Maps so developers can create the next big mobile gaming phenomenon, in the mould of Pokémon Go. While initially this seems like great news solely for gaming, there’s no reason this shouldn’t get marketers excited too. The…

Remember June last year when YouTube announced a beta trial of YouTube studio, its new hub for Creators? It’s been a while, so you’d be forgiven for not remembering. The good news is, after 9 months of testing, the new hub will be rolled out to everyone…

Facebook ends Explore & tests new voice clip feature Facebook are constantly making design changes, adding new features and ranking updates with the aim of improving the experience for everyone. Whilst some take off and are received well by the public, others don’t, and it seems Explore has fallen into…

Instagram has developed into far more than a photo-sharing app and it’s showing no signs of stopping. It’s recently been reported that we could be seeing video and voice calling added to the expanding list of features. Secret codes have been found hidden in the app’s APK (android application package)…

With the launch of Facebook Spaces last year, Facebook aimed to democratise the world of social VR, and in October announced functionality that brought immersive 360 images (not just videos!) to the Facebook newsfeed. Until now however, posts have been limited to those created in Oculus Medium, and you have…

As frustrated as you may be about the changes in the app’s layout, Snapchat have announced that it is here to stay. Despite all the negativity, the redesign is claimed to have come from user feedback. For the business, the change is already giving the Discover section a push. The…

For the past year, CJ, MD at immediate future, had been commenting on Snapchat earnings calls on BBC News (broadcast), national and trade press: saying that Snapchat is on a path to failure. As losses continue to pile up, and a spotlight is placed on recent changes at the…

Brits, listen up! Snapchat has a new feature, which will allow UK users to create their very own personalised Lenses directly from the app for the first time. Always wanted to give it a go? Now you can! According to Snap, over 70 million people use the popular face and…

Nike’s Jordan brand teamed up with Snapchat to pre-release the Air Jordan III “Tinker” trainers after this week’s NBA All-Star game. After the game, people who attended the Jumpman All-Star after-party in LA were able to scan an exclusive Snap code and buy the trainers directly through Snapchat. Although Shopify…

It’s a question I’m regularly asked. I’m fortunate enough to be a BBC News room regular, commentating on Earning Calls for each Social Media channel. Irrespective of the prime brand being discussed, the topic of Facebook’s ability to sustain incremental profits always arises. Today, Facebook isn’t just the powerhouse of…

You heard it from the main man himself, so it should be no surprise when, less than a month later, there already seems to be a 6% decline in Facebook traffic to publishers. In the long run, this drop in referral traffic is intended to result in…

It hasn’t even been two years since Facebook proclaimed that by the beginning of the next decade the platform could be ‘all video’, but it already feels like this prediction is fast-becoming a reality. For some time now, YouTube has dominated the online video clip space. But…

Facebook have officially rolled out their Lists feature globally today. The feature is aligned to the status update box, along with the options such as Photo/Sticker, Polls and so on. With the recent shift to make Facebook a platform to help users connect to their loved ones, have more meaningful…

It’s no secret that Pinterest users curate boards to plan birthday parties, weddings, Christmas, Halloween and every other occasion. Choosing a holiday destination, buying seasonal clothes, party planning. This is exactly why consumer brands should be using Pinterest for seasonal advertising. Pinterest is a place for beautiful images and products.

Facebook’s latest report, released at the end of January, focuses on social usage and the impact this may have on the fashion shopping journey, and ultimately, what this might mean for marketers. The report, with feedback from 4,500 people, includes insight into why people open social media apps while shopping,…

It’s been common knowledge for some time that Facebook wants to be a video programming hub and original content provider to rival Netflix or Hulu, for the sole purpose of increasing video ad space. Following…

You can now customise your Bitmoji in over a hundred different ways. Snapchat say they have responded to user requests and welcome even more feedback. Amongst changes to the overall design of the App, Snap has also discreetly introduced a way to mute notifications with a new “Do not disturb”…

It may seem as though the initial moment passed without much fanfare in October 2015 when Twitter Moments rolled out. It was then released to influencers and creators in August 2016 then the wider public in Sep 16, but… didn’t really set the world alight. At its…

We know that Instagram doesn’t stop when we all leave the office at 5:30pm, and at the weekend, when we’re all making the most of our two days off, it’s especially alive. Whilst there have been unofficial solutions like Schedugram, which we’ve made the most…