Tag Archive for: Social Media Marketing

Instagram Introduces New ‘Sends Per Reach’ Ranking Signal

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Instagram has significantly shifted how it ranks content across the platform. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri recently revealed that the platform has created a new ranking signal that measures the sends per reach content receives.

Sends per reach measures the number of times people share posts with friends through direct messages compared to the total number of viewers that content sees. The more people who share, the more likely the content is to be shown to other users. 

With this in mind, Mosseri encourages profiles to create content that people want to share with friends and family to improve their overall reach.

Here’s Mosseri’s full statement from a recent Instagram reel:

“Some advice: One of the most important signals we use in ranking is sends per reach. So out of all the people who saw your video or photo, how many of them sent it to a friend in a DM? At Instagram we’re trying to be a place where people can be creative, but in a way that brings people together.

We want to not only be a place where you passively consume content, but where you discover things you want to tell your friends about.

A reel that made you laugh so hard you want to send it to your brother or sister. Or a soccer highlight that blew your mind and you want to send it to another fan. That kind of thing.

So, don’t force it as a creator. But if you can, think about making content that people would want to send to a friend, or to someone they care about.”

Overall, this shouldn’t be a major shakeup for content creators. The path to the largest reach on social media has always been through creating and post shareable content that draws engagement. 

That said, this is something to keep in mind – especially if your Instagram reach has been declining lately. 

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TikTok Tests Allowing Users to Share Hour-Long Videos

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Despite facing a ban in the United States in the coming months, TikTok continues to expand its features and content options, including longer and longer videos. 

After already extending video lengths to up to 30 minutes earlier this year, TikTok is now testing allowing users to upload and share hour-long videos without forcing creators to split long-form content into multiple parts.

More Than Short Clips

TikTok made its name by starting out with bite-size videos that were just 15 seconds long. As time has passed, the platform has consistently increased these limits to allow for more types of content. 

With the content on the platform gradually becoming more varied, the number of creators having to work around the length limitations has grown. This move gives creators more flexibility to provide long-form content such as cooking demos, beauty tutorials, and educational lessons without breaking up the flow of their content. 

What This Means For Brands

Along with allowing for more flexibility when uploading branded content, this move will potentially allow for more advertising options such as pre-roll and mid-roll ads. 

At the moment, however, TikTok remains quiet on what type of ad formats it may allow with these long-form videos. 

Still Just a Test

Hour-long videos are currently just being tested and are only accessible to a limited number of users. Currently, the company has “no plans” for a wider rollout. Given the reception of previous tests to increase video lengths, however, this is one test we expect to see become available to the general public before too long.

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New Social Media Survey Gives Insights To Reach Your Audience

A new nationwide survey conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that YouTube and Facebook may still be the most widely used social media platforms by adults, but TikTok is continuing to grow significantly.

Based on the survey results, YouTube and Facebook remain the most widely used social media platforms across the US. More than three-fourths of American adults (87%) reported using YouTube, with 68% saying they used Facebook.

Most other platforms have retained approximately the same level of usage from past surveys, with the largest (Instagram) seeing use from around 50% of adults.

TikTok, however, saw a jump from 21% of US adults using it in 2021 to 33% of adults in the latest survey.

Age Continues to Influence Social Media Use

Just as in past surveys, Pew found notable differences in social media use depending on age.
For example, adults under the age of 30 were significantly more likely to say they used Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok compared to older adults.

YouTube and Facebook, however, were more likely to be used by adults of all ages – leading to their overall dominance. At the same time, Pew noted that both platforms were still more likely to be used by younger adults than older respondents.

Demographics Also Influenced Social Media Usage

  • Along with age, the Pew survey identified notable differences in the demographics that used each platform:
  • Instagram: More usage among Hispanic and Asian adults, women, and people with some college education.
  • TikTok: Increased usage rates among Hispanic adults and women.
  • LinkedIn: Most widely used among Americans with higher educational attainment.
  • Twitter (now “X”): More likely to be used by those with higher household incomes.
  • Pinterest: Still most popular among women.
  • WhatsApp: Receives more usage by Hispanic and Asian adults.

Why It Matters

As a business, you must know where to reach your audience where they are already spending time. When scrolling social media, adults tend to be more likely to engage with branded content, connect with unfamiliar brands, and discover products that they will later purchase. By making sure you’re there when your ideal audience logs on, you can give yourself the best chance to turn strangers into followers and followers into customers.

For more insights you can use to target your audience on social media, check out the full Pew report here.

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TikTok Continues to Become a Search Engine Alternative

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New research from Adobe indicates that more and more people are turning to TikTok to find information, music, recipes, and other things we used to rely on traditional search engines for. 

Analysts have increasingly been noticing that a growing number of people have been using TikTok as not just a social network but as an alternative to search engines like Google and Bing. 

This latest study, which surveyed over 800 consumers and 250 business owners, emphasizes that this trend is accelerating and that brands that are taking advantage of this shift are increasingly being rewarded.

Younger Audiences Are Drawn To TikTok as a Search Engine

Overall, the research shows that 40% of consumers regularly use TikTok to search for topics and information. Unsurprisingly, this trend skews heavily toward younger users.

Gen Z in particular has been driving this trend, with 64% using TikTok for search. 

Millennials have also been adopting this behavior, with almost half (49%) of millennial consumers using TikTok as a search engine. 

Interestingly, TikTok searchers aren’t looking for any particular type of information. Instead, they are looking up a variety of topics including cooking recipes, music, fashion, and DIY ideas. 

While TikTok users are increasingly seeing the platform as a way to find information, they aren’t quite giving up Google yet. Only 10% of Gen Z users said they preferred TikTok over traditional search engines. 

How Businesses Are Responding

As more businesses take note of the popularity of TikTok and its viability as a search engine, more are investing their time and marketing budget to promote their brands. 

The survey found that approximately half of businesses are using TikTok to promote their products and services, averaging 9 posts per month. 

As part of their marketing efforts, many of these brands (approximately 25% of small businesses surveyed) are partnering up with influencers to better reach their audience on the platform. 

When it comes to what type of content these brands are creating, the obvious lead was creative tangential content (43%), followed by product reviews (36%), and instructional videos (35%).

Why This Matters To Your Business

TikTok has proven it is here to stay, consistently increasing its already large user base and diversifying its options for brands to market and advertise on the platform. It is no surprise that users are finding surprising ways to use the platform as it has evolved and these shifts introduce opportunities for brands that are quick to take advantage of them. 

If your brand’s audience tends to be Millenials or Gen Z, we strongly recommend investing in establishing your presence on the site and optimizing your content for its search engine. If you act now, there’s a chance you’ll reach a large number of people before your competitors have a chance. 

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Threads Gets Its Own Version of Hashtags

Meta’s Twitter replacement, Threads, has added a new way to sort and explore content called “topic tags”. 

Similar to hashtags, these topic tags improve search functionality and make it easier to find new voices and brands to follow on Threads. 

This can help brands connect with their audience and keep in touch with the latest content trends on the platform.

What’s The Difference Between Threads Topic Tags and Hashtags?

At first glance, topic tags might seem like a superficial twist on hashtags but there are some key differences that may make topic tags more intuitive and natural to use. 

These differences include:

  • Topic tags do not require the use of a # symbol when adding tags
  • Topic tags support the use of spaces in phrases
  • Topic tags can include special characters
  • Only one topic tag can be added to each post

In a message posted to Threads, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said topic tags are “a great way to connect with people who are interested in the topics that you are talking about.”

“For everyone, it’s a great way to dive deeper into your interests. This is just one step on a much longer path to building a space that really fosters healthy conversation.”

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LinkedIn Is Making Collaborative Articles More Visible And Engaging

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LinkedIn is making Collaborative Articles more visible across its platform, including within search, feeds, and notifications. 

In an announcement today, the company said it plans to show more Collaborative Articles when users are looking for information about specific problems or topics. 

In addition to making Collaborative Articles more visible in these spaces, LinkedIn says it will also start showing your contributions to people outside your network and might even notify members “who would benefit” from your knowledge when you make a contribution. 

Other New Changes Coming To Collaborative Articles

LinkedIn announced several other big new changes coming to Collaborative Articles”

  • New “Top Contributors” section: If members found you to be one of the most noteworthy contributors in an article, you will now be featured at the top of the article.
  • Better browsing for readers: A better browsing experience for readers leads to more people seeing your contributions. The new design allows members to easily explore multiple contributions, and new cross-article hyperlinking allows members to easily jump from one article to the next. 
  • Better articles: LinkedIn says it is working closely with our editorial team to continuously improve the quality of the AI-powered article text and titles — you’ll start to see a lot more depth in the articles recommended to you.
  • Improved Top Community Voice badging: If you’re one of the most noteworthy contributors in a skill, your badge for that skill now shows up not only on your profile but also next to your contributions in the article. Badges will only remain active for members who continue to meet our selective criteria and provide noteworthy contributions within a specific skill.

For more, read the full announcement from LinkedIn here.

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X Is Likely Going To Start Charging All Users For Access

X (formerly Twitter) is likely to do away with free accounts in the near future and shift to a strictly paid business model according to a recent statement from owner Elon Musk. 

Rumors had been swirling that Musk is considering moving away from free accounts, and the controversial business leader confirmed as much in a live-streamed interview with (similarly controversial) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week. 

In the discussion, Musk mentioned that he X is “moving to a small monthly payment” as a solution to problems on the platform. 

Specifically, Musk said this approach is “the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots. Because a bot casts a fraction of a penny – call it a tenth of a penny – but even if it has to pay … a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high.” 

How this paid model would prevent issues that have been seen on other platforms with a small entry fee is unclear. 

At the same time, it is hard to believe Musk isn’t also considering introducing a mandatory fee for users as a solution to continuously dwindling ad revenue. 

Since taking over Twitter, ad revenue has fallen throughout Musk’s ownership, largely due to reductions in moderation and increases in objectionable content including hate speech. The platform has had several high-profile incidents of advertisers being unwittingly shown alongside nazi imagery, slurs, and calls to violence.

Meanwhile, Musk argues these incidents are rare exceptions and blames organizations such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate saying they are “actively working to prevent free expression.”

Despite the series of controversies and questionable decisions, Musk touted several milestone achievements throughout the livestream, including saying that X has 550 million monthly users who post between 100 to 200 million times a day. 

For businesses continuing to include X as a part of their social media strategy, it is important to monitor these continued changes and assess whether the platform is worth paying for access.

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X is Sending Less Referral Traffic Compared To a Year Ago

The bad news just keeps coming for Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter. A new report from Automattic indicates that the social network is sending less traffic for publishers compared to a year ago.

Twitter built much of its popularity on being a reliable way for publishers to drive interest and traffic to content because it allowed users to easily share and discuss the latest news and media.

As the site becomes more controversial and its user base dwindles, however, it appears to be sending less traffic to these types of links.

What The Report Says

From the first half of 2022 to the first half of 2023, traffic from X fell by an average of 24% based on a random sampling of 25 large and small publishers. The impact varied depending on the publisher, with some larger publishers taking particularly large hits to their traffic. 

Among the publishers that saw the biggest drops in referral traffic from X were Buzzfeed (-70%), Reuters (-67%), The Washington Post (-42%), CNN (-39%) and Fox News (-39%).

Not a New Trend

It would be easy to put all the blame on Elon Musk’s recent ownership of the social network. Along with the rebrand to X, Musk has made sweeping changes to how the platform functions including reducing moderation, introducing paid verification services, and unbanning prominent controversial figures. 

However, this is just the latest plunge in a years-long pattern of dwindling referral traffic. 

Twitter has been gradually delivering less traffic to publishers since 2018, though the pattern appears to have accelerated in the last year. 

Of course, this trend hasn’t hit all publishers. Some have even reported seeing more referral traffic this year than in the past. Still, it would be wise for publishers to keep an eye on their referral traffic and potentially make plans for finding new ways to drive traffic if the pattern continues.

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Google Business Profiles Now Let Brands Include Links To Social Profiles

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Google is finally allowing brands to naturally add social media links within their Google Business Profiles. 

The move comes following years of frustration from website owners, as other search engines like Bing have allowed similar links and more advanced social media integration for years. 

Now, any business with a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business profiles) can highlight their social channels easily within Google Search and Maps. 

This is especially important for businesses that use social channels to handle customer support, as well as making it easier for brands to connect with new potential customers on the platforms they are most active on. 

How It Works

Google quietly revealed the new feature in a support page that details exactly how to add links to your Google Business Profile and what limitations there are. 

To add social media links to your Google Business Profile, first log in and access your profile. From there, look for the option to ‘edit profile’ and select ‘business information’ followed by ‘contact’.

Here you will find a new section labeled ‘Social profiles’ where you can easily add one link per profile, including those on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube. 

In some cases, Google may automatically add links to social profiles on Google Business Profiles. If these are inaccurate or you would prefer to use different links, you can edit or remove links in the same area. 

While the feature is already available to many, Google says it is rolling out gradually to select regions.

For more, visit the support page for this new feature here.

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Instagram Threads Introduces First Paid Promotion Tools

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Threads may be the hottest new social network, but its fast development and release means there is little in the way of actual marketing tools for brands. In fact, the platform doesn’t currently serve ads of any kind.

However, the company announced it is launching tools to let marketers develop their own paid promotion opportunities until more robust advertising options arrive. 

Threads’ Paid Promotion Tools

In essence, Threads’ is borrowing Instagram’s already existing paid promotion tools for influencer campaigns and collaborations. These tools let brands and influencers properly tag content that may include paid promotions or professional collaborations to maintain transparency with users. 

Specifically, Threads requires that:

Brands use the branded content tools when working with influencers on sponsored content

Only brands have access to paid partnership labels to posts

Brands clearly disclose paid partnership collaborations

100 Million Users But No Ad Tools?

So far, Threads and its parent company, Meta, have been quiet about the development of advertising tools or services for the platform. With the announcement that Threads has already gained over 100 million users since its recent launch, though, it seems highly likely that proper ad tools are on their way. 

The current lack of these tools highlights how quickly Threads was developed in the face of Twitter’s ongoing collapse. Despite the limited features and tools for brands, however, the platform appears to be an immediate hit with users who have long been vocally unhappy with Twitter’s direction and leadership.

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