Earlier this year Google and Twitter announced a deal which promise to bring more tweets to your search results, and that promise is coming true today. Google now includes tweets in a more cohesive and graphical format on mobile devices, including a tweet carousel.
Both Twitter and Google announced the news in blog posts today, including examples of how the feature appears, such as the example below which shows how it looks if you search on #madmen.
You can also scroll through the carousel to see more results.
The placement of the feature isn’t always directly at the top of the page. According to Search Engine Land, the tweet carousel can appear in the middle or even the bottom of the page, as their example for “MacBook Pro” shows:
Tweets don’t show for every search, and it is currently unclear exactly what types of searches include tweet carousels and which don’t. However, Google does say:
It’s a great way to get real-time info when something is happening. And it’s another way for organizations and people on Twitter to reach a global audience at the most relevant moments.
That suggests searches for hastags, topics, prominent figures, or trending events are most likely to include tweets.
Google has included Twitter in its search results in the past, even after their last deal ended. The new agreement simply allows for much deeper integration in the search results.
Currently, the new implementation on the search results is limited to only users in the US, in English, using either their browser in iOS or Android, or on the Google Search App. Twitter has promised further support for desktop and more languages in the near future.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-05-19 14:41:252015-05-19 14:41:25Google-Twitter Deal Brings Tweets To Search Results In a Big Way
Facebook’s video platform is quickly rising as one of the most popular online video services available due to statistics showing marvelously high video view counts, but experts argue Facebook’s numbers may be misleading. While Facebook claims massive view counts, it is entirely possible YouTube may have a larger lead than it appears at first glance.
What even is a video view?
A video view is the count of how many people watch a video. It can’t be all that complicated, right? Wrong. Online, there is a surprising amount of contention over what exactly constitutes a video view.
For Facebook, a video view is counted every time any video plays for only 3 seconds. On the other hand, YouTube does not consider a video to be “viewed” until it has played for at least 30 seconds.
These contrasting metrics raise numerous questions about the accuracy of view statistics and the efficiency of online videos. Making issues more complicated is autoplay. On YouTube, you have to at least click one video before you are shown an endless feed of autoplaying videos, but you can view a video on Facebook by simply not paying attention when you are scrolling.
View statistics have long been an important metric for display ads, but these factors suggest the advertising industry may need to agree upon a set viewing metric, or turn to other types of data entirely, to accurately gauge the impact of video ads.
Are a few seconds enough?
Think about the last commercial you saw. How long did it take before you knew what the commercial was for? One of the biggest benefits of video advertising is the ability to tell a story with your ad, but this also means it is often not immediately clear what the product being advertised is.
Problematically, both The Media Rating Council and IAB side closer with Facebook’s metric. These organizations define a video ad as viewable “when at least 50 percent of the ad’s pixels are visible on a screen for at least two consecutive seconds.”
Now consider the average length of the Top 10 Best Video Ads of 2014 compiled by AdWeek is 2 minutes and 17 seconds.
It’s time for a new video view standard that reflects the actual impact videos are having. Facebook’s numbers sound amazing on paper, especially in light of how new this incarnation of the video platform is. But, they are less impressive when you consider many of those “views” can occur just because you got distracted with Facebook open.
Videos can be an immensely powerful online advertising tool, but don’t be fooled by misleading numbers. Use analytics to make sure views are turning into clicks and conversions, or consider using a video platform with slightly more strict view counts.
YouTube: The Google-owned video network counts a view after a user has watched a video for “around” 30 seconds.
Facebook: Facebook videos automatically play without audio on users’ News Feeds. Views, which are displayed publicly, are triggered when someone watches for at least 3 seconds.
Instagram: Facebook’s photo and video sharing network doesn’t display video view counts publicly, but the company uses the same 3-second standard to count them. Instagram video also loops automatically while a video post remains on users’ screens, so instead of total video views, the stat Instagram sends to advertisers is views by “unique users.”
Twitter: Unlike Facebook and YouTube, Twitter doesn’t currently serve autoplay video (although it is testing the feature for some iOS users), so a view is counted when a user clicks on a video within a tweet. Video view counts are not publicly displayed. Advertisers can view stats within the Twitter ad platform, or for organic tweets from within the analytics dashboard.
Vine: The Twitter-owned video network autoplays looping video with a maximum length of 6 seconds. Views on the Vine network are called loops, which are publicly displayed and triggered after a user watches the entire video. Vine doesn’t sell ads.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-05-13 15:14:582015-05-13 15:14:58Facebook and YouTube Can’t Agree On What a Video View Is
Facebook has been slowly but steadily making strides into the domain of local search, and their latest app in testing called “Hello” makes this clearer than ever.
Hello claims to allow mobile users to search for other people or businesses on Facebook using either specific names or business categories, making Hello Facebook’s answer to the phone book. Once you’ve found the person or business you’re searching for, it just takes a single tap to get directions or make a phone call.
“So if a friend tells you about a new restaurant in your neighborhood, you can use Hello to find their hours, make a reservation, and get directions, all without leaving the app,” explains Facebook in a blog post.
Facebook also says the app will use Facebook profiles information to display relevant info about callers onscreen with incoming calls, including a profile picture, name, and number of contacts in common.
The app will also include a privacy feature which allows users to block commonly blocked numbers or specific numbers. Blocked calls will be automatically directed to voicemail, but still appear in the call log.
The test version of the app is available for Android users in the Play Store.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-04-27 11:43:082015-04-27 11:43:08Facebook’s “Hello” App Turns Facebook Into a Phone Book
If it seems like your Facebook feed is becoming flooded with videos, it is no coincidence. Since Facebook video launched, it has rapidly become a staple of the staple of the social network and it shows no sign of slowing down in the future.
The service hit a new milestone recently, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook now serves more than 4 billion video views every day, adding a full billion views to the stats announced in January.
It is no surprise that Facebook video is such a hit, as the platform offers the perfect opportunity for users to view and share video without having to leave the network. With the latest numbers many are suggesting Facebook video may pose a real threat to YouTube in the near future.
YouTube reported reaching 4 billion daily views the last time it reported those statistics in January 2012, but they have likely added a fair number of views since then. However, actually comparing the views across either service is complicated because the two services count views differently. Facebook counts any playing three seconds on its autoplay videos as a view, while YouTube has a higher duration requirement to be included in its count.
During the company’s first quarter earnings call, COO Sheryl Sandberg also pointed out that a vast majority of Facebook’s video views come from mobile, and the ubiquity of videos on the service has primed users for video ads. “We’ve always believed that the format of our ads should follow the format of what consumers are doing on Facebook,” she said.
Sandberg also said brands are already taking advantage of Facebook video.
“Brand marketers particularly but I think all marketers have the opportunity to do video,” she said. “And that’s pretty exciting, even SMBs who never would be able to hire a film crew and buy a TV ad. Over 1 million SMBs have posted videos and done really small ad buys around them. And that’s pretty cool because I don’t think there are 1 million advertisers who have bought TV ads in that same period of time.”
Do you ever wish your company could just take over the web for one day? Well Tumblr will help you do the next best thing with its new ad product Sponsored Day. It doesn’t let you rule over the entire internet, but it does allow you to “take over” Tumblr in a way, by showing small, non-obtrusive ads to all users around the entire world, or within a single country.
According to AdWeek, the new ads will include a company icon accompanied by text and a dollar sign to signify the placement was paid for. The ads go live at midnight ET and run for the entire day. Perhaps best of all, the ad service is open to everyone, not those with a Tumblr page.
“It’s the single biggest and boldest way for marketers to make a statement on our platform,” David Hayes, head of creative strategy at Tumblr, told Adweek.
Nike is setting the trend with the ad type by running a global buy campaign for their “Better for it” Tumblr campaign. The campaign pushes to sell the company’s line of women’s workout gear with a cohesive, integrated media push.
If desktop users click the Sponsored Day ad, they are led to a short video for the sneaker company. Mobile users will instead be shown a static image.
Tumblr claims the Sponsored Day ads can have a worldwide reach of 460 million consumers, and several companies are already lining up to follow Nike’s lead.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-04-16 12:46:392015-04-16 12:46:39Tumblr Lets Advertisers Make a Day of It With “Sponsored Days”
Facebook unveiled several big upgrades to its current platform of products and services this week during its annual developer conference in San Francisco. The biggest announcement has been rumored for some weeks, but the social media giant also had a few other interesting changes hidden up its sleeve that will allow the platform to be more fully integrated with the rest of the internet.
Messenger is a Platform Now
Of course the big news from the conference is Facebook’s decision to officially launch Messenger as its own platform, which will allow developers to more freely integrate features from Messenger into other apps.
For example, Facebook demonstrated how users may be able to order from an online retailer, then change the order or shopping details later using the Messenger app. You can find out more details in the official announcement.
360-Degree Videos are coming
It was announced that spherical, 360-degree videos will be coming to Facebook at some point in the near future. These spherical videos will also be brought to the Oculus VR platform.
Embeddable Facebook Videos
Facebook is quite proud of the success of its video service and it is making it easier than ever to share videos you like from the site. Soon, videos uploaded to Facebook will be embeddable across the web. This provides clearer incentives for content creators to consider uploading videos directly to the social media site rather than through competitive platforms such as YouTube.
Is Facebook still the king of social media? In terms of sheer traffic Facebook may still have a sizable lead, but businesses are finding it may not be the best platform for their marketing. In fact, a report by L2 and Olapic shows brands are starting to invest more effort elsewhere.
Brands are now posting more content to Instagram than they are on Facebook, most likely due to the continuously declining organic reach for brands on the big F.
The signs of Facebook’s downfall as the primary place for social media marketing have been around for quite some time. As organic reach started to fall, brands began migrating to other social networks and cutting back on their organic efforts on the site in favor of paid advertising.
Facebook’s paid advertising platform allows brands to get even more reach than they had developed organically, but at the sake of organic reach. In comparison, Instagram is (for now) almost entirely based on organic content.
Instagram may not stay the most popular platform for branded content for long, either. The Facebook-owned social image sharing platform has already implemented some advertising options and have publicly announced plans to expand paid advertising on the site. Nonetheless, most brand activity on the site is currently organic.
The L2 report found the 250 participating brands posted an average of 9.3 times per week on Instagram compared to 8.8 times on Facebook in Q4 of last year. Compared to the same time period in 2013, Facebook was down from 11.1 a week, while Instagram boosted itself by nearly two full posts a week.
Other notable findings from the report included:
The auto industry, led by luxury brands like BMX, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Porsche, outperformed all categories (Beauty, Consumers Electronics, Travel, Watches & Jewelry, Fashion, Sportswear, Retail, Drinks) with a 1.52% per post engagement rate on Instagram. Drinks — Stella Artois, Jack Daniels, Belvedere, Pabst Blue Ribbon — was second at 1.32%.
Of the top 200 highest performing posts, 65% prominently featured a product, 43% included general lifestyle photography and 29% included a brand ambassador or other influencer.
Hyperlapse has lapsed with only 75 — or only 2.4% of brand videos posted since August — brand posts using the time-lapse video app. Brand Hyperlapse activity has fallen off steeply since September and the engagement rate on the videos is 0.69 percent, slightly less than conventional Instagram videos.
Photo posts drive higher engagement that video, 1.03% to 0.79%. Videos attract more comments, but photos draw significantly more likes.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-03-13 12:16:122015-03-13 12:16:12Brands are Now Posting on Instagram More Than Facebook
The best marketing is always informed by data. The more data you have the more you can pinpoint who you should be reaching out to and what they are interested in, and Facebook is making it easier than ever to find out who you audience really is.
Tuesday, Facebook announced it would be granting Page owners access to “topic data” which tells marketers and business owners what audiences are saying on Facebook about all sorts of topics including events, brands, and activities.
Obviously there are some privacy concerns with this type of data, but Facebook says all personal information is being withheld.
With topic data, fashion retailers can see what types and styles of clothing their customers are talking about, and businesses can gauge the public opinion on their brand.
This isn’t the first time marketers and business owners had access to this type of information, but previously they had to use third-party tools to get this level of insight. Facebook also claims that these tools frequently used sample sizes that were too small to be effective and argue it was “nearly impossible” these tools were accurate.
Advertisers should know there is no way to directly use this data to target ads, but it absolutely can be used to craft more effective ads and target them more accurately for your market.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-03-12 12:37:072015-03-12 12:37:07Topic Data Shows You What Your Audience Is Talking About On Facebook
In the next few weeks, you are likely to lose at least a couple likes on your Facebook Page. It isn’t a sign people are losing interest in your brand however. Facebook has just announced they will stop including likes from memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts in the totals for likes on Pages.
The company issued the warning in a blog post yesterday, saying the move will help give businesses more accurate information about the people following their Page and improve ad targeting efficiency.
As the post explains:
Over the coming weeks, Page admins should expect to see a small dip in their number of Page likes as a result of this update. It’s important to remember, though, that these removed likes represent people who were already inactive on Facebook.
According to Facebook, Page owners should not expect big drops. The average Pages should only lose a few followers, but any Pages who have paid for Likes or used other artificial means of inflating their total may see substantially larger losses.
Facebook is also warning Page administrators with an alert within Insights:
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-03-06 14:00:232015-03-06 14:00:23Facebook Gives Page Owners a Warning About Upcoming Drops in Likes
Social media is all about crafting an image and that starts at the profile and cover photos. These pictures are the first things visitors see when they come to your profile, and it is essential to maintain a consistent image across social media. Unfortunately, trying to prepare your photos in the ideal sizes and specifications for the wide array of social media platforms can be a headache.
Every single social media site has their own specific sizes for images and many of the specs can seem almost random. Facebook requires 851px by 315px, while Google calls for 1080px by 608px and images on LinkedIn are supposed to be 646px by 220px. You can spend your time trying to come up with a mnemonic device to try to keep all the different image specs straight, but chances are your time is better spent elsewhere.
Thankfully, the team at Spredfast created a handy infographic which lays out the most recent photo specs for pretty much any social network you are likely to be on. The graphic details all the ideal photo sizes for profile pics and cover photos, as well as detailing the optimal sizes for posting photos to make sure cropping won’t ruin the image.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-03-04 13:42:562015-03-04 13:42:56Make Your Social Media Profiles Look Best With Ideal Image Sizes [Infographic]
In the next few weeks, you are likely to lose at least a couple likes on your Facebook Page. It isn’t a sign people are losing interest in your brand however. Facebook has just announced they will stop including likes from memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts in the totals for likes on Pages.
