If you only have a few minutes each week to check in on the latest and greatest news in the world of content creation and content marketing, you’re in the right place. Take a look at the studies, news, tactics, and strategies that will keep you at the top of your game in this week’s Content Radar.
Story time: What’s new with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp stories
Remember those days when Snapchat Stories were the next big thing that every marketer was trying to capitalize on? The truth is, 18 months ago, Snapchat owned the market on “stories.” Suffice it to say, things have changed — and not for the better if you’re Snapchat.
Perhaps the company can take some solace in knowing it helped introduce the stories revolution, but it would seem the company should focus on simply surviving at the moment. Perhaps no single piece of information tells the story of stories more than this: Facebook now has three stories platforms that are as big or bigger than Snapchat.
Not only have Facebook’s stories products caught up to Snapchat — they have overtaken Snapchat Stories and don’t appear to be slowing down. Even Facebook Stories — which were met with disdain when they were first launched — have taken off. So, what’s new with each of these three stories platforms?
Facebook Stories
Users soon will be able to save photos and videos they take with Facebook Camera on Facebook itself — rather than saving them to their phones. This is a move designed to get people to use Facebook Camera more and subsequently be exposed to stories more often. Users will not need to share their photos in order to save them on Facebook.
Facebook Stories users also will soon have the opportunity to update their stories with voice clips that do not need to feature any sort of photo or video — just voice. It seems that those who want to upload an accompanying photo with their audio clips to stories may be able to do so. Otherwise, the audio clip will simply include a brightly colored background as the only visual. This new stories feature is currently being tested in India, but should be rolled out more widely soon.
Instagram Stories
For years, marketers have been dreaming of ways in which they can get users to share brand content on Instagram natively within the app. That day has come — but with a twist. Users still are not able to share brands’ timeline posts on their own timelines. However, users are now able to share these timeline posts as stickers on their own Instagram Stories. Sharing is relatively simple. All a user needs to do is locate a post in the timeline they want to share to their story, then click on the paper airplane just beneath the post. From there, the user taps “Add Post to Your Story,” customizes the story post, then publishes.
WhatsApp Status
It has been just a little over a year since WhatsApp launched its stories functionality. So the fact that WhatsApp Status (otherwise known as “Stories”) now has more than 450 million daily users is impressive to say the least. The jump in popularity of this global app is believed by many to be directly attributed to Snapchat’s recent redesign that was anything but well-received and forced more people to WhatsApp.
Of course, none of this should be a surprise. During the 2018 Q1 earnings call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that Facebook will continue to pursue stories.
“Stories is also a big part of the future of video sharing, which is why we’re all in on it across our family,” Zuckerberg said. “Instagram was the first to really take off here. Facebook started slower but is now growing quickly too. And WhatsApp Status is by far the biggest of these products and continues to grow quickly.”
Instagram advertisers may now create ads out of organic posts on their brands’ timelines. The tool is expected to roll out in upcoming weeks, though it will only apply to single photo and single video posts.
A biting new video ad campaign effectively calls out all of the time spent reading social media. The campaign was created to encourage individuals to read more books and effectively points out how much time individuals spend reading meaningless content.
A new study shows that using social media on the job may not be such a bad thing for productivity. In fact, those who use social media during work hours tend to be more motivated and creative in solving problems. However, these are the same people who also are more likely to seek new employment.
A new AdWords script helps marketers pause underperforming ads and more effectively gauge which ads are most effective. The script also allows users to label ads as “winners” or “losers.”
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