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Instagram stories have ads now!! Know more about the latest feature of Instagram. Today we bring you the latest updates on Instagram stories. Along with other marketing news about every platform from your favorite sites and blogs.
Read the full article for shorts that interest you.
1. Instagram Stories: Ads in Stories now.
What’s this about? : Instagram is looking to push mid-roll video ads into Stories content. Instagram’s also updated their daily active user count for Stories, and says that there are now more than 150 million people using Stories every day.
What’s new? : The addition of new full-screen ads in Stories. Well, not exactly in Stories, but between them. For businesses converted to a business profile, you’ll be able to see the reach, impressions, replies and exits for each individual story within Business Tools.
What’s more about it? : Instagram Stories ads will be limited to 15 seconds in length and won’t be clickable at least not at this stage. The ads will be sold on a CPM basis and views will be counted as soon as the ads appear .The ads will be signified by a small ‘Sponsored’ marker at the bottom center of screen and will be skippable.
Will the ads disrupt my story flow? : The ads appear when you move between Stories so they won’t disrupt your Story flow, they’ll only come up when people progress to another story.
Why now? : Instagram notes that one in five stories results in a direct message from viewers, while a third of the most watched Stories on Instagram have come from business accounts.That stat, in combination with the fact that 70% of Instagrammers follow a business and 60% report learning about products and services via the app has given Instagram the confidence to push Stories as a more business focused tool.
Takeaways: The new tools will no doubt hurt Snapchat’s brand viability, but for users, the addition of ads in between stories which you can easily skip seems like a minor intrusion. If they’re well targeted with good creative, they could be a welcome addition, the key will be in how well they’re executed.
Read: Instagram will show ads now in between stories!
Watch: Know more about it.
2. Facebook now lets you live stream from net.
What’s this about? : You no longer need to be on a smartphone or tablet to go live on Facebook. Starting today pages can go live right from the web now.
What’s new? : The idea is to make it easier to produce more professional broadcasts though an effect could be newfangled Facebook Live streams looking like old-school YouTube confessionals, which sounds hipster-y but doesn’t have to be horrible.
What’s in it for me? : It will benefit businesses and prominent Facebook users who don’t want to go to the trouble or have the capacity to go live through Facebook’s API on a desktop or laptop.
What’s more? : A few more features in today’s update:
- Facebook is also providing more metrics for video performance live or regular including total minutes viewed, total number of views, and total engagement (reactions, comments and shares).You’ll also be able to see aggregated insights over 7, 30, or 60 days.
- Pages will now be able to pin live comments to the bottom of a broadcast, should someone say something particularly interesting. It could also be useful during Q&A sessions, to let viewers know which question is currently being answered.
- Pages finally have a permalink for their videos at ‘facebook.com/’pagename’/videos.’ Ongoing live videos will be pinned to the top, making it a quick and easy way to direct users towards you page during a broadcast, and to let recurring visitors know where to go.
Takeaways: This should mean higher quality live videos, as more users and brands move away from filming on their phones and towards recording with professional equipment. The bulk of users will continue to use their smartphones, of course, but it helps Facebook live feel more like a legitimate video platform than a goofy thing you do in your free time.
Read: Facebook’s latest updates
3. Google adds call extension to mobile ads.
What’s this about? : Google has begun alerting some advertisers that call extensions will start generating automatically as of February 6, 2017.
Is it for all advertiser? : Not all advertisers are receiving this notice, only those whose landing pages prominently feature a phone number. Google will pull the phone number from the landing page and include it in the advertiser’s mobile ads as a call extension.
What are call extensions ? : Call extension in Google AdWords is an ad extension that allows searchers to directly contact business when they are on their mobile device with an easy click to call button, saving the searcher time and effort while helping business attract potential customers.
How is it useful? : Call extension are ideal for local business that are looking to drive phone calls and people into their storefronts. For businesses that do not place a high value on incoming phone calls, this ad extension probably won’t make a large impact on the pay-per-click marketing efforts. However, if driving phone calls is a priority for the business, then utilizing call extension is a great way for business to connect with potential customers.
Are advertiser’s happy about it? : Not all are happy about it as some may not want to pay for calls being placed to their business through mobile search ads, and some may not even want to encourage phone calls if they’d prefer to capture leads in otherwise.
Takeaways: If you’re in favor of having call extensions automatically added to your mobile ads then you can simply do nothing and let the change take effect If you already have call extensions in place, then this change will not affect you at all.
Read: Google adds call extension
4. Twitter to shut down dashboards.
What’s this all about? : Twitter is shutting down its Dashboard feature that offers businesses a set of tools to track tweets, access analytics, schedule posts, monitor tweets about their brand or other keywords and more. Launched in June 2016, Dashboard will be completely shut down on February 3, 2017.
Why its being shut down? : The product may not have had a large install base, though, which is why it was marked for shutdown. Dashboard also saw some overlap with Twitter Engage, a tool for celebrities and other influencers which also included analytics.The market for the app was also fairly narrow.
What’s the next alternative? : There’s not a solid transition plan in terms of how businesses will be able to access similar features going forward. It only hopes to bring the best features from Dashboard to the broader Twitter community in the months ahead. That vagueness is not very promising, however.
Takeaways: It‘s possible that Dashboard never achieved the widespread use that Twitter hoped it would. The app ranking was also fairly low. Dashboard was more for small and medium-sized businesses.
Read: Twitter shutting down app used to manage business accounts.
That’s all for today. Happy Marketing ? ?!!
