Sherrilynne Starkie
Must-know social media news including YouTube's Fake News fight, AR in Facebook ads, Snapchat's Lens Explorer, Quora and Earned Media, Instagram's Questions Sticker
Google-owned YouTube is dedicating $25 million to improve online videos in news, and is launching new product features to improve its news experience. Initiatives include establishing a working group with news organization and experts, providing funding across 20 global markets and expanding the YouTube support team for news publishers. Another nail in the coffin for Fake News.
Facebook is testing the use of AR for product ads in the news feed. The ads resemble normal in-feed ads and they include a “tap to try it on” option to open the AR features. Users can 'buy now'. In addition, Facebook is launching a new Video Creation Kit, which will allow advertisers to incorporate existing images into templates for mobile video ads. Richer experiences mean better, more effective ads.
Snapchat has launched a new feature, Lens Explorer, to make it easier to find user-created augmented-reality lenses. Users have been able to experiment with lens creation tools since last year, now they can unlock their creations to be shared with the community. Lens Explorer is available on iOS only.
Have you considered using Quora to break a story, announce some news or launch a product? PR expert Gini Dietrich has had some great results and shares them in this blog post. She says, “The next time you go to write a news release, ask yourself, 'Does it make more sense to do this elsewhere?' That elsewhere could be a Facebook live. It could be a blog post. It could be a series of podcast interviews. Or it could be on Quora.
Instagram is introducing an interactive questions sticker in Instagram Stories that lets users submit questions for their friends to answer. Responses appear in the story's viewer list and the user can tap any question they've asked to create a new story. Will it make people love Instagram even more?
