Welcome to this week's episode of Social Chatter, the longest running social media marketing talk show where we cover the latest social media news from this past week.
As a reminder, each episode of Social Chatter is available as a blog post, video or you can listen to the Alexa Flash Briefing.
For those of you who missed last week's show with Phil Gerbyshak, Christian Karasiewicz and guest, Ross Brand, you can find it here.
We're also joined by this week's special guest, Lisa Demmi.
Watch This Week's Social Media Updates
You're All Caught Up On Instagram Notification
In Instagram news, they are adding a new message,"You're All Caught Up" message when you've seen all posts from the last two days.
Why You're All Caught Up On Instagram Matters For Your Business
It can be tough staying on-top of notifications and posts on Instagram, especially if you're trying to also run a business.
To help you with this, Instagram is adding a message "You're All Caught Up" for when you're reached the end of posts from the last two days.
This is what the message on Instagram looks like.
Overall, this feature should help give you a measuring stick to help you better understand how many posts you get over a few days. If you're getting too many posts from a user, you can always mute them or unfollow them so that your Instagram feed is more manageable.
To read the announcement about "you're all caught up" on Instagram, click here.
Adding Music In Instagram Stories
Instagram is also adding the ability to add music in Instagram Stories.
Why Music In Instagram Stories Matter For Your Business
Instagram now lets you add music to Stories.
Here is a short video showing you how to add music in Instagram Stories.
When you add music to your Stories, a sticker will be added that your followers can tap on.
According to Instagram, when you want to record a video, you can choose the part of a song you want to use.
Simply open the camera, swipe to the "music" option under the record button, and search for a song. From there, choose the part of the music you want and record your video.
The song will play in the background of your video.
Businesses should consider experimenting with using music in their Instagram Stories.
For example, do you have a theme song when you're having a great day or need a little motivation to complete a project? If so, consider sharing that in your Stories.
To read the announcement about music in Instagram Stories, click here.
Greater Transparency For Facebook Ads and Pages
In Facebook news, they are taking steps to improve transparency for ads and Pages.
Why Greater Transparency For Facebook Ads and Pages Matters For Your Business
Facebook is rolling out two new updates to help prevent abuse on Facebook.
View Active Facebook Ads
One update Facebook is making is that users can now see which ads a Page is running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger of their partner network.
To see which ads a business is running, heard to their Facebook Page and select "Info and Ads."
You will see their ad creative and copy. You can also report ads you think are suspicious.
More Page Information
A second feature is the ability for users to see new information about a Facebook Page. For example, maybe they don't advertise, but they recently changed their name. You can also see when their Page was created as well.
As a business, if you are looking to run Facebook Ads and need some ideas for your Page, you'll have access to copy to see what others are using that you might want to incorporate into your own ads to improve them.
Alternatively, if your business isn't using Facebook in an ethical way, customers can report it to Facebook, now that they have greater transparency.
Over time, Facebook plans to continue to build out these two areas and provide greater access to even more information.
To read the announcement about more transparency for Facebook Ads and Pages, click here.
Facebook Trials Instant Article Subscriptions
Facebook is also trialing subscriptions in order to appease publishers using Instant Articles.
Why Subscriptions For Facebook Instant Articles Matter For Your Business
Many publishers are hurting for advertising dollars or subscriptions to their services to read their content.
In an effort to appease publishers who use Facebook Instant Articles, Facebook is trialing a subscription service within Instant Articles.
The key here is that Instant Articles keep users on Facebook to read your content, rather than go to your site.
As a business, if you are concerned about driving subscriptions, you may want to start researching new ways to generate revenue.
With over 1.8 billion websites, users have a lot of places to go for content. Many of those sites also duplicate the same content. As a result, it can be rather difficult to get someone to pay for content when they can get it for free from somewhere else. For example, we don't pay to read The Wall Street Journal because this same information has been written on countless other trusted financial sites.
As a business, if you rely on driving subscriptions to your content, you may want to look into setting up a membership site that offers more value than just articles. For example, you could offer written content along with videos, tutorials, webinars and more.
To read more about subscriptions for Facebook Instant Articles, click here.
Reactions In Facebook Stories
Also this week, Facebook is adding reactions to Stories.re
Why Reactions In Facebook Stories Matters For Your Business
Facebook wants you to use Facebook Stories more both on your Profile and you Page. To help with this, they are adding reactions to Facebook Stories. These include the ability to use the following reactions inside of Stories: like, haha, wow, sad, angry and love.
In addition to adding reactions to Stories, you can also now start group replies to your Facebook Story.
When you use this feature, it will launch a group chat in Messenger.
Here is what this looks like in Facebook Stories.
As a business, you may find these updates to Stories particularly useful to help gauge reactions from your customers on whether an update you shared with them in Stories was useful.
If you haven't yet ventured into using Facebook Stories, now is a good time, as this is the direction Facebook is trending for keeping fans updated.
You can read more about reactions in Facebook Stories here.
WhatsApp One-Way Broadcast Mode For Group Chats
In WhatsApp news, they are copying a feature from Telegram, another popular messaging app with one-way broadcast mode for group chats..
Why WhatsApp One-Way Broadcast Mode For Group Chats Matters For Your Business
Do you manage a WhatsApp group?
WhatsApp is particularly popular outside of the United States to communicate with customers and friends.
While you could create WhatsApp groups, as an Admin, you couldn't stop members from sending a message to everyone in the group.
Starting today, WhatsApp users who admin a group chat will be able to restrict sending messages to only admins.
To enable this setting in WhatsApp, go to "Group Info" and tap on "Group Settings > Send Messages."
From there, select "Only Admins" to limit
Here's a short video showing you how to use the new one-way broadcast feature for WhatsApp Groups.
With keyword snooze, you can hide posts for 30 days from your news feed that contain certain keywords.
Here's how to use keyword snooze.
"Located in a post's upper right-hand menu in News Feed, the feature gives people the option to temporarily hide posts by keywords, which are pulled directly from text in that post. If you choose to "snooze" a keyword, you won't see posts in your News Feed containing that exact word or phrase from any person, Page or Group for 30 days. In other words, fewer spoilers."
This can be a benefit for users who want a more tailored News Feed. As a business owner, you may want to be more deliberate about what you post.
Keyword snooze uses the keywords in your posts to hide them. If you're posting about politics or topics that might be controversial and don't necessarily belong in business, you may have your content even further hidden from your fans by your fans.
You can read more about the one-way broadcast mode for group chats in WhatsApp here.
LinkedIn Translations Now Support 60 Languages
In LinkedIn news, they are adding LinkedIn translations for 60 languages to posts.
LinkedIn Translations Matter For Your Business
Do you have customers who speak another language, but insist on connecting with you on LinkedIn?
Maybe you have a growing audience in another country who follows your LinkedIn updates?
To help people located in another country, LinkedIn is adding support for 60 languages including Spanish, Japanese, German and more through a new LinkedIn translations feature on desktop and mobile.
According to LinkedIn, posts that are in a different language than you speak will now show a "See Translation" button within the LinkedIn Feed, the recent activity section on someone's profile, and the post detail page.
Now, you won't have to spend time having someone translate all of your content into multiple languages. Instead, your followers can click on a button right on your post to see it in their native language.
Remember, not all words will translate properly in other languages, so you may want to test out certain phrases or even your businesses name.
You can read the announcement about LinkedIn translations here.
Tools
In addition to sharing the latest news from this past week, we also highlighted some great social media tools and apps for you to check out.
Zalster
The first tool that we have discovered this week is called Zalster (web).
Do you struggle with managing your Facebook or Instagram Ads?
Maybe you want to see how your ads are performing? Or you need to change your bidding, this way you're not overspending on your ads budget?
Zalster can help you automate and optimize your Facebook and Instagram ads so that you don't have to juggle running your business and trying to stay on-top of your ads. They do this with the help of intelligent automation.
Zalster pricing is based on 5% of your ad spend each month. They prefer that you have a minimum of $495.
You can try out Zalster from the following link.
Try ZalsterAR Placer Cam
The second tool that we have for you this week is AR Placer Cam (iOS).
With AR Placer Cam, you can create videos for your business and add text that you can track - all from your mobile device.
Normally, you would need expensive software and have to use your laptop.
Now, you can do the same thing from your mobile device thanks to advancements in augmented reality.
Once you've recorded a video, you can quickly add text and track it to your video so that it moves with it.
For example, if you're a real estate professional, you could create a video for a property and as you pan across the house, show your phone number or how to get in-touch with you.
AR Placer Cam is available for $1.99. You can download it from the link below.
Download AR Placer CamWrap-up
That's it for this week's show!
To watch next week's episode of Social Chatter, your weekly social media marketing talk show, tune-in here to find out what's new in social media!
If you have any questions about of the social media news or tools that were mentioned this week, please share them with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or in the comments below.
