2017 is already a big year for social giants Facebook and Instagram. For users there are many new features that make both platforms engaging and fun to use. These changes will have a deeper impact for brands and marketers.

Facebook

In-Stream Video – With the Audience Network launch last May, Facebook now runs In-Stream Videos which allows Facebook’s 4 Million Advertisers to reach more people with pre-roll and mid-roll placements. This also includes Facebook Live. In-Stream Video has proven to increase overall CPM results and continuing to show potential as the popularity of video increases. If you have quality video to share, this may be an option for your next campaign.

Messenger Advertising – Facebook Messenger has changed extensively in the last few months. Some say it has officially emulated SnapChat with the use of filters (and stories). However, The good thing about Facebook Messenger in terms of business is the ability to interact with fans in real-time and has changed the ecommerce space entirely. For example: Jasper’s Market – The user has clicked on the call-to-action button which started a messenger chat including the 20% offer. From there a real-time conversation can begin.

Instagram
Carousel Photos and Videos – For a few weeks now, social marketers and users alike have been excited with the carousel photo and video feature that is now available on Instagram. The Carousel Ad has been in the Advertising space for a awhile but now the Carousel option lets you create a single Instagram post with a slideshow of up to 10 images and/or videos. Users can scroll them. You can tag users on individual slides within the post and marketers can upload their product catalog to the mix. This will allow for users to click on items within the photo, see how much it costs and purchase the item in just a few steps. Amazing!

Instagram Stories – With 300 million daily viewers and 500 million monthly viewers, Instagram is leagues ahead of Snapchat when it comes to the ability of advertising reach within stories. At first, Instagram only allowed 30 brands to participate in advertising within the new feature and now it is a placement option for all with access to Business Manager and Power Editor. Of course, this option should be used only if you have quality imagery and video to connect with appropriate target market.  Airbnb was one of the first brands to capitalize on this awesome feature. As the year continues, look for many new trends with video content, advertising and metrics. Remember, don’t be afraid to try new objectives to fully optimize your social campaigns.

Instagram has been all over the news the past weeks with changes to its algorithm, influencer marketing news, and recently, an announcement about its new business manager platform. This tool, although primarily a funnel to get businesses to promote their content, will provide some much needed data on a channel that to-date has been a bit erratic.

Here is what you need to know:

This is the first in what’s to be a recurring series on “Context Over Dogma”; posts marked #NoFilter are brutally candid assessments of social media trends, best-practices, and industry watchdogging. Call it “truth-to-power”, call it “playing the fool”, but these are the places in which the team from Pandemic Labs will wax politically incorrect (read: more truthful) than an agency probably should.

Today’s topic comes from the recent news that Instagram will roll out an algorithmically-ranked newsfeed, forsaking the reverse chronological order that has, to date, ruled the user experience. Under the new system, which won’t roll out fully for at least another 6 months, posts with more relevance to a user (according to Instagram’s algorithm) will appear more prominently in the newsfeed, upon opening the app. So, the stuff you are more likely to engage with, or find interesting, is to appear at the top of your feed. A few things:

Because the PR & Marketing departments are typically where social media campaigns tend to be managed, I’ll use the familiar terms of paid, owned and earned to contextualize how you should go about running a successful fan acquisition campaign on Facebook. If your brand places social media in the hands of the Sales team, you might replace these with terms like “calls”, “qualified leads” or “pipe-line”.

Start thinking about your Facebook Fans as your owned audience. Sure, you might pay for them; but rather than rent them (as you do with traditional advertising), once they opt in, you can consider that audience owned. Your messages can reach them in perpetuity, as long as you’re creative, non-obtrusive and provide them with value.

Twitter’s recent announcement about revamping the user experience is a big deal. Cosmetic changes trump Heidi Montag, for realz. Just in case Sarah Shourd is reading this, here’s the scoop: Twitter will soon introduce a parallel view next to the tweet stream to host rich media and information about content creators and additional context of the tweets.

Changes to the micro behemoth will have a significant impact on the whole gamut of stakeholders: users, brands, developers, investors, zoologists, you name it, if you’re one the 160 million Twitter users these changes will affect your experience. Here at Pandemic Labs we’re mostly interested in the impact on brands (it’s how we make our monies after all). On the whole we welcome the changes, but there are a few gray areas and dangers to keep in mind. Here are the positives and negatives for brands as we see them at this early stage…