Here we are again, another month, another bout of changes across the social spectrum! Here are a couple of recent social media updates that we feel you should be aware of from April 2018…
- Facebook rolls out new initiative to boost reach for local publishers
As you may have noticed, since the early 2018 algorithm changes came into force, reach for smaller publishers on Facebook has seen a hit in it’s audience numbers. Facebook has now announced that they are rolling out the initiative to boost reach for local publishers, meaning more local news will be shown to local people.
If the majority of your audience live in a place local to your business and Facebook considers your page to be a local publisher (ie. a source of local news, local sports, neighbourhood blog, or other local sources) Facebook will now essentially give these pages/publications expanded reach.
Facebook is focused on boosting it’s civic engagement and they’ve made specific note of their aim to:
“…prioritize high quality news in News Feed, including news from sources that are broadly trusted, informative and relevant to local communities.”
So….let’s see how this goes!
- Instagram Shopping
Instagram has launched an in-app shopping feature where brands can make their profile an immersive storefront and display their best products. This can direct shoppers to their e-commerce storefronts without compromising on the time the users spend on the app itself. The new feature allows brands to tag up to 5 products per image or up to 20 per carousel.
When someone taps a tag on a post they will see:
- An image of the product from your post
- A description of the product
- How much the product costs
- A link to the website where they can purchase the product
It’s not possible to promote these posts with Ads yet, they are only available as organic posts, but well worth a try if you are an ecommerce business!
- Snapchat adds new feature to Snap Map
Snapchat has launched a new feature to the Snap Map to highlight happening events, based on updates from friends and featured stories. The new “Map Explore” listings will be shown along the bottom of the map, letting users swipe across and be taken to the relevant location on screen.
The company has said this feature is to boost local content discovery and n turn it helps to keep users in-app for longer to boost engagement numbers.
Map Explore is essentially another way of connecting users with relevant, popular Snaps. It might not be for everyone as statistically the main Snapchat usage is within private messages, and it is not a mandatory feature, if you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to as your appearance on the map will be dictated through your privacy settings.
Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more updates throughout the month or pop back next month for our next update!
If you’d like support with your own Social Media, get in touch with the team and we can see if we can help! Call us on 01904 863 511 or email – info@pickandmixms.co.uk