The Social Media Channel |
- Facebook tweaks News Feed algorithm to promote link share posts from Pages over text status updates
- Pinterest is quietly testing out support for animated GIFs on boards
- Zero to hero: 5 one-minute business growth hacks for when you’re under pressure
| Facebook tweaks News Feed algorithm to promote link share posts from Pages over text status updates Posted: 21 Jan 2014 09:16 AM PST  Facebook today announced a change to its News Feed algorithm that tweaks which story types it shows from Pages. The company is promising a decrease in the distribution of text status updates from Pages but also says Page administrators can expect "some increases in engagement and distribution" for other story types. While Facebook says it's difficult to answer the question "What kind of content should I post on my Page?" as it depends on who your audience is and what they want to see, the changes rolling out do make one thing clear. "In general, we recommend that you use the story type that best fits the message that you want to tell – whether that's a status, photo, link or video," the company emphasizes. Nevertheless, Page administrators should decrease these types of posts, where the link is embedded in the status update: On the other hand, they should increase link share posts like this: Facebook says that when compared to sharing links by embedding them in status updates, link share posts get more engagement (more Likes, comments, shares, and clicks). They also provide "a more visual and compelling experience" in the News Feed, as you can see above. Facebook explains that this change came out of recent testing that concluded when people see more text status updates on the social network, they write more status updates themselves. The company says it saw on average 9 million more status updates written each day when it started showing more text status updates from friends, and so it started showing people more text status updates in their News Feed. On the other hand, Facebook found this effect wasn't true for text status updates from Pages. This led to the latest change to News Feed ranking, announced today, that treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends. All in all, the company says this will help it show people more content they want to see. I think it's fair to say Facebook users will be the judge of that. Top Image Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/GettyImages  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Pinterest is quietly testing out support for animated GIFs on boards Posted: 21 Jan 2014 06:35 AM PST  Pinterest is testing out support for playing back GIFs on users' pinboards, as spotted by the fashion search engine Wantering. Previously, when a user uploaded an image to Pinterest it appeared on boards as a static image, rather than in all its GIF-y glory. Now, however, some users can view the GIFs as intended directly on Pinterest, without having to click through to the original source of the image. In our own testing, GIFs displayed on site (hint: you can find them all by searching for .gif) are shown as static images when the page loads, but have a 'Play' symbol to start the animation. While running, the play button switches into a Pause button. It's a small tweak, but one that would mean fewer reasons for a user to navigate away from Pinterest and support for a popular and often-shared image format, ultimately driving increased usage of the platform. We've asked Pinterest for official comment on the feature and whether it will be rolled out more widely and will update this article if we hear back. Update: We received a statement from Pinterest which stops short of promising that the feature will be rolled out to all users soon, but it sounds like it should be on the way:
➤ Pinterest via Pinterest is Experimenting with GIFs [Mashable] Featured Image Credit – Pinterest  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Zero to hero: 5 one-minute business growth hacks for when you’re under pressure Posted: 20 Jan 2014 11:30 AM PST  Denis Duvauchelle is the CEO & co-founder of Twoodo, the ultimate online collaboration tool. We all need to get our hands dirty from time to time. When obstacles come up, let nothing stop you from getting what you need! It's times like these that made us come up with growth hacking ideas around our problems, or gave us the incentive to go out a research more. Here's a list of five growth hacking tips – the fastest growth hacks we learnt under pressure. Growth Tip #1: Contact anyone on LinkedInIn advance of an event (a conference, for example) you may want to get in touch with someone important in advance. But what if they don't accept you on LinkedIn? Add the event/event organizers as somewhere you have worked/volunteered (a stretch of the truth!) and when you go to send someone an "add me" inmail you can connect with them via the event. You will have the opportunity to send a short email – limited, but it can be the little push that makes all the difference. Growth Tip #2: Find anyone's email addressIf you are looking to get to someone who is crazy important, inaccessible, but has his/her own website… use Betterwhois to see the owner of the website, which is usually their active email address. It's faster than guessing or Googling. Here is Upworthy as an example: It might not work all the time, but it's worth a shot. Growth Tip #3: Instant contentWrite about everything you are doing, take photos of what you are doing, make videos of what is going on. Film all your events/pitches and take the time to post them on YouTube and Vimeo. Stick them up on Instagram, Flickr or your website. Microblog to your company blog. Make sure you put extreme adjectives like "awesome" or "best" in the title – they are proven to attract more clicks than modest titles. These are all great resources to compile into great tailored content later on. Growth Tip #4: A competitor is shutting down? Launch a campaignWhen you hear there's a buyout of a competitor/competitor is shutting down, launch a campaign. Immediately. This can be as simple as going to Twitter and sending out regular tweets like so: "Do.com is closing down! Check out www.twoodo.com as an alternative – we'll import all your data! #do #taskmanagement" "If you are wondering what to do now that #do is closing down, why not try www.twoodo.com – we'll arrange a smooth transition #productivity #do" Plus, upload a fun picture to Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram/Flickr with the same hashtags. This next step shows why an image on Twitter is so significant. Growth Tip #5: Increase Twitter click ratesIncrease twitter click/retweet rates by 94 percent by attaching images to your tweets. Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ automagically reveal an image from what you are posting. This creates a saturation in people's feeds and makes it hard to be seen. However, on Twitter you have to specifically add an image – and it really stands out in your follower's feeds. Our favorite is Twitpic. Remember, these are great growth hack tactics for the appropriate times. Practice these methods at the right moment and you could give your company the added boost under pressure. Too much of the same might come across like a spam, so strategise wisely. Awesome resources for other fast growth hacks:
What are your favourite one-minute growth hacks?  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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