Recent Changes in Social Media and what to expect
In the ever evolving world of social media we have selected a snapshot of recent changes and announcements to provide you with a quick overview of what to expect in the coming months.
LinkedIn
Products and Services tab removal
From 14th April, LinkedIn will be removing the Products and Services tab from all Company pages, from this date you won’t be able to add new content. You have two alternative options to share information on your products and services – Company Updates and/or Showcase pages.
Sharing product information via your company updates is more time consuming but on the plus side this information goes directly into your followers news feeds and so the potential reach is greatly increased compared to static content.
LinkedIn introduces new Group Landing page
This is designed to help you discover what’s happening in Groups on LinkedIn easily and participate in debates and conversations.
By selecting ‘Interests’ from the menu at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then ‘Groups’. From here you can join groups, view conversations and see updates. This is an efficient way to keep up to date with news from your industry sector or boost your brand on the platform. For more information visit the LinkedIn blog.
Twitter
Your Twitter profile will be changing format
Twitter are in the process of rolling out a new profile set up. New users will start with the updated version and in the coming months all accounts will be transferred to the new format. in brief the new profile allows users to upload a larger profile photo, customise the header, highlight best tweets and more. Visit the
Twitter blog for more detail.
‘Real time notifications’ will appear
Another big change for Twitter users, you will now receive notifications when other users are engaging with your content, for example when someone retweets one of your tweet or when you receive a new follower etc. More details from the
Twitter blog.
Worth noting, there is an option to reduce of cancel these notifications (especially relevant for busy accounts) go to Settings tab and amend notifications.
Both these changes (and another recent option to allow photo tagging) mean Twitter is bringing in functionality increasingly similar to that available on Facebook.
Facebook
Organic reach declining and new ads
Facebook tweaked their news feed algorithm in December and feedback from businesses on the site was one of concern that this was going to affect their reach to fans. Now four months down the line some initial analysis is showing a decline in reach. For example,
research from Ignite shows on average reach was down 44% since the changes and for some companies this figure was as high as 88%.
What can be done? Keep adding content and posts to keep your page active, review your competitors as the algorithm will compare your page to others in the same industry.
The algorithm is designed to reduce ‘spammy’ posts, often those with a call to action such as ‘like’ this post (known as like-baiting posts).
New look Facebook ads
Over the next few months you will notice the
ads on Facebook looking more like those ads that appear in news feeds. These will be larger so from a marketing perspective a visual will look improved compared to the old format.
There will be fewer ads, as yet we do not know if there will be a cost increase in order to secure this prime position. Early tests are apparently showing better engagement rates so potentially a higher click through rate will be the outcome, watch this space.
Pinterest
Pinterest have recently announced they will be bringing in the ‘Pin it’ button for more platforms: Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger and Wix.
The ‘Pin it’ button is a share button, similar to ‘like’ on Facebook or ‘tweet’ on Twitter. Pinterest promises it is now easier than ever to add a ‘Pin it’ button to your website.
Our own recent news
We are delighted to announce that Front Page Advantage has joined forces with online marketing agency Simply Search. This exciting development secures a larger team with enhanced skills and many years of experience in online marketing. This will enable Front Page Advantage to further improve on the service we provide to all our valued clients, more information to be shared in the coming months.
