The Top 5 Social Updates You Need to Read About This Month

The world of social media is constantly evolving, which can be challenging to keep up with. That’s why we’re here. At AVX Digital, it’s our duty as digital marketing experts to stay in the know of the latest and greatest social media trends and updates so that we can share them with you. Here are five of the top social media news stories that have been on our radar recently.

1. Facebook is Making Changes to the Mobile News Feed Ad Space 

The Update: Earlier this month, Facebook officially changed the aspect ratio for paid ads and organic posts in its mobile News Feed. The new size will be a 4:5 aspect ratio, which means they will be shorter than the original ratio of 2:3. According to Facebook, the new format will also reduce the amount of visible text to three lines, followed by a “See More” button if there are more lines of text.

What This Means for Marketers: Less is more. Ad copy will have to be more concise to get the message across to the user, or entice them enough to click “See More” to keep reading. This will also challenge marketers to make their visuals count with less ad space in a sea of ads. Additionally, taller media will automatically be masked to a 4:5 aspect ratio for all posts and new or duplicated ads by September 2nd, 2019. Any existing or unedited ads that still have taller media will be paused on September 19, 2019.

2. LinkedIn is Adding Three New Objectives to Campaign Manager

The Update: LinkedIn now has the capability to offer marketers a full funnel experience when creating campaigns with three new objectives — Brand Awareness, Website Conversions and Job Applicants. These new features are the latest addition to the redesigned Campaign Manager, which was first introduced in October 2018 in public beta.

What This Means for Marketers: The launch of these new objectives will help advertisers reach a wider range of goals more efficiently. If you’re wondering what the purpose of these new objectives are and what they mean for your business, we’ve broken them down for you:

• Brand Awareness: This objective helps increase your brand’s share-of-voice and gain visibility with highly-qualified audiences through a top of funnel campaign that charges by impression.
• Website Conversions: With an update to LinkedIn’s conversion tracking tool, you can now optimize campaigns for specific actions on your website, like purchases, sign-up’s and more.
• Job Applicants: Drive more job applications on LinkedIn or your website with this objective in order to increase visibility and gain more qualified applicants.

3. Instagram Ad Units in the Explore Tab Are Here

The Update: Instagram announced in June 2019 that it would begin serving ads in the Explore tab on the app, which is the section where users can browse relevant content and discover new profiles based on their interests. While AVX Digital currently has access to this placement, it is still gradually rolling out to other advertisers in the coming months. 

To see these new ad units, users must click on a photo or video in their Explore tab and continue scrolling to see an ad that is relevant to the content they’re viewing in that feed.

What This Means for Marketers: It’s important for brands to create content that feels native to the Instagram experience. Low quality and click-bait content will not thrive in this placement, since users are actively looking for content that adds value and is most relevant to them. 

4. Pinterest Adds “Complete the Look” Tool

The Update: Pinterest’s new “Complete the Look” feature is a visual search tool that suggests relevant products in the Fashion and Home Decor Pins based on the scene context. For example, if someone searches for a music festival scene Pin, the tool will recommend products found in similar images, such as sunglasses, glitter and fanny packs.

What This Means for Marketers: This new feature will help grow Pinterest’s e-commerce capabilities by making it possible to make recommendations on shoppable products based on the context and all objects within an image a user is searching for or saving to a board. This is especially pertinent to retail brands looking to increase their presence on Pinterest. 

5. Pinterest is Rolling Out New Video Capabilities

The Update: Businesses and creators on Pinterest now have new video features, like an improved video uploader to ensure a smoother upload process, a tab dedicated to videos, lifetime analytics and Pin scheduling for videos. 

What This Means for Marketers: According to Pinterest, videos have a longer lifespan on the platform, as they reappear more often than static image Pins. These new tools will help boost organic video posts for businesses as searches for videos on Pinterest continue to rise. As mobile-optimized video content continues to rise in popularity, it’s becoming more and more important for brands to create quality video content.