This has been a very interesting week with all the changes in the world of digital media and marketing. We’ve seen new social media product features roll out, social and mobile data offerings leak, and internet companies trump tried-and-true ways of advertising … all within seven days!
With all of these changes flying at a mile-a-minute, it can be hard to keep your marketing completely up-to-date. Instead, let us do the steering for you. Sit back, relax, and check out this week’s round up to catch up on what happened on the internet this week.
New Instagram Feature Allows Users to Tag Brands, From Adweek
Since Facebook acquired Instagram two years ago, we haven’t seen much change in the product (besides the controversial Terms of Service update). Finally, Instagram stepped up this week and started rolling out a helpful Facebook-esque feature: the ability to tag specific Instagram users within photos. Users could previously tag brands, friends, or followers within the caption of each post, but now users can tag users within photos themselves — just like they could in a Facebook photo. At the same time, Instagram released a new section of the profile called “Photos of You,” where all the photos tagged of you are located.
As a marketer, you’ll be happy to know that this means that brands can actually tag photos of their more influential users, and vice versa. Users will now have the power to tag their favorite bands, clothing brands they’re wearing, or even their favorite company directly in the photo — giving brands much more visibility among Instagram’s 100 million monthly users. Besides giving brands more visibility, this photo-tagging capability could help companies augment their customer delight, public relations, or influencer outreach efforts on Instagram. This new feature will go public on May 16th, so stay tuned! Read more at Ad Week.
Foursquare Set to Sell Check-In Data for Ad Retargeting, From Marketing Land
Over the past few months, Foursqaure has been trying to establish credibility in the advertising world by attracting agencies and big brands. This past week, a leaked presentation deck gave us a better clue for how they aim to do that: Foursquare is introducing two new advertising products based on their location-based data. The first product, called Check-In Retargeting, will be launching this month. Based on Foursquare users’ check-in data, advertisers will be able to better target their ads to users outside the Foursquare app. Foursquare will be selling its aggregated check-in data to ad exchanges to help them retarget users on third-party platforms, such as Facebook’s FBX.
The second product, called Post Check-In Units, will launch in late June or early July. Based on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, Post Check-In Units will contextually serve ads immediately after users check in to a location. Marketers will be able to use these Post Check-In Units to engage users with ads that are relevant to their current location — a great promotion opportunity for brick-and-mortar shops, lifestyle brands, and restaurants. Since the algorithm for this type of ad will focus heavily on click performance, marketers should use strong calls-to-action within the ads to better engage users. With over 50 million monthly unique visitors and 3.5 billion check-ins, Foursquare could be a promising source for advertising data. Read more at Marketing Land.
Google Says YouTube Has Already Crushed Regular TV, From Business Insider
For years, we’ve wondered whether or not YouTube would one day overshadow the great and powerful TV. This week, YouTube said the battle was already over. In a presentation on Wednesday, Eric Schmidt declared that internet video has already displaced television watching. This doesn’t really come as a surprise to many marketers, especially since YouTube recently passed the milestone of 1 billion unique visitors per month. Though YouTube outranks TV in terms of views, Google has made it very clear that YouTube is not a replacement for TV — it’s something entirely new that thrives off engagement with audiences.
For inbound marketers, the power of YouTube’s immense audience seems like old news, but this story reinforces the importance YouTube can play in an inbound marketing strategy. The idea of spending millions of dollars for prime television ad spots is a thing of the past for many marketers — it’s much more feasible to create a lovable viral video that can reach millions of people for much less money and have a way to track its ROI. Read more at Business Insider.
LinkedIn Now Lets Users Add Photos, Videos, and Other Rich Media to Their Profile Pages, From The Next Web
This week, LinkedIn made user profiles more visual and social than ever before. Now, users can add multimedia content to their profile and allow their connections to like and comment on the content directly. Marketers should see this as an opportunity to revamp their LinkedIn profiles with rich, visual content. Besides being more engaging to employers, clients, and peers, your content has the ability to spark and host discussions.
LinkedIn’s changes have moved user profiles from simple CVs and resumes to interactive portfolios. If you’re a marketer that has amassed quite the portfolio of visual content, taking advantage of this feature will add much more personality to your professional profile and expand the ways you can engage with potential customers or employers. Read more at The Next Web.
What other exciting marketing stories did you hear about this week?
