Facebook morphs “instant” technology for brands | Social You Should Know

Facebook’s New Ad Formats

When Facebook announced “Instant Articles” in May, the concept included Facebook hosting publisher’s content so they could provide a richer experience for the reader. At Cannes this week, Facebook indicated that they would use a similar mentality in new ad units they are likely to release some day. Picture a mobile ad unit that, when clicked, opens into full screen video, pictures or interactive content, all without leaving Facebook. It certainly appears to me to have potential for better user experiences, which are important. The skeptic in me is cautious about letting Facebook own the platform, the clicks and the parameters of the experience, but if it improves ad performance it may be worth the risk.

Twitter, Instagram Use Galleries Differently

To compete with Pinterest, Twitter is trying to become a better place for product discovery. When you click from certain tweets, you’ll be kicked to a gallery page with more information, a buy button (when applicable) and more tweets about the product. Instagram meanwhile is taking a similar approach with their enhanced “Explore” page. Instead of just people and places, you’ll now also see curated collections. And since you’re smart, you know that things that can be curated can often later be sold as ad units, so look for that monetization coming soon.

Brands Are Loving Gifs (and Emojis)

With Facebook allowing gifs to play in the news feed for the last few weeks, brands are increasingly using gifs for marketing. In many cases, it makes perfect sense, like the animated gifs Paramount Pictures made for the Terminator movie. I just urge caution, however, as brands abusing emojis for SEO caused Google to stop indexing emojis, and a certain brand that went nuts with emojis on a post this week (name omitted to protect the brand) got a lot of negative feedback. Please, gif responsibly.

And finally, if you’re considering issuing an RFP for social media services, I wrote a piece this week with some tips. I hope they help.



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