Social You Should Know: Instagram Video, Path, and Facebook Insights

This week, we update you on how Instagram is challenging Vine with its own video functionality, and how Vine is fighting back. Plus, new Facebook Insights roll out, and did Path cheat its way to their big numbers? Valleywag alleges so.

Facebook Announces 15-Second Instagram Video Feature

Vine has been growing in popularity and engagement as the six-second videos have proven popular. Facebook is now fighting back, equipping its much larger Instagram user base with video capability with a 15-second limit. Instagram also allows some basic video editing features and image stabilization, which Vine does not. Vine pre-empted the announcement, however, teasing that the ability to save drafts (which Instagram does not have) is coming soon. This is an important new format for all of us.

Valleywag Says that Path is “Cheating” to Add Users, Trying to Be Sold

Path, the social network originally designed to limit your friend base to 50 friends (now 150), is a beautiful app. And a lot of social geeks like me downloaded it, but usage hasn’t seemed (to me) to take off. But suddenly it’s rocketing to the top of the leaderboard on the Apple App Store. Valleywag has a rather scathing article saying that the success (they now claim 12 million users) is a spam/ad blitz designed to prepare the company to be sold.

Facebook Updates Insights

It’s all about the analytics, right? Facebook has improved Insights to allow people to see what kinds of posts have the best engagement. Owners can also see demographic data on how users are engaging with their Page. Pictures here. This is one of several changes Facebook has made recently, including letting people comment on posts with photos (which I think will become tiresome quickly).

As you go into the weekend, you might want to bookmark this post that shows the wide variability in cost and click thru rate for different kinds of Facebook ad products. That’s about it. Have a great weekend.



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