11 Jan Twitter Continues Tweaks, While Marketers Struggle to Interpret Data | Social You Should Know
Twitter continues to shake things up in an effort to reenergize the platform that’s been stuck at around 300 million active users for a while. Google meanwhile is helping bring 360o video to YouTube. Finally, new research shows that marketers are still struggling with data and ROI from social. All this and more in this week’s Social You Should Know.
Twitter May Change 140-Character Limit to 10,000; Adds New Ad Units
Twitter was initially based off an SMS-platform and their short messages have been a hallmark ever since. Twitter is considering walking away from that however, possibly by showing the first 140-characters, but adding a —more— button to let people read posts of up to 10,000 characters on the platform. A lot of people hate the idea. I don’t. Celebrities already post long statements on Twitter, they just do so as photos, which is certainly not a better user experience. In other news, Twitter is adding new “conversational” ad units that are a cross between retweets and polls. Also a solid idea.
Google’s “Spotlight Stories” Adds 360o Video to YouTube
Spotlight Stories, which are an immersive 360-degree animated video format, are now available via the YouTube app (Android only for now). The format lets movie creators take advantage of phone sensors to give viewers an interactive experience by moving your device around to watch various scenes. You can unlock other mini-stories throughout and follow different moments for a different video ending. Because Spotlight Stories only work with the YouTube app on certain Android phones, Google has also created a YouTube 360 version so others can still view the movie. With Oculus Rift presales starting this week, we’re trending toward an immersive world.
Marketers Move (Slowly) Toward Social Media Data Understanding
While platforms like Twitter and Facebook have started building ad units that drive to business objectives, only 15% of marketing officers say they’ve been able to demonstrate social’s quantitative effect on their business. And only 41% believe they are fully capitalizing on the data they get from social media.
