Originally published when I worked at an Atlanta Digital Marketing Agency.
Facebook has been under a lot of scrutiny regarding its relationships with 3rd party vendors that help pull the already vast amount of information on its users. Now the platform is changing how it collects data to make sure the data has more integrity. It’s one of the trending stories in social media this week.
Currently, Facebook collects data in three different ways. The first is through individual response such as when a user likes a photo, shares a video, or comments on a discussion. The second way is information that it collects from advertisers such as if a user is already a customer of a company. They may find this out when a company decides to use Facebook for a marketing campaign that would target existing customers. The third way is through third party sources such as credit reporting agencies or companies that conduct consumer research. Facebook feels that third-party sources are less effective than their internal ways to collect information and are now reducing, if not canceling, its business relationships. By only concentrating on their internal methods for information gathering, advertisers will be able to target customers better without depending on unreliable third parties.
Twitter Releases “Timestamp” Feature for Videos – You asked for it!
Twitter has responded to user feedback and added a new feature designed to allow users to skip to a particular part of a video. Before this function was added, the only option was to watch the video in its entirety. You had to write in the text portion where to skip ahead to find the right moment. Currently, advertising is delayed on this feature because Twitter does not want advertisers to advertise on a specific moment in the video that is not “brand safe.”
Instagram Stories Ads are now Full Screen
Whenever an advertiser uploads a single image or a video that is under 15 seconds, Instagram will now make the experience full screen. Instagram will also automatically select a background gradient that closely matches the image as well as provide linking capabilities within the ad. This may be an attempt to capture more of a user’s attention versus allowing the ad to become lost as the user scrolls through the Stories.