December Future Features for Social Media

It’s been about one month since our last “Future Features” blog, and so much has changed since then that we’ve decided this topic would make a great monthly edition. We watched some of our last month’s predictions come to fruition, and were so ahead on others that they are holding us in anxious suspension. Either way, we’ll now be providing you a one-stop shop for the top testing social media features you should follow. Without further ado, here’s the latest social scoop:

Facebook Finds:

Facebook is testing two new features for post comments. The first is an added “reply” button on comments. This will help with thread organization and will bring a new level of ease to pages wanting to be more responsive to specific inquiries, complaints, and praises. In addition, we may soon see post comments ordered by engagement ranking rather than by time. This could help social media managers prioritize comment responses. However, it will be interesting to see what criteria will be used to judge levels of engagement. We won’t rely too heavily on these rankings until we’re comfortable with the results.

Twitter Talk:

Twitter is planning to add photo filters that will compete with Instagram. While Instagram seems to have cornered the market in photo publishing and posting, it loses steam in desktop mode. Twitter photo filters will likely be available on the website and phone app, making it much easier for companies to utilize for real time posting through a joint Twitter account.

Instagram:

Instagram profile pages rolled out in early November to an overwhelming response of…”meh.” While visually striking, these profile pages offer little more than a way to like and comment on photos from the website.

Google+:

Google+ is working on turning your smartphone into a remote. That’s right. You can forget about that cumbersome keyboard at your desk, and start thumb-swiping through your photos, circles, hangouts, and updates while you lean back and relax. We’re not completely sure how this will make our social media campaigns better, but it’s definitely cool.

Pinterest Pointers:

Business pages are now available on Pinterest. While the profiles look similar to the familiar personal pages, they will now display a verification badge, similar to the blue check on a celebrity’s Twitter handle. The business page will also allow you to add buttons and widgets to your website. Verifying your Pinterest business page is done through downloading a small file from Pinterest to upload to your website server. Place the file into your home directory, and return to Pinterest to complete your verification. The process is very similar to verification for Google Analytics. Our prediction is that Pinterest is likely adding business pages in order to prepare for stronger e-commerce features, in order to compete against Facebook’s upcoming collections feature, as well as up-and-coming platforms, such as Fancy.

If you need more information about social media marketing, or have questions about recent platform and feature changes, we’ll be happy to set up an appointment to discuss your goals. Give us a call at 888.420.5115.