Welcome back to Spark Social Report by Spark Growth, your weekly source for social media updates! This week, TikTok announced a new maximum video length of 10 minutes, and LinkedIn added a new tool to represent career breaks. Read the full article for more updates!
Digital Marketing Insights
In a new article, Entrepreneur details the developing marketing trends for the post-pandemic business environment.
What are they expecting to see?
Since being forced to focus on digital presence, organizations will continue building upon their new digital infrastructures and leveraging their abilities. The unique ability to measure campaign analytics through digital channels will continue to influence marketing decisions in a big way.
Additionally, now that marketers have realized the effectiveness of personalizing user experience design to each customer’s need, UX in digital marketing strategies will continue to increase in prominence.
Marketers will also continue to listen closely to their audience like never seen before by furthering their social media usage. Rather than just knowing a customer, companies will have to deeply understand their customer’s personal needs and wants if they want to create competitive, customized messaging. This need will be achieved through an ever-increasing focus on social listening.
Meta
Widely Viewed Content Report for Facebook
Facebook released their Widely Viewed Content Report, offering transparency and context to what users saw on the platform from October to December 2021 (Q4).
The report shares some key insights, which marketers may find particularly useful:
- 86.8% of views on posts came from shares by friends, Groups, and Pages. The remaining 10.7% came from Feed recommendations and Events.
- The top three domains viewed on Facebook were YouTube, TikTok, and GoFundMe.
- The majority of Pages viewed were related to lifestyle and entertainment.
- Top viewed posts on the platform were related to entertainment and humor and contained either a video or a photo.
via Facebook Transparency Center
Facebook begins shutting down “Campus”
“Campus,” a private section in Facebook only accessible to those with .edu email addresses, was Facebook’s attempt to return to its origins as a college-based social network.
Facebook is shutting down its Campus feature on March 10 pic.twitter.com/DUCmVu9Eup
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) March 2, 2022
Communicated to users through in-app messages, on March 10th, Campus will be fully shut down and all of its data will be deleted. Until the final day before shut down, users will have the option to download their data using a provided export tool. Facebook explained of the decision: “Since we launched the Campus pilot, it’s been our mission to help bring college communities closer together. But we’ve learned that the best way to support students is through Facebook Groups.”
As such, college communities on Facebook will continue to be hosted through Groups.
All women-owned cohort of “Elevate” program
via Pinterest Newsroom
In celebration of Women’s History Month, Pinterest announced its newest cohort of the Elevate program will be fully women-owned.
The ten businesses enrolled in the program will receive monetary and strategic support. Pinterest is investing a total of $100,000 in the form of ad credits and personal coaches. This investment is part of Pinterest’s goal to reinforce a sense of belonging and community on the platform by elevating underrepresented voices.
The program was launched in 2020 to support Black business owners in the wake of the pandemic. Since then, the program has continued with the aim of improving representation on the platform.
Addition of Hebrew language support
Inviting a wider range of users to access the platform with ease, Pinterest added Hebrew as an additional language option.
via Pinterest Newsroom
According to Pinterest’s internal data, there are already 55 million Pins in Hebrew, making the language’s addition a sensible option for the platform. Now, more users than ever can browse in their preferred language, with a new total of 38 supported languages on Pinterest.
TikTok
Maximum video length increased to 10 minutes
TikTok is no stranger to increasing its maximum video length. Starting out at 15 seconds, expanding to one minute, and then to three minutes in July 2021, TikTok is now rolling out its largest time increase yet as it allows users to post videos up to 10 minutes long.
In a statement to The Verge, a company spokesperson for TikTok noted that the moving force behind the increased time limit is the hope to “unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world.”
TikTok creeping in on YouTube territory
I can now upload videos up to 10 minutes long pic.twitter.com/P2Mbf4ygWV
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) February 28, 2022
This announcement comes just a week after Meta launched Facebook Reels on a global scale and YouTube expressed their interest in Connected TV advertisements. The 10-minute maximum length increase may be a move on TikTok’s part to capture the new opportunity left in the market by both of these developments.
New trend report
via TikTok Creative Center
Moving on from platform technicalities, TikTok for Business released a new Creative Center called the “What’s Next Trend Report.” This in-depth report is divided into specific regions to capture regional trends, and provides insights about the content on the platform.
These regions include: North America, Turkey, Saudi Arabia & UAE, Mexico, Brazil, EU General, France, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, SEA General, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Inside each of these reports includes:
- A look back on the trends from 2021.
- In-depth analysis of the most popular content categories, complete with popular and rising hashtags, case studies, and tips for brands.
- A deep dive into the most important and influential moments from the year.
The insights in these reports provide marketers and brands with the opportunity to learn what content really excels on TikTok, which then can be utilized while crafting future social strategies!
Closure of separate IGTV app
via Instagram Creators Blog
Focusing on simplifying and improving the video experience on Instagram, the standalone IGTV app will be shut down in the upcoming months as the platform continues to move towards merging all video content to the main app.
Alongside this announcement, Instagram is also ending its In-Stream video ads. Creators who have been utilizing this feature for monetization will be compensated by the loss of this revenue stream with a temporary monthly payment based on their recent earnings.
In addition to Instagram Bonuses, an existing payment program for creators based on views and several other requirements, the platform is working on a new ad experience that will be launched later this year for ads on Reels.
These updates come as no surprise, as late last year Instagram began the merging process with the combination of IGTV and feed videos into the unified experience of Instagram Video.
Automated captions for Feed videos
Continuing with new changes to videos, Instagram has added auto-generated captions for IG Feed videos.
Automatic captions will be on by default for all creators and will be initially available in 17 languages, with more to come soon.
Auto-generated captions were added to Stories in May 2021, which also included a tease for captions on Reels to come in the future, which will be the final piece in providing captions for all video content on the platform.
via Instagram on Facebook
New tool to represent career breaks
LinkedIn introduced 13 new options to represent a career break in the Experience section of the LinkedIn profile, aiming to break the stigma of gaps in professional experience. These options include items such as career transition, full-time parenting, health & well-being, and personal goal pursuit.
via LinkedIn Blog
The conversation surrounding career breaks has traditionally been an uncomfortable one to bring up with employers—but according to LinkedIn, 51% of employers are more likely to contact a candidate that provides context to their resume gaps. This new feature not only allows for context but it gives the opportunity to highlight life experiences that are just as important as work experience.
Acquirement of marketing analytics platform “Oribi”
via LinkedIn Marketing Blog
Continuing its efforts to both invest in technology platforms and provide users with new ways to build their brands and engage with professional audiences, LinkedIn has acquired marketing analytics company Oribi.
Oribi is an all-in-one marketing analytics tool with a focus on analyzing data to find insights and trends, driving actionable results. This is done through the tracking of actions and events taken by visitors of a website, determining their behaviors which then can be used to optimize performance.
Oribi’s integration into LinkedIn aims to provide users with enhanced campaign attribution that will optimize the ROI of advertising. This will be achieved through the ability to measure website conversions and generate automated tags more easily.
As Oribi is an Israel-based company, LinkedIn will be opening an additional office in Tel Aviv alongside the acquisition.
That wraps up this week’s social media updates! Be sure to follow us on Twitter for more of the latest digital marketing news.
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