10 Yetis Insight - Social Media Round Up - Twitter & Yelp, Instagram Video, Facebook monetisation & Prince

Welcome to this week’s round-up of all the social media news, filling you in on Twitter’s hook up with Yelp, Instagram’s new featured video channels and finally remembering Prince on social media.

Twitter and Yelp in the UK

Twitter has interestingly agreed upon an integration with Yelp in the UK as well as Japan. Twitter previously upped their game in location services by teaming up with Foursquare in the USA. As part of their expansion in location services they somewhat oddly chose to collaborate with Yelp, a major competitor of Foursquare.

The collaboration will allow Twitter users to select places provided by Yelp when location tagging their tweets. If a user clicks on the place on the tweet they will now be given a separate card about the location which will include, the address, the yelp rating and a deep link to view the location on the Yelp site or app.

The service is live as of today on iOS and Android and it will not be long until it hits the web too. The addition of the U.K and Japan comes after the service was added to Twitter in Germany and Yelp has said that it will soon be added in France too.

Instagram adds video channels

A bit of an older story, but in case you missed it, Instagram has now added a new feature in it’s explore section which will include video only content. In this section there will also be featured channels which will focus on different topics such as Coachella, which is one recent example. There will also be a ‘videos you might like’ section, tailored to a users’ interests. This is a big move to push video content on the channel and is big news for marketers who may soon be able to pay to get their videos involved in the ‘featured’ section. The change is rolling out first in the U.S.A but will be available in other countries soon.

Facebook may let you earn money from your posts

After the launch of Instant Articles on Facebook it was clear to see that Facebook was interested in monetising content. Facebook recently launched a user survey which hinted at the possibility of users being able to accept donations within a post. E.g. for charity or as a means of raising money personally. It also suggested that Facebook is considering other ways of generating revenue including branded content and sharing advert post earnings with the company.

Obviously none of this is confirmed and it is a bit of reading in between the lines that has led to these conclusions. The most likely monetization option to come of this is a donation button for charity or perhaps a ‘tip jar’ style contribution button, to allow users to get paid for their content. This option could put them in direct competition with other monetized blogging sites such as Medium. Though it remains to be seen whether the pull of Facebook can overpower a steadfast favourite in the blogging world.

Prince remembered online

As the world learnt of the sad passing of pop icon Prince on Thursday, social media became a wave of grief with many sharing memories, their shock and disbelief at his death and some making some very mis-judged gestures.

Many celebrities shared their grief on Twitter, with big names such as Madonna, Katy Perry and even Barack Obama chipping in.

In the first 5 hours after the news of his passing broke, 25 million people had 61 million interactions on Facebook related to his legacy. “Prince” also became the top trending topic on Twitter worldwide with over 6 million tweets about the artist and paying tribute. It's clear he had an incredible impact on the music industry and the world.