Automatic Boosting, Acton ACE Eyewear, Adult Colouring Gets Monetized and YouTube Finally Reprimand Logan Paul.

Automatically Boost Your Facebook Posts With Reveal

Boosting on Facebook is a great tool for marketers and brands, and it’s an even better tool for social media executives everywhere who have the task of growing clients’ profiles. We should know. But what’s the news we hear you ask? Well, boosting ads has been an option that’s been around for a while now but what we’re here to talk about and introduce you to is an automated boosting app.

This week, a new app called ‘Reveal’ was brought to our attention and we have to admit we’re pretty excited about it. Reveal helps maximise posts reach and engagement by doing all the dirty work for you. To use the auto-boosting option you have to create an account, which unfortunately after a 14 day trial period you have to pay for, however this is a small price to pay for the amount of time you’ll save, making the tool ideal for small and start up businesses.

Once your account is set up, Reveal monitors your posts in terms of organic engagement. When a particular post reaches a specific threshold it becomes eligible for auto boosting. Reveal will start promoting it; using your saved audiences and custom objectives you may have set up beforehand. You can choose for Reveal to auto boost all of your latest posts, or make a selection based on predefined filters. Users have full control over conditions for posts to promote: they can choose whether to filter based on the number of comments, positive or negative reactions, shares, and so on. Reveal’s UI is straightforward, and setting up conditions for post promotion is effortless.

Mikhail Trofimov, CEO & Co-founder of ‘Reveal’ says that the product is the evolution of a Facebook Ads chatbot and its add-ons they built over a year ago. He also adds, “We’ve created Reveal to automate routine tasks for everyone who actively uses Facebook Ads, so they could focus more on creative aspects.”

Snapchat May Have Failed, But Could Acton Make Smart Sunglasses A Big Hit?

Remember the now failed ‘Spectacles’, Snapchat’s video-recording sunglasses? Well the decline in sales and failing popularity of those haven’t put Acton off creating their own, dare we say it, slightly better version of the smart product modestly titled ‘Ace Eyewear’.

Acton, a company known for its electric skateboards, has launched sunglasses that double as a covert camera. The sunglasses feature a 120-degree wide-angle lens and about 1.5 hours of battery life of continuous recording, according to the company. With just one click of a button at the side of the frames the device can take 8-megapixel photos (the same quality as the camera of the iPhone 5s) and up to 40 minutes of HD video. ACE's accompanying app will allow you to organise and edit the photos.

The app will also enable you to live stream to Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube if you connect the glasses to Wi-Fi. This could be a huge help for anyone that wants to stream footage without having to worry about holding a camera in a specific direction.

The sunglasses are priced at, what we think is quite a reasonable, $199 (£145.96) and will begin shipping out this summer. So get saving those pennies.

Brands Finally Capitalise On Adult Colouring Trend

It’s been two years since adult colouring became a trend and finally it appears brands are taking notice. Companies like Lionsgate, Hasbro and Kellogg’s are buying up ad space inside apps, creating their own colouring apps and designing branded colouring pages.

Brands say colouring app ads produce higher engagement rates than other types of in-app advertising. Colouring apps, such as Recolor, Pigment, Unicorn, ColourBox and Pixel Art, bring in loyal followings since they are driven by subscriptions rather than in-app purchases.

Colouring apps for adults sit among the top free and top grossing apps in the Apple iOS Store, according to App Annie data. Of the current top-50 grossing entertainment apps, 11 are colouring apps. In November 2017, the top 10 colouring apps in the US collectively saw over 2.3 million downloads and over 1 million downloads on iOS and Google Play respectively, according to App Annie data.

Colouring apps are following in the direction in-app advertising is moving toward; delivering interactive ads to users in exchange for something they want. Users can choose to watch a branded video to unlock specific colouring pages. Unlike with game apps where brands mostly have the choice to advertise using banners or pre-roll videos, some colouring apps offer different ad formats that can help boost engagement, like ‘Recolor’, which allows advertisers to run their own branded designs.

If you think it’s just a gimmick or a passing phase, think again. In December, shoe brand Timberland launched a colouring book ad in a number of gaming and creative apps. Users could colour in the black-and-white image of hip-hop artist Nas as a cartoon video ad for the new shoe played beneath. In the seven weeks the ad campaign ran in October and November, 230,000 people interacted with the ad, with almost half watching the entire video ad, said Mike Isabella, director of consumer engagement at Timberland.

Studies have shown that colouring apps can reduce stress and anxiety, so brands also see the apps as a means to connect with users when they are in an open and positive mood, said Cohen-Aslatei. “When you are relaxed and focused,” he said, “a brand message is a positive experience.”

YouTube Finally Doing Something About Logan Paul

Last week Logan Paul, YouTube’s once hot vlogger, almost nailed his own coffin shut when he posted a video featuring a dead body in Japan’s suicide forest. But what did YouTube have to say and do about the video, which should never have been allowed to be uploaded? Well, up until now not a lot.

It’s taken almost a week for YouTube to respond to criticism and speak out about the matter, but they have finally revealed their plans and the actions they are going to take on Logan Paul. They announced that he has been removed from the site’s Google Preferred Program that allows brands to advertise on content from the top 5% of YouTube creators. In addition, the Vlogger will not feature in the fourth season of ‘Foursome’, a web series exclusive to the site’s subscription service, YouTube Red. His channel has also received a “strike” for violating YouTube policy. Three of these strikes will result in the channel termination.

About time YouTube, but we still think you should get cracking on a better way to moderate videos before they’re shared.