Facebook Advertising Updates, Snap Seaseekers, Groups On Instagram & More - Social Media News - Insight

This week's Social Media News comes from Sam Benzie

Facebook focuses on the family

Facebook is about to launch new capabilities that will allow advertisers to target specific audiences more easily, allowing them to target families and specific people within a household.

What an absolute dream this is going to be! Being able to speak to potential customers directly and saving marketing and social teams from wasting money on promotions pushing content to the wrong audience. Facebooks upcoming household feature is going to help brands target ads to the people who influence a purchase decision within a family, while showing different ads to those who make the purchase. Sounds like an impossible task, but not for Facebook! It has so much information on its users from their profiles, what they like and who they speak to frequently that this new venture won’t be difficult at all.

So how does it work? Household targeting starts with a custom audience, built from a form of CRM data or an email list. And by selecting the household audience feature, advertisers can reach their initial target and those under the same roof! But how do Facebook know who lives in your house? Well, from the information you give them, such as your marital status and family members declared on your profile, the frequency of check – ins and activities and even your internet access IP, it makes it quite easy.

So, whether you’re a retailer or brand, you will soon be able to send ads across the platform to those who you really want to see it.

Snapchat are jumping in at the deep end!

Snap have recently released “Spectacles” and they have only just arrived in Europe, but Snap is already moving to the deep blue. They are working on making these Spectacles waterproof allowing users to take videos and photos from the deepest parts of the open water (up to 150 feet of course).

Snap in partnership with Royal Caribbean cruise lines have developed a few prototypes of these “Seaseeker’s” what are essentially the spectacles in goggle-form and can “snap” for up to 30 minutes. The prototypes have been put to good use, as Gabriela Nava, a marine biologist, and Roberto Ochoa, a wildlife photographer and conservationist have taken them diving off the island of Cozumel in Mexico. Using the “Seaseekers” to showcase the local marine wildlife and conservation projects in the area.

Snap is currently positioning itself as a camera company, so this isn’t surprising as all, there’s even talk of a drone too. Once they get the Seaseeker patented it will be a matter of months before they’re available for the public, and I will be first in line to grab a pair!

Private groups on Instagram?

The fight for a larger reach and greater engagement has been on the tip of every social marketers’ tongue over these last few weeks, but it looks as though Instagram users have been wanting something a bit different, pretty much the complete opposite. This was made obvious when users started creating “Finstagrams”, which are Instagram accounts for a specific group of followers or friends.

It became obvious to Instagram that by creating Finstagrams, users were looking to gain more control over their audience and those seeing their posts. Thus, Instagram has started testing a feature called “favourites”, which gives users more of a say on who is able to see each of their posts. Experts are suggesting that if this feature becomes a widely used tool, the dynamic of Instagram will change dramatically. Favourites will be moving the platform away from its original use, posting photos for all to see.

Favourites is a list of friends that users can choose to post to, creating a much smaller audience. The list can be changed at any time and a small number of users already have this new feature. But Instagram have said not to expect it too soon as its still working to perfect the tool. If you have the new feature, you will be able to see some new options when sharing a post, including the favourites button which will appear as a green badge. Your profile will also have a favourites tab including all your posts you share in this way, when you add and remove users from your favourites they will be notified and when they see the green ‘favourites’ badge they will know that they are in the group.

Facebook messenger and its personal assistant feature

As I previously mentioned, Facebook has introduced a new AI feature which gives recommendations based on user’s conversations. As users chat on messenger they could get actionable ideas on what to do, for example on making plans, getting a ride, or requesting money!

And now Facebook have added three new suggestions to the feature, saving content, wishing people a happy birthday, and initiating a voice or video call. “M” will now suggest saving content in Messenger that they can either read, watch, or share later. And this feature works in, both one-to-one and group messages. And there is no chance of awkwardly forgetting a friends’ birthday as M will send a suggestion to send a friend a birthday wish, while you’re having a conversation with them. These wishes can vary from stickers, videos or cards with colourful effects. And finally, if someone says, “call me” in messenger, M will give a shortcut option to video or voice call that person.

Facebook really is making life easy for its users, I’m sure it won’t be long until its telling us what to say and even sending it for us!