This Week’s Social Media Top Stories
Twitter Launches Targeting for Promoted Tweets and Accounts advertising based on users interests
Matthew Panzarino from The Next Web writes about a new way for brands to promote themselves to a specific target audience. This targeting of tweets will allow advertisers to reach a user who has a certain interest. Twitter is allowing this to be accomplished in 2 ways. The first way is by selecting from a predetermined list of interest. Advertisers can select multiple interests from the predefined list. The 2nd way, which should be used if you are looking for a more precise way to reach your audience lets you target usernames and followers of that user with similar interests.
With the announcement that Twitters API will be more limited to official Twitter apps only, these ads will have a greater chance of reaching users in the next year or more. Business and brands who are looking to grow their following should consider exploring this option (as long as the budget calls for it.)
Built in Post targeting rolled out to Facebook pages with more than 5,000 Likes
This article from Justin Lafferty in AllFacebook.com is about Facebook allowing admins to target posts to a certain demographic instead of the general public. Admins will be able to target posts based on age, relationship, education etc. While this is a great addition for admins, unfortunately only pages that have 5,000 likes or more can take advantage of this.
The benefits of this capability is the likelihood that users un-like your page should drop. If you use this feature you can put out more posts in a day without worrying about spamming your followers news feed. Page admins will have to have a strategy so they know who their followers are, this way you know exactly which posts target whom. While a lot of small businesses are unlikely to have 5,000 followers, page admins should still learn about this, and start tracking demographics of the likes they have.
How Brands Leverage Other Brand’s Unhappy Customers on Social
Guest poster Vishal Sankhla via Social Mouths talks about a way brands can “steal” away consumers of other brands. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Monitoring your competitors for unhappy customers is a great way to connect with a potential client, just make sure you approach the unhappy customer in a gentle way. Brands should also consider influencers in your competitor’s community. These influencers should be followed and interacted with in hope of gaining a strong relationship.
Using just these 2 techniques can help grow your reach with your market niche. Connecting with unhappy customers by monitoring certain keywords related to your competition is a simple way find more potential repeat customers, which is the main goal of every business. The odds are your competitors using similar techniques now to help them increase their brand following. If they are staying ahead of the curve you should too.
Facebook and Instagram, you are cleared for acquisition
This post on Mashable written by Chris Taylor is about the new marriage between Facebook and Instagram. While no one is certain what will come out of this newly formed relationship, this is definitely something to keep an eye on.
With the success of Pinterest in the social market, it seems like Facebook is making pictures an important tool in reaching customers. They already have increased the size of how pictures appear in newsfeeds. One outcome of Facebook buying Instagram that I can see coming is the addition of filters after uploading a photo. Hopefully we will know what Facebook’s purpose for Instagram is very soon but until then, its only a guessing game.