Social Media
Pinterest Unveils New Video Capabilities for Brands
Since Pinterest went public in April, the platform has been steadily rolling out new e-commerce features, making it an ideal social platform for business. This month, Pinterest introduced new video capabilities. These options include an updated video uploader, a new tab dedicated to videos, a lifetime analytics page, and a pin scheduler. The new video uploader simplifies the video uploading process. The video tab will feature all brand videos in one place, as well as deliver analytics displaying the performance of the videos over time. Businesses can now even schedule pins to go live in advance, allowing them to reach their audience at an ideal time. Brands like Tastemade, for example, have experienced great success with Pinterest video, driving 1 billion views and 200 million engagements YTD.
LinkedIn Updates Campaign Manager, Adds Brand Awareness, Conversion Campaign Options
LinkedIn has also made changes, adding three new advertising features in an effort to become more attractive to marketers managing high volume campaigns. The updates to the Campaign Manager provide marketers with objective-based capabilities to focus on the goals of the company. Brand Awareness campaign features offer options to advertisers to increase their “share of voice” on the platform. LinkedIn also updated the Website Conversion capabilities to include tracking tools that are optimized to achieve specific actions on a site, such as purchases or event responses. LinkedIn Talent Solutions, designed specifically for HR professionals, allows businesses to create ads promoting job opportunities. This is slated to increase the platform’s effectiveness of talent prospecting. Pricing was also taken into consideration and altered to reflect the actions of each campaign.
Twitter ArtHouse Launches to Give Brands More Access to Creators, Influencers
As influencer marketing continues to become a priority in marketing budgets, Twitter decided to take a step further and connect brands with the best content creators in the world. Twitter introduced ArtHouse this month, the platform’s latest initiative designed to help brands connect with content creators and influencers. The ArtHouse team consists of content strategists, digital producers, and influencer marketing specialists to produce high-quality digital assets for brands. In fact, the content created by ArtHouse has been performing better than ads designed and shared directly by the brand. The goal of this initiative is to make the platform more influencer-focused to compete with Snapchat and Instagram.
Snap Snares New Users with Revamped Android App
Snapchat’s user base grew by 7% in Q2 thanks to its Android app update. Snapchat now has 203 million active users. This spike in growth can also be attributed to the Snapchat Lenses update, allowing users to add filters that distort their face. “The popularity of these Lenses drew millions of people into our rebuilt Android application, where they experienced the new and improved Snapchat that led to increased engagement,” said Evan Spiegel, Snap CEO. Snap reported $388 million in revenue this quarter, an increase of $28 million from Q1. After facing many challenges earlier this year, it is exciting to see the platform make a strong comeback.
Industry News
Moving From Vendor to Seller on Amazon? Here’s What You Need to Know
Recent actions by Amazon hint that smaller vendors may be required to make the switch from Vendor Central to Seller Central. Vendors making less than $10 million per year will be affected by this new policy. Amazon believes this change will help to achieve its goal of cutting costs, improving automation, and prioritizing major brand vendor partnerships. While this change will affect thousands of vendors, the transition can be painless and offer many positives for brands. For instance, the benefits of moving from a first-party vendor to a third-party seller include setting your own prices, inventory control, access to detailed analytics, and more. Unfortunately, a challenge many newcomers to Seller Central may face are the advertising limitations. While vendors have the option of Sponsored Product, Sponsored Brand, and Product Display ads, sellers only have access to Sponsored Product ads. These limitations may decrease the ad performance for brands. As of now, making the switch from Vendor Central to Seller Central can take several months, so it’s best practice for brands to be proactive and have a plan in place for when this policy goes into effect.