Adapted from our biweekly internal social news roundup, This Week in Social News is a quick look at a few of the more interesting recent stories you may have missed.
Facebook And Twitter News:
Fresh off their triumphant Q2 report, you might think Zuckerberg and company would take a little breather. Not so much. Facebook has launched a pretty important new feature for businesses, finally allowing companies to privately message users. What this might mean for integrated live chat apps like HipMob or HappyFox is anyone’s guess, but it looks like the feature is coming just in time for brands like Target, whose social team is probably getting sick of the public nature of customer interaction.
Speaking of Facebook, have you been wondering why the company hasn’t yet jumped on the livestreaming bandwagon? Well, wonder no more. In addition to Meerkat, Periscope, and the like, you can now use Facebook’s little-known Facebook Mentions app to livestream. Well, you can if you’re famous enough to have a little blue checkmark on your profile, because the company is keeping it celebrity-curated for the moment. You can probably expect livestreaming to become a standard Facebook feature at some point, especially if Michael Bublé and Martha Stewart stick with it.
Speaking of curation, Twitter has added yet another “experimental” feature to its platform. The News tab began appearing to some U.S. users last week, showing important news stories from around the world alongside Top Tweets about the topic. The hope is that the concept will broaden the appeal of Twitter for new users – late adopters who might not understand exactly what Twitter is. Predictably, Twitter’s current user base isn’t exactly on fire about the change, but that’s not going to stop Jack Dorsey.
Speaking of Twitter changes, you can say goodbye to the 140-character limit, at least within direct messages. The move towards a more feature-rich, unlimited messaging system has been going on for a while; group messaging and photos were added last fall. Could a standalone, Facebook Messenger-style app be far behind?
Sachin Agarwal, product manager at Twitter had this to say
“Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.”
And finally…
Remember Facebook Notes? One of the few Facebook features that almost nobody uses has apparently been quietly revamped as a streamlined blogging platform. Looking a lot like Medium, the feature isn’t available to everyone yet (and might never be), but if anyone can bring Livejournal-style blogging back, it’s Facebook.
Recent Reports:
Altimeter Consulting recently issued its annual State of Social Business report, and you can download it for free here. A lot of heavy research across brands, thought leaders, technology vendors, and social and digital strategists, with some pretty interesting insights across social integration, data, content marketing, and employee and customer advocacy.
Twitter recently published a “customer service playbook” for brands. It’s 122 pages of B2C insights from a company that knows a thing or two about brand interactions. You can download it here. According to the (Twitter-penned!) playbook, engaging with your customers (using Twitter!) is pretty much the number-one thing your brand can do. How’s that for shocking news? Here’s a quote:
“Customers are rapidly turning to Twitter to resolve their issues. According to Social Bakers, more than 80% of customer service requests on social are happening on Twitter. And during the past two years, we’ve seen a 2.5X increase in the number of Tweets to brands and their customer service usernames.”
Working At Amazon:
On the off-chance you haven’t read it yet, The New York Times ran a bit of an exposé about Amazon.com over the weekend. Interestingly, the article focused on horrific working conditions, not for the company’s blue-collar warehouse workers, but for the Seattle-based white collar types.
The article was damning enough to force Jeff Bezos to circulate a memo denying it. Here’s a quote:
“The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.”
All The President’s Memes:
Straight Outta Compton is #1 at the box office, but the real fun (as always) is in the social stuff. You’ve seen the memes all over the place this week, but you know a marketing campaign is a success when the president gets in on the action.
Have a great week everyone!
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