Tag: linkedin

Social Media Rundown: Russia Disinformation Campaign Deeper Than Thought; Facebook Data Breach; Women and Abusive Tweets

In this week’s Rundown, Russia’s disinformation campaign and (even more) Facebook troubles dominate the news. Meanwhile, the businesses of influencer marketing and interior design are alive and well on Instagram. And be sure to check out the learn section for tips on making your social media marketing more personal and to learn how to set up and run an effective LinkedIn ad campaign.

Social Media News:

  • New Report on Russian Disinformation, Prepared for the Senate, Shows the Operation’s Scale and Sweep (The Washington Post). Russia used every major social media platform to support Trump. The same report finds Instagram played a much bigger role in Russia’s manipulation of U.S. voters than previously discussed and will be a key Russian tool in the 2020 elections. There were 187 million interactions with Instagram content, compared with 77 million on Facebook and 73 million on Twitter, according to a data set of posts between 2015 and 2018.
  • Facebook Exposed up to 6.8 Million Users’ Private Photos to Developers in Latest Leak (The Verge). Facebook continues losing consumer trust. The social networking company recently exposed private photos from up to 6.8 million users to apps that weren’t supposed to see them.
  • Study Finds Twitter Is a Toxic Place for Female Politicians and Journalists (Axios). The findings show abusive tweets were sent to all female members in U.S. Congress and U.K. parliament, as well as a number of other prominent female political journalists. Black women were 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets.
  • Instagram Influencers Are Faking Sponsored Content Because They Think It Attracts Real Brand Deals (Insider). Fake it till you make, am I right? This is only further proof that influencer marketing is big business these days. Speaking of big business and Instagram, the photo-sharing app is also reshaping the $10B business of interior design.

Learn:

  • Why Personalization Is the Next Big Opportunity in Social Media Marketing (Buffer). Personalized social media is sort of the next frontier of social media marketing. It’s a step beyond standard customer service and is all about one-on-one communication between brands and customers. This article has a brief case study from Kimpton Hotels.
  • The Complete Guide to LinkedIn Ads: How to Run a Successful Campaign (Hootsuite). With this in-depth blog post from Hootsuite, you’ll learn how to use LinkedIn ads — from setting up your ads to tweaking and improving them over time.

Chart of the Week:

Social Media Outpaces Print Newspapers in the U.S. as a News Source (Pew Research). One-in-five U.S. adults say they often get news via social media, slightly higher than the share who often do so from print newspapers (16%).

More Americans get news from social media than print newspapers.
Where do you get your news?
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Social Media Rundown: Facebook’s Data Dilemma; the Rise of Instagram Stories; A Twitter Edit Button?

FRONTLINE: The Facebook Dilemma
Watch the two-part series “The Facebook Dilemma” on PBS.

The New York Times published a rather scathing look inside the ongoing crisis at Facebook driven by privacy issues and the spread of disinformation. Although I haven’t read the full piece yet (it is quite long), it’s clear it takes particular aim at CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg for their negligence in allowing the company to get into this mess in the first place. If you find the NYT story of interesting, be sure to also watch the two-part documentary from PBS’s Frontline “The Facebook Dilemma.”

Instagram Stories have not only grown at an incredible pace (see chart below), it has also shown success in other ways, like the million-dollar business of designing people’s Stories. Some surprising news came from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey regarding a possible edit button for tweets. What might such an edit button look like? How many times could you edit a tweet? And for how long after it’s sent? That’s what the folks at Twitter need to figure out as they decide whether or not to roll out such a feature.

Finally, don’t forget to check out the Learn section for tips on building thought leadership and how to maximize your videos shared on social media.

Social Media News:

  • Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis (The New York Times). This is a long read that I’m planning to take on this weekend, but the key point is that both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg bear direct responsibility for the company’s woes: “Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.” On Sandberg: “While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation.” So, Facebook is not exactly showing expertise in crisis communication. If you do read the full piece, be sure to also read Facebook’s response.
  • Facebook and “The Data Dilemma” (PBS Frontline). Speaking of Facebook, this is a nice video overview of what Facebook knows about you, and how it knows it – from the use of “shadow profiles,” to the main ways Facebook tracks you on the web, even when you’re not on Facebook. This is a companion video to the much longer two-part investigation of Facebook’s privacy controversy that you should definitely watch. It’s also on YouTube.
  • Designing People’s Instagram Stories Is Now a Million-Dollar Business (Fast Company). With 11 million users, at a rate of 100,000 app downloads per day, Unfold, the Instagram story template app, is set to bring in $2.6 million in revenue for 2018.
  • Dorsey Says Twitter Is Thinking About an Edit Button to Fix Typos in Tweets (The Next Web). Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said the company has to carefully consider use cases for the edit button before making it a reality – and it could potentially be tooled to help fix typos. In my opinion, this would be the biggest change in the company’s history; even bigger than increasing the character count to 280.
  • LinkedIn Expects Media Biz to Bring in $2 Billion in 2018 (Axios). LinkedIn’s increased ad revenue can be attributed to higher user engagement on the site, driven by recent changes to pages and the LinkedIn news feed.

Learn:

  • How to Use Social Media to Build Thought Leadership (Social Media Today). From sharing quality content and knowing your audience to providing original research and building a professional profile, this is a nice listicle of how to position yourself or your brand as a thought leader.
  • How to Maximize the Exposure of Your Videos: A Strategic Plan (Social Media Examiner). This blog post has a list of five ways to post, promote, and distribute videos more effectively.

Chart of the Week:

We Analyzed 15,000 Instagram Stories from 200 of the World’s Top Brands (Buffer). 400 million people around the world use Instagram Stories on a daily basis (with that number rapidly growing). Click the image for more stats and strategic insight into Instagram Stories.

Growth of the Stories Format from 2014-2018.
As Snapchat’s growth has been nearly stagnant for the past three years, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp have seen explosive growth.

What are the top social media news stories and learnings that I missed this week?

Social Media Rundown: Midterm Social Media Trap; Ability to Delete Sent Facebook Messages; Top Video Trends

The 2018 midterm elections have come and gone without any evidence of significant foreign interference. Attempts to undermine the U.S. election process was limited to attempts at spreading disinformation and fear by an infamous Russian troll farm. It seems the efforts from Facebook, Twitter, and the like were mostly successful in their attempts to tighten up security on their platforms. However, Facebook’s ad screeners seem to have gone a bit too far in what ads were rejected, and a path to government regulation of social media platforms seems somewhat imminent.

Midterms aside, be sure to read on for a new Facebook Messenger feature that allows users to delete sent messages up to 10 minutes after they’ve been sent. This week’s learn section includes a Hootsuite blog post with everything you need to know about LinkedIn videos. Plus, four shifts at Facebook and how to work the changes into your social media marketing strategy.

Social Media News:

  • You’ll Soon Be Able to Delete a Facebook Message up to 10 Minutes After It’s Already Been Sent (Business Insider). The ability to unsend a private message is in addition to the app’s “secret conversations” feature, where users can have their messages expire after a set amount of time.
  • We Tested Facebook’s Ad Screeners and Some Were Too Strict (The Atlantic). Facebook has some kinks to iron out in its pledge to make advertising more transparent and to protect American elections from unlawful influence. “Facebook prohibited 5 percent of our ads for Veterans Day gatherings. Facebook also prohibited 18 percent of national park ads linking to government websites.”
  • Trump Says He’s Open to Working with Democrats in Regulating Social Media Companies like Facebook and Twitter (CNBC). Some options to regulate social media companies include enacting privacy regulations, similar to those being imposed in Europe. Trump warned it would be a balancing act between protecting free speech and finding adequate legal boundaries.
  • A Russian Troll Farm Set an Elaborate Social Media Trap for the Midterms — and No One Bit (NBC News). A website claiming to be run by an infamous troll farm tried to tip journalists and spread fear of election meddling, but failed to generate any serious attention. While social media companies have gotten more serious about preventing the spread of disinformation, hate speech, propaganda, and foreign election interference, some say the issue will never be fixed.

Learn:

  • Everything You Need to Know About LinkedIn Video in 2019 (Hootsuite Blog). LinkedIn has been putting more emphasis on video. This in-depth article tells you everything you need to know, from the video specifications to how to set up video ads. Plus, a nice list of video content ideas.
  • How 4 Shifts at Facebook Will Affect Communicators (PR News). The skinny: ‘Facebook Zero’ is here, Stories gain popularity, video ads could be a better buy than News Feed, and Messenger has become the private news feed for users. Read on to see how to take advantage of these trends.

Chart of the Week:

Top 10 Video Trends [Infographic] (MarketingProfs). Also from the infographic: Video is becoming more search-friendly; thanks to AI and closed captions.

Live streaming is the top video trend for 2018.
The top video trend for 2018 is live streaming.

Social Media Rundown: Facebook Messenger Update; New ‘Thumb Stopping’ Facebook Feature; Political Ad Spend; New LinkedIn Algorithm

Screen shots of Facebook Messenger 4.
Facebook Messenger 4 promises a simpler design.

If you’re a heavy Facebook Messenger user, you know how cluttered the app has become. Messenger 4 promises a simpler layout with fewer tabs and an overall cleaner interface. Also in the world of Facebook, the ‘thumb stopping’ 3D photos feature is slowly being rolled out, and the company has revealed its biggest political ad spenders on its platform.

Lastly, be sure to learn about the new LinkedIn algorithm, how to get the most of LinkedIn hashtags, and how to make the most of quotes in Instagram.

Social Media News:

  • Facebook Is Finally Decluttering Messenger (Engadget). Facebook is making things simpler with Messenger, going from nine tabs to three. There’s the Chats tab (conversations), the People tab (who’s online), and the Discover tab (discover businesses). The latter will give you access to the platform’s Instant Games feature as well.
  • ‘Inherently Thumb Stopping’: Engagement-Thirsty Marketers Try out Facebook 3D Photos (DigiDay). I’ve seen these in my feed and they definitely catch your eye and almost force you to engage with the content. “Long-form video has been declining as attention span [in News Feed declines]. 3D photos are the logical next step as a format that grabs your attention.” I’m looking forward to this feature being rolled out to everyone soon.
  • Facebook Reveals Its Biggest Political Ad Spenders (AdAge). Some major ad dollars — $256 million on 1.7 million ads — being spent by politicians on Facebook. Beto O’Rourke is the top spender at $5.3 million on 6,000 ads. Donald Trump is not far behind with $4.8 million spent since May, buying more than 100,000 ads.
  • LinkedIn Adds a New Algorithm to Generate More Engagement from the Users (Digital Information World). The social network recently updated its algorithm in order to generate more engagement on the user’s posts. Learn more about these changes on the HubSpot blog.

Learn:

  • The Complete Guide to Using LinkedIn Hashtags (Hootsuite Blog). Hashtags are new to LinkedIn, and the company seems to be going all in with the new feature. Adding hashtags to updates and articles gives them a higher chance of being discovered by users who follow or search for the hashtag you’ve used. But how hashtags are used on LinkedIn are a bit different than on other social media platforms. This article has some helpful tips and tricks to make the most of the new feature.
  • How to Create and Use Instagram Quotes in Your Strategy (Later blog). This article has some good ways to use quotes in Instagram to increase engagement. These can mostly be applied to other social media platforms as well. The article also has a couple handy apps for creating quote images such as canva and AdobeSpark.

Chart of the Week:

Around two-thirds (68%) of U.S. adults use Facebook. With the exception of YouTube, no other major social media platform comes close to Facebook in terms of usage. Around a third of U.S. adults (35%) say they use Instagram.

Majority of Americans now use Facebook and YouTube.
Facebook continues to dominate among all social media sites.

Social Media Rundown: Pivot to Video? Not So Fast; Facebook Hack; Russian Trolls Influence Brexit

Facebook thumbs up.
Even as Facebook executives were insisting that video consumption was skyrocketing, it was becoming clear that some of the metrics the company had used to calculate time spent on videos were wrong.

Not a lot happening in the world of social media this week; just the usual: shady Facebook news, data breaches, and more revelations on Russia’s influence on the Brexit referendum. For the learning section, I’ve stumbled upon two articles about using video to engage with your online audiences — check it out!

Social Media News:

  • Did Facebook’s Faulty Data Push News Publishers to Make Terrible Decisions on Video? (NiemanLab). Publishers’ “pivot to video” was driven largely by a belief that if Facebook was seeing users, in massive numbers, shift to video from text, the trend must be real. Perhaps we’re not actually in the midst of a video revolution.
  • Facebook’s Latest Hack Was by Spammers Who Just Wanted Money (Mashable). Facebook’s latest hack had the information of 29 million users scraped, but apparently by scammers wanting financial gain, rather than for political or ideological purposes.
  • Russian Trolls Sent Thousands of Pro-Leave Messages on Day of Brexit Referendum, Twitter Data Reveals (The Telegraph). The day of the Brexit vote, Russia mobilized an army of trolls, which at one stage included 3,800 accounts. The fake accounts Tweeted out 1,102 posts with the hashtag #ReasonsToLeaveEU. Now, how will Twitter prevent this from happening again?

Learn:

  • Twitter Has Renewed Its Live Video Push & Here’s What You Need to Know (TopRank Marketing). Once the dominate player in live video, Twitter fell to the likes of Facebook, YouTube, and even LinkedIn. This blog post has a few things to consider before jumping into live Twitter video.
  • 4 Ways to Use LinkedIn Video for Your Business (Social Media Examiner). Speaking of video, this article has some solid ideas on how you can use native LinkedIn video to engage with your audience.

Social Media Rundown: Facebook’s Stock Tanks; Trump Accuses Twitter of Shadow Banning Republicans; Tips on Using Hashtags in LinkedIn

Twitter mobile app in use.

With a 20 percent drop in its price, now might be a good time to buy some Facebook stock. That is, if you have the cash and the confidence that the company will bring in more ad revenue and churn out higher user growth in the future. Also in Facebook news, Watch Party is launched within Groups and the company tried to set up shop in China, but was subsequently turned down.

Donald Trump makes his first appearance in the Social Media Rundown as he created a bit of news this morning for accusing Twitter of ‘shadow banning’ Republicans on its platform. Meanwhile, Mueller is busy examining Trump’s tweets in wide-ranging obstruction inquiry.

Lastly, you’d think brands would quit starting fights with Wendy’s on Twitter. This time, it was Steak n’ Shake that poked the bear. Wendy’s remains undefeated in Twitter battles. Read the full back and forth in this Fox News piece.

Social Media News:

  • Facebook ‘Puts Privacy First’ and Stock Plunges 20% (CNN). Wall Street’s sharp reaction followed an earnings report that showed slower than expected growth in user numbers and ad revenue. Facebook CFO David Wehner said sales growth may decline as the company prioritizes new formats like Stories and offers users “more choice around privacy.”
  • Facebook ‘Watch Party’ Is Now Available Worldwide (Mashable). Facebook has officially launched ‘Watch Party,’ a feature that lets people in Facebook Groups watch live or pre-recorded videos together (and chat) in real time. For now, a Watch Party can only be launched inside of a Facebook Group. I can’t imagine this ever being a success. But who knows.
  • The Story behind Trump’s Claim That Twitter Is Shadow-Banning Conservatives (Slate). “Shadow banning” refers to social media companies’ practice of making users’ posts visible only to themselves, without banning them outright from the platform. A story in Vice said that “Twitter’s new strategy to make trolls less visible was accidentally ensnaring some Republican politicians, making it harder to find them in the search bar by not autofilling their account names.” Twitter has corrected the problem, and it’s worth noting the issue was technically not a shadow ban in the first place.

Learn:

  • How to Maximize Your Exposure with LinkedIn Hashtags (Social Media Examiner). LinkedIn recently added a ‘Your Communities’ box to your home page that’s full of hashtags you’re following (both suggested hashtags and those you select). LinkedIn has also put more emphasis in hashtags in other ways so this is a good time to think about how best to leverage hashtags to get your content seen.
  • Organic Reach Is in Decline — Here’s What You Can Do about It (Hootsuite Blog). As this blog post suggests, organic reach is likely declining on other social networking sites as well, not just on Facebook. This means social media posts aren’t reaching as many people as before. This post has some ideas on how to deal with the decline in organic reach.

One more thing; because this tweet is the funniest thing you’ll see all week. ‘What pigeons do for fun’ is what keeps Twitter running.

Social Media Rundown: Reddit Chat Rooms; Instagram Reactions; Prime Day Fail

Not too much earth-shattering news in the greater world of social media this week, but there are some interesting new features rolling out on various platforms you should know about; including a chat room throwback from Reddit and some spiffy new features from LinkedIn. If that’s not enough, there were plenty of entertaining tweets during the Amazon Prime Day fail.

I was hoping to find an article about how terribly the Amazon Prime Day fail was handled by Amazon’s social media and customer service teams. Amazon’s main Twitter handle chose to ignore the situation until more than two hours after complaints were rolling in about the website being down. Even @AmazonHelp was mostly ignoring customer complaints. It’s as if they had no contingency plan whatsoever.

Social Media News:

  • Reddit Reinvents the Chat Room with Community Chat (Wired). Reddit is adding chat rooms to facilitate more real-time, on-platform discussion around specific topics and events. Talk about a throwback.
  • Instagram’s Adding ‘Reactions’ Style Quick-Response Emojis to Instagram Stories (Social Media Today). Instagram is testing a new, Facebook Reactions style emoji response option for Instagram Stories, which would give Stories viewers another way to engage with posts.
  • New Features to Get More from Posting: Video Captions, Share Articles Quotes, and See Translations (LinkedIn Blog). LinkedIn keeps rolling out new features; slowly making the platform a little more exciting.
  • Amazon’s Website Crashed as Soon as Prime Day Began (The Verge). It was quite the entertaining show over on Twitter. However, it took Amazon two hours before finally acknowledging the issue. Meanwhile, Walmart and ShopRunner were quick to capitalize on the on Prime Day downtime fail by offering free 1-year memberships. Despite the website issues, employee strikes, and people around the world boycotting the company, Amazon still had its most successful Prime Day yet, raking in some $3.4 billion in sales.

Learn:

  • Facebook Ads: A Facebook Advertising Guide for Marketers (Social Media Examiner). If you’re interested in managing Facebook ads or would just like to know how it all works, this is a nice round-up of articles and resources to help beginner, intermediate, and advanced marketers use Facebook ads to promote a businesses, products, and services.
  • 3 Top Facebook Boost Myths Debunked (Hootsuite Blog). Contrary to what many assume, having a large Page following doesn’t really make a difference, more budget does not necessarily equal improved ad performance, and boosting every post is not the best strategy.

Any other social media news to add?

Social Media Rundown: Instagram Hits 1 Billion Users, Lunches IGTV; Facebook Subscription Groups; LinkedIn Kudos

The new IGTV from Instagram in use.
Brands and individual creators jumped right into IGTV.

Big news coming from Instagramland: Not only has the photo-sharing platform surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, but it also just announced IGTV. Despite the unspectacular name, IGTV puts Instagram in direct competition with YouTube and further establishes the mobile platform as the ultimate social media platform for creatives.

Looking beyond the major Instagram news, Facebook ponders ‘subscription groups’ and rolls out an initiative to combat the opioid crisis. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is rolling out a new ‘kudos’ feature.

Be sure to check out the Learn section for social media success tips from National Geographic and all you could possibly want to know about IGTV.

Social Media News:

  • With IGTV, Instagram Takes Aim at YouTube (Wired). On IGTV, long-form vertical videos can go as long as 10 minutes (in-feed videos are still limited to one minute). Some creators with large audiences can post up to 60 minutes of video — National Geographic, for example, used its first episode of “One Strange Rock” for its first video on IGTV, all 47 minutes of it. IGTV videos are all prerecorded, but live video could come later. By the way, the app now has more than 1 billion monthly active users. Read all about IGTV and its user growth in the official announcement on the Instagram info center.
  • Facebook Tests ‘Subscription Groups’ That Charge for Exclusive Content (TechCrunch). I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine ever paying to access a special Facebook sub-group — especially $30 bucks a month. But Facebook has apparently already started to letting Group admins charge $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to special sub-Groups full of exclusive posts.
  • Facebook to Redirect Users Searching for Opioids to Federal Crisis Help Line (STAT). Facebook users attempting to purchase opioids or seeking out addiction treatment will be instead redirected to info about a federal crisis help line.
  • LinkedIn Adds new ‘Kudos’ Feature to Acknowledge the Contributions of Connections (Social Media Today). Despite the negativity from the article’s author, this seems like a nice new feature for giving public praise to a colleague. LinkedIn Kudos is rolling out now globally in the LinkedIn iOS app, and coming soon to Android and desktop.

Learn:

  • The 4 Lessons Any Brand Can Learn from Nat Geo’s Social Media Success (Hootsuite). As it turns out, National Geographic is the largest non-celebrity brand on Instagram so they’re clearly doing something right. National Geographic’s social strategy is based on four core guiding principles: Stay true to your brand, go immediate (or live), harness the power of “wow,” and embrace new technology.
  • IGTV: The Ultimate Guide to Instagram’s New Video Platform (Later). This article from Later (the company that provides NEJM’s Instagram landing page) has the main points you need to know about IGTV. If you need to go deeper and enjoy a tidy list, Hootsuite has a nice roundup of the technical aspects and more.

What do you think of IGTV? Seen any good ‘shows’ yet?

Social Media Rundown: Social as a News Source Falls; Facebook Demands Consent for Email/Phone Ad Targeting; IHOP Pulls a Social Media Stunt

It’s been an exciting week in the world of social media, from IHOP flipping the ‘P’ in its name to a ‘B’ in the name of burgers to the harrowing trip of a brave little raccoon to the top of a 23-story building in St. Paul, Minn.

The MPRraccoon scales the 23-story UBS building.
The MPRraccoon was the hero no one expected.

Besides all that, there’s a new report out that says people are turning to social media — specifically Facebook — as a news source considerably less than in the past. Read on for more news in this week’s Rundown.

Social Media News:

  • After Years of Growth, the Use of Social Media for News Is Falling across the World (NiemanLab). People are turning away from Facebook for news. In the U.S., 39 percent of people said they used Facebook as a source of news in 2018, down 9 percentage points from 2017. But messaging apps are picking up the slack. This article is a nice breakdown of a new Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
  • Facebook Demands Advertisers Have Consent for Email/Phone-Based Targeting (TechCrunch). “Starting July 2nd, advertisers will have to declare whether contact info uploaded for ad targeting was collected with proper user consent by them, one of their partners or both. Users will be able to see this info if they opt to block future ads from that business. Facebook had always technically required consent, but it hadn’t previously done much to enforce those rules.”
  • Twitter Wants to Send You Personalized News Notifications (The Next Web). The mobile notifications will be personalized based on user interests. You know, just in case you’re not currently getting enough notifications on your phone.
  • LinkedIn Improves the Relevance of Its Feed with Hashtags (We Are Social Media). You can now personalize your LinkedIn feed with the hashtags you’re most interested in following. This small change should make hashtags more important to include in LinkedIn updates. Hopefully people — and brands — don’t go overboard.

Learn:

  • Internet Flips out after IHOP Turns the Letter ‘P’ to a ‘B’ for Burgers (ABC News). IHOP officially announced the limited-time name change Monday morning after teasing it on social media asking users to guess what they thought the name would “b”-come. IHOP’s peers were quick to poke fun at the stunt with perhaps the best zinger, of course, coming from Wendy’. As with any social media or PR stunt such as this, there are always lessons to be learned.
  • How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 8 Easy Steps (Hootsuite). This Hootsuite post takes you through an eight-step plan to create a social media strategy. From setting goals to running a social media audit, this is a pretty comprehensive blog post, but without being overwhelming.

What social media news caught your eye this week?

Social Media Rundown: Facebook to Launch Dating Service; LinkedIn Turns 15; Make Better Cover Photos

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook dating service.
Facebook announced its new dating service at its F8 conference. Photo via Mashable.

Despite the privacy concerns hanging over Facebook, the social networking company has announced its plan to launch a new dating service. But it won’t just be a hook-up site. No, no, this will be all about finding serious relationships. Meanwhile, its Instagram product just keeps getting better and is definitely drawing folks away from Snapchat (see below). And happy birthday, LinkedIn!

Don’t forget to check out the learn section for tips on creating a Facebook cover photo and how you can use lookalike audiences to better target your Facebook ads.

Social Media News:

  • Facebook to launch dating service as Zuckerberg takes aim at Tinder (The Telegraph). It was only a matter of time; Facebook has come full circle. You’ll soon be able to create a dating profile that is separate from your Facebook profile with potential matches recommended based on dating preferences, common interests, and mutual friends. The idea is already being ripped for catering to the older demographic.
  • Instagram debuts video chat, opens Stories up to developers (Mashable). Instagram seems to just keep rolling out more and more exciting features and beating Snapchat in its own game. Users will soon be able to share content from third-party apps directly to Stories. Plus, video chat, augmented-reality camera effects, and a redesigned Explore tab are all rolling out soon.
  • LinkedIn Turns 15 (LinkedIn Blog). Happy birthday, LinkedIn! View a ‘then and now’ infographic to see what’s changed in the past 15 years.

Learn:

  • How to Create Great Facebook Cover Photos: Sizes, Styles, Examples (Hootsuite Blog). The cover photo (or video) is the first thing people see when visiting a Facebook Page so it’s important to not only have an on-brand image, but to also change it up from time-to-time. This post gives you everything you need to know to create a new cover photo and some examples to get your creative juices flowing.
  • 3 Overlooked Facebook Lookalike Audiences That Will Improve Your Ad Results (Social Media Examiner). This post takes a thorough look at targeting people who spend time on your website, who spend money on your site, and people who’ve watched 75% of a video.

What big news did I miss this week? Please let me know.