CHANGE - FCC Plan for Net Neutrality

The FCC is expected to vote on the 'net neutrality' rules on December 14th. 

These rules presently require ISPs (internet providers) to treat all web traffic the same. Among the concerns arising from an FCC vote to repeal the regulation are these:

• Higher consumer costs
• Reduced consumer access to content services
• A playing field no longer level for consumers or content providers
• Elimination of competitive services
• Censorship of some content

The situation is expected to unleash a wave of lobbying. Opponents of the plan are expected to be Consumer Associations, content services like Netflix and social media giants Twitter, Google, Instagram and Facebook (TGIF). Supporters are expected to include large network providers, especially those who also own content services like Comcast and AT&T.

“Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet,” FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai said in a statement last week. “Instead, the FCC would simply require internet service providers to be transparent about their practices.”

 CBC News covered this story and its implications very well and includes several of the interviews carried on the national radio network.

DIGITAL - Instagram Reaches 700 Million Monthly Users

After six-plus years many social media apps become a bit stagnant and growth slows.

Not so for Instagram who announced yesterday they now have 700 million monthly users.

It’s the quick bump in growth that is so impressive - the latest 100 million users signed up in just four months.

This announcement was right on the heels of a blog post which noted over 200 million people use Instagram Stories every day.

To put the growth of Instagram Stories into perspective - the feature was just launched last August, while Snapchat launched five years ago and has 161 million daily users.

Instagram is expanding on its international presence and sticking with its foundation as a visual communication medium.

According to TechCrunch here’s how long it took Instagram to add each 100 million users:

• October 6, 2010 – Launch
• February 26, 2013 – 100 million;  28 months
• March 25, 2014 – 200 million; 13 months
• December 10, 2014 – 300 million; 9 months
• September 22, 2015 – 400 million; 9 months
• June 21, 2016 – 500 million; 9 months
• December 15, 2016 – 600 million; 6 months
• April 26, 2017 – 700 million; 4 months

“Growth was driven by a number of factors, including our ability to better connect people with their friends on Instagram,” said a spokesperson. “We also took steps to simplify and improve our sign-up process, which helped bring in new people from all over the world.”

Instagram is now more than twice the size of Twitter.

DIGITAL - 10 Ways to Grow an Organic Instagram Presence

Instagram offers businesses the opportunity to reach new users without buying ads.

 

With that opportunity, and over 500,000 active monthly users, it’s not surprising experts are predicting that over 70% of brands will be using the platform in 2017.

Sue B. Zimmerman, a featured speaker and recognized Instagram expert, provided Social Media Examiner with 10 Ways to Grow an Organic Instagram Presence.

While you may be aware of the importance of posting consistently, responding to everyone who engages with your posts, and leaving thoughtful - not generic - comments, Zimmerman’s professional tips go a step farther.

Cross-promote to gain followers

If you have a blog or are on Twitter, Facebook, or Snapchat, you’ll want to broadcast and amplify the fact that you’re also on Instagram.

Add emojis to boost discoverability

Instagram reports that nearly 50% of all captions and comments on Instagram now have an emoji or two.

Use audience preferences to inform your content strategy

It’s important to go back through your photos periodically to see which posts got the most likes and comments. This helps you serve up more of what your followers are interested in and weed out the types of posts that don’t perform well.

Create quote graphics to reach new users through shares

Sharing quotes in images on Instagram isn’t an unheard-of tactic, but it’s important to post only high-quality pictures and take time to select quotes that are relevant and meaningful to your target audience.

Offer “share for shares” to boost exposure

You offer to share an account or a product post that’s relevant to your own brand and your partner agrees to do the same for you.

Go into the detail of these Instagram tips and five more - read the entire article.

DIGITAL - Instagram Advertising is Growing, Take Advantage

Engagement with brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

So it’s not surprising Instagram is becoming a key player in online advertising.

To help companies create effective ads, AdRoll has created The Performance Advertiser’s Guide to Instagram.

The free download includes:

• Guidelines for Instagram ad formats
• 17 Essential tips for Instagram advertising success
• How to track the performance of your campaigns
• How other companies have used Instagram to grow their business.

Social Media Examiner’s podcast - Instagram Ads: What Marketers Need to Know - goes into detail about Instagram ad features and tips.

Guest Jenn Herman, a social media consultant and Instagram expert, also discusses the differences between Facebook and Instagram ads and how to run successful ad campaigns.

Instagram is a great medium to target Millennials - with over 90 percent of users younger than 35 years old.

The social media channel has shown massive growth over the past years - from 30 million users when it was purchased by Facebook in 2012, to over 500 million users today.

Instagram’s global mobile ad revenue is predicted to reach $2.81 billion in 2017.

DIGITAL - Instagram Demographics for Marketers

When planning a social media strategy, it’s important to know your audience.

Who is using Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram? Demographics will help you determine the type of campaign best for each social media channel.

Instagram is growing at a fast and steady pace and has surpassed 500 million active users - that’s a huge potential audience for your organization.

So, who are these users?

Gender

Pew Research Centre’s report on social media users in the U.S. showed that 31 percent of women and 24 percent of men regularly use Instagram to like, share, and post.

Among teenagers ages 13 to 17 years-old,  23 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys use Instagram.

If your target audience is of the female persuasion, Instagram may be the vehicle for you.

Age

According to the Pew study, 55 percent of all adults in the U.S. using Instagram are between 18 and 29 years-old. The next largest Instagram age demographic is 30 to 49 years-old at 28 percent usage followed by 50 to 64 year-olds at 11 percent.

Instagram is a key channel for engaging young adults.

Location

A well-targeted Instagram marketing campaign will appeal to city-dwellers on the go with 32 percent of users living in urban areas.

You can find 28 percent of users in the suburbs, and 18 percent reside in the country.

Income

Instagram is used by almost all income brackets.

• 26 percent of adult Instagram users make less than $30,000 per year
• 27 percent bring in $30,000 to $49,999
• 30 percent earn between $50,000 and $74,999
• 26 percent make over $75,000 per year.

Instagram is going to continue to grow and evolve, but for now you can assume that if you want to target female, urban dwelling millennials, this digital channel is a good choice.

DIGITAL - Complete Guide to Instagram Advertising

Instagram is fast becoming a top platform for advertising with users two and half times more likely to click on ads than other social media channels.

As of last week, monthly active users jumped up to 500 million with 300 million active every day.

With this massive potential audience in mind, businesses are looking for ways to create meaningful, quality experiences through Instagram's ad solutions.

To help businesses succeed, HubSpot teamed up with Iconosquare to bring you The Essential Guide to Instagram Advertising.

The guide includes:

• Integrating Instagram ads into your current advertising strategy
• Setting clear campaign objectives focused on improving your business
• Creating an optimized Instagram ad with our step by step guide
• Monitoring performance metrics and moderating engagement with your Ads
• Insights and takeaways from exclusive experimentation
• Bonus: Cheat sheet “The Perfect Instagram Ad.”

Start your Instagram advertising campaign - Download your free ebook.

DIGITAL - Simplifying Social Media Algorithms

While ‘simple algorithms’ is something of an oxymoron, it’s a beneficial weapon in the toolbox to have an idea of how the dynamic algorithms for some of the most popular social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – have evolved.

Al-go-rithm

‘A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer’ – Wikipedia

Facebook

Of the three most popular social media sites, Facebook uses the most complicated algorithm system, having evolved considerably since the advent of the ‘Like’ feature in 2007.

The algorithm, which accounts for hundreds of variables including who posted/type of content/level of interaction with the post/recency of post, then calculates a single digit relevancy score for each post; these posts are then classified in order of relevancy, which determines how they appear in each person’s news feed.

These relevancy scores are also given to advertisements, based on positive and negative feedback.

The News Feed algorithm was changed in 2015 to also be able to give more control to the users themselves; prior to this, Facebook would analyze what users wanted to use through a calculation of feedback, but now the ‘See First’ option (under the News Feed Preferences tab) is a further tool for customization by users.

Other tweaks made last year include the analysis of how much time the user spends on a post, including video engagement; analysis of video engagement includes enabling audio and high-definition and enlarging the video to full screen.

Twitter

A notable change made to Twitter algorithms in 2015 is the ‘While you were Away’ feature, determined by user engagement.

Just a few months ago, the ‘Show me the Best Tweets First’ feature was added, which changes timeline content based on relevancy, rather than chronology. While there is no limit to ‘best tweets’, the average is around a dozen, according to Wired magazine.

To remove the ‘best tweets’ option manually, users can constantly manually refresh their feeds or can change their settings under their ‘Profile’ tab (‘Account’- ‘Content’ – ‘Timeline’ – ‘Show Me The Best Tweets’).

Many Twitter users have expressed concerns that Twitter’s algorithm changes will move the platform away from its ‘live stream’ or ‘real time’ feed to a fully algorithmic stream (like Facebook) but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said they ‘will continue to make Twitter feel more, not less, live’.

Instagram

Acquired by Facebook in 2012, it wasn’t until 2014 that Facebook began to make changes to the ‘Explore’ tab to display tailored posts. Just this spring, Instagram announced on their official blog, "To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most”.

Optimizing order will apparently be the first order of business, based on four factors – the number of likes and comments on a post; the relationship with the viewer and the user posting; timeliness of the post; and what shares are between the users. Instagram has yet to announce when these changes will roll out.

It all comes down to one basic premise – filtering out poor quality and irrelevant posts and highlighting current, attractive, newsworthy or visually appealing posts.

The essence of social media is relevant, up-to-the-minute posting and constant sharing and linking to other such materials.

The dynamic nature of social media is, in a word, limitless.

By Lindsay Seewalt

Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.

DIGITAL - Instagram Announces New Business Tools

With more businesses using Instagram, the company saw a demand for tools to make the platform more effective for businesses.

After surveying users about business needs, they announced new Instagram Business Tools that will be rolled out in 2016.

Business Profiles

With a business profile, companies can choose how they want their customers to get in touch with them: call, text or email with a tap of the contact button as well as get directions. Business profiles also unlock access to insights and the ability to promote.

Insights

Insights give businesses demographic and behaviour information about who their followers are and which posts resonate better than others - all from within the mobile app.

Promote

A business can turn well-performing posts into ads right within the app—helping to connect with even more customers. Simply pick a post already shared on Instagram and add a button encouraging people to take action. Options include selecting a target audience or allowing Instagram to suggest targeting, and choosing the length of time for the promotion.

Business profiles, insights and the ability to promote will be rolling out in the US, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months, and will be available in all regions globally by the end of the year.

DIGITAL - Top Social Media Sites that Matter to Marketers

Narrowing down which social media sites are the most important for your organization can be a big challenge. With new ones popping up and the feeling you shouldn’t ‘miss out’ on any of them, it can be overwhelming.

Luckily, Hootsuite has compiled the key demographics for the core group of platforms that are crucial to consider for your social media strategy, allowing you to focus your budget of time and energy where it’s most effective.

They also include a list of companies that have used each platform successfully - giving real-life examples that can only help you create effective campaigns.

Did you know that YouTube reaches more 18 to 34 and 18 to 49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S and that besides being the second largest online search engine, it is also heavily used as a resource for how-to content?

The New York Times saw a 2.3 times increase in subscriptions through strategic use of Facebook - a platform that over 1 billion people use daily.

Twitter has over 80 million monthly users and 50 percent of users visit or shop at the website of a small or medium business they follow.

Instragram users are two and a half times more likely to click on ads than on other social media platforms. With 75 million daily users, that’s a lot of clicking.

Hootsuite’s post goes into more - very useful - detail about these platforms as well as Pinterest, Snapchat and LinkedIn.

Read the full article here.

DIGITAL - 24 Ways to Test Your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Content

If social media marketers don’t test the effectiveness of their posts, they won’t know what works, what doesn’t and what could work better.

Simply Measured has created a free guide with 24 social media tests specific to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

On Instragram you can measure the best time of day to post to your specific audience, if posts are more effective if a product is featured or no product, and tags versus followers.

With over 1.44 billion users worldwide, nearly one million of whom log in each day, Facebook has an unprecedented audience. The number of brands you have to compete with on Facebook is almost as staggering as the opportunity.

The guide includes Facebook tests to measure the effectiveness of custom calls to action, posts with offers as opposed to posts without, serious versus not serious, video views versus views to 95% and more.

If you want your Tweets to have more impact, test the time of day, frequency and number of posts and rate of decay.

Clear guidelines for every test keeps things simple and straightforward for marketers to use and improve their marketing strategy.

Download your free guide here.

DIGITAL - What's New on Facebook for Business

Facebook announced a new blog for business users.

Every month they will post information about new Facebook marketing products, and the resources and tips that help businesses understand the best ways to use them.

“We’ll round up all the announcements and resources that have been published in the last 30 days, making it easy for businesses to find the latest materials on Facebook marketing,” Facebook wrote in their announcement.

The first post includes all innovations since the beginning of 2016 and covers new products and features, new reference materials, new Blueprint elearning classes and upcoming webinars.

Because Facebook owns both, the blog also covers marketing tips and resources for Instagram, making it a hot-spot of up-to-date marketing information for two of the most popular digital media channels.

DIGITAL - Tips: Effective Posting on Popular Social Media Sites

Do you look at the different digital media networks and wonder what the difference is? Why a story or idea works on one and not the other?

You’re not alone. It can be challenging to figure out the different platforms.

Here are some tips for posting on the most popular digital media networks.

Timing is Everything

The best time to post on digital media depends on the platform, the region, the content of your post and your goals.

Hubspot recently created an infographic which includes best times for a variety of platforms. Use this as a guide, measure your own results and go from there.

Use Hashtags Wisely

It used to be the humble pound sign and now it’s a way to hone in on different topics online. Hashtags are used and can connect conversations on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and Tumblr.

Hashtags should be specific and cater to the social network you’re using. Before posting, plan the hashtags you want to use for your organization’s general posts and do the same for campaigns.

Facebook – Start a Conversation

Most Facebook users are chatting with friends or catching up on news, so it’s a great medium for telling stories and asking questions.

Posts on Facebook get more attention if they include a photo. Keep your photo in the 1200 x 630 pixel range.

Use Facebook insights to see which posts get the most engagement and make adjustments using this data.

Pinterest – Inspire and Educate

People on Pinterest want to buy a new product, learn a skill or find a new project, so informative posts are the most popular.

It is often used as an internet bookmarker – saving and storing links from all over the world in an easy-to-use, pretty platform.

Resize your photos to 600 x 1200 pixels and spread your posts out over time rather than uploading a lot at once.

LinkedIn – Professional Posts

Users approach LinkedIn with a work mind-set and it’s the place to share industry strategies and updates.

The tone of conversations should be like speaking with peers and potential clients. Unlike other digital media platforms, you can use industry terminology and it won’t be out of place.

Images boost engagement and work best if they are horizontal and about 646 x 200 pixels.

You don’t need to share or update every day because LinkedIn users don’t check in as often as other platforms.

Twitter – Up to the Minute Conversations

Twitter users are following news at a specific moment in time and want to talk about it.

Your space is limited to 140 characters and it’s a great platform to share news, updates and answer questions.

The use of hashtags began on Twitter in 2007 and is now the norm.

Adding images to your tweets can increase your retweets by about 150%. Horizontal 440 x 220 pixel images are best.

Instagram – Visual Perspective

Beauty, inspiration and entertainment are what Instagram users look for.

Images are number one, but the captions are also very important. It’s a great place for a call to action, a quote or a story about your photo.

Instagram images used to have to be square, but the platform recently gave the option for vertical and horizontal images. Don’t forget to add a logo or other branding element to insure you benefit from any ‘regramming.’

While it’s easiest to post the same information on every platform, it’s much more effective to customize posts for each. Start with the overall message along with a graphic, and make changes to fit – it’s worth the extra time and effort.

DIGITAL - Instagram Account Switching Great for Business

Using Instragram for business just got easier. Switching from a business to a personal, or another business account, on Instagram used to be a time consuming task, but starting this week you can switch between accounts without having to log in and out.

Whether you’re a small business managing your personal and business account or a brand manager managing multiple brand accounts, you can add up to five accounts with one login.

Adding this function will only help Instagram, a valuable digital media and marketing medium, grow even more.

To get started, go to your profile settings and scroll down to Add Account. On the following screen, type in the username and password of the account you’d like to add. Repeat this step for each additional account you want to add. From there, tap your username at the top of your profile to switch between accounts. Once you have multiple accounts added, you’ll see your profile photo appear in places throughout the app so you can always tell which one you’re using at the moment.

Visit the Instagram Help Page for more information.