Social media changes in 2018 that bring exciting times for marketers
If you have been watching any of the social media platforms in the last few years, you probably know that these platforms have been facing a plethora of challenges. Most of these challenges are linked to content that has been found offensive by audiences, fake news, and other kinds of scandals that anyone who wants to monetize website would certainly want to avoid.
YouTube Responds
To deal with these challenges, in January 2018, YouTube introduced a raft of changes which took effect in February of 2018. Anyone who wants to use the channel’s monetization tools would also need to know that the channel changed the threshold for joining the YouTube Partner Program. All these changes are being put in place to ensure that the channel addresses the issues raised by viewers and also make sure that it doesn’t hemorrhage advertisers.
If you are already serious about using YouTube for purposes of web monetization, you will need to know that YouTube, since February, introduced a new process for the manual review for Google Preferred Channels. What this means is that advertisers are now able to, using a three-tier system, indicate their preferences with regards to where their brand will be placed.
In 2017, YouTube also introduced official artist channels with the aim of making it simpler for fans to local official videos, albums, live performances and other such content linked to their preferred artists, all from a single channel.
In January 2018, YouTube went further to simplify things and collect a particular artists’ subscribers and bring them all under the same official artist channel. What this means is that all subscribers will be collected and brought to the artist’s official channel with subscriptions to unofficial channels becoming inactive. This could only mean better traffic monetization for artists.
Streamlining of Messenger
Earlier in 2018, Facebook announced that it would be streamlining and simplifying messenger. The platform reported that these changes are driven by a need to enhance the platform’s ability to facilitate customer care and make the messaging experiences for all kinds of businesses and brands that want to take advantage of online monetization seriously even richer.
These changes will result in better real-time communication through tools and features where the emphasis is more on the visual features.
Facebook also announced that it would be testing the option of creating and sharing stories on the desktop. These stories would also be moved from being a sidebar right to the top of the newsfeed so that they become more prominent. In the past, users of this social network platform could only consume stories created on mobile devices.
The changes to stories are being introduced with the aim of attracting vloggers who prefer mostly the monologue style. These stories will be based on the use of the webcam where the producer of the story will use the webcam to tell their story. This is something you may want to watch out for in the future as it will only start with a few users having access to it.
GIF Stickers for Instagram
Instagram, also at the beginning of this year, announced that users would have the ability to add expressive and fun GIF stickers to any video or image in the stories they tell. These stickers, hundreds of thousands of them, made available by GIPHY, are available to users who want to make their images more fun. The feature is available for both Android and iOS.
Another exciting announcement that came from Instagram was that users would soon be able to upload videos and images of any size to their stories. The platform also announced that both videos and images can now be shown as portraits, square, or landscape. If there is any extra room on the sides of the image or video, it would be filled with a color gradient specifically selected to match the content you are sharing.
Exciting times for marketers
The changes described above are not the only ones you should look out for but what is clear is that the social media platforms are making it easier for both ordinary people and marketers to tell their stories better.
About the Author
Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.
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