16 Nov Social Images Get Magical | Social You Should Know
Social networks aren’t just letting photos sit on their pages, as both Facebook and Pinterest announced interesting new photo technology, in this week’s Social You Should Know.
Facebook’s New “Photo Magic” and Pinterest’s New Photo Search
It’s not enough for Facebook to offer to tag our friends in pictures we posted. Now Facebook Messenger is going to scan your camera roll for photos you haven’t uploaded yet, analyze who is in them, and then sometimes suggest you send them to that friend. Useful? Creepy? The feature is called Photo Magic and, so far, only our friends down under on Android can use it. Pinterest is great for photos and it’s turned into a great product search engine, so it’s potentially natural that you’ll now (as of this week) be able to zoom in on part of a photo on Pinterest and find images that look similar. Very useful, very slick, and a lot less creepy than Photo Magic.
Pinterest and Instagram Are Coming for Marketers’ Wallets
A new study out this week indicated that Pinterest advertising has grown 8x since January 2015, at least among clients of one particular advertising technology. Both the number of advertisers using Pinterest and the amount they’re spending are skyrocketing since new Pinterest products came out of beta. Not to be left out, Instagram announced a new partner program that connects 40 technologies through which you can buy more of their ads. It will be interesting to watch performance data on Instagram as ads proliferate. More to come.
Twitter Users Like “Likes” More than Favorites
Remember when all the social media folks lamented the loss of the star in favor of the heart? Twitter announced this week that existing users used the heart 6% more than they’d used the star, and new users were up 9%. With about 320 million monthly active users, that’s a lot more engagement. I was on a panel this week at PRSA International Conference, and one of my fellow panelists reminded the group, “We’re not the audience.” It’s a good reminder that social media insiders may not reflect the full community, even if we are power users.
Finally, if you’re planning 2016 social media strategies, don’t miss our webinar on Tuesday, November 17 at 1:00 Eastern on “Top 6 Social Media Trends for 2016” featuring myself and Social Fresh CEO Jason Keath. Register now.
