The social media world is always full of new updates.
What’s new for this week? Here’s a summary of the latest updates in your favourite applications.
Facebook is testing augmented reality ads in the News
The social media company announced Tuesday that it’s beginning to test augmented reality advertisements in its News Feed.
Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that overlays digital images onto real world objects.
Ty Ahmad-Taylor, vice president of product marketing for Facebook’s global marketing solutions, showed off ads that incorporated his face into Candy Crush gameplay footage, and other ads that allowed shoppers to see how virtual sunglasses and makeup would look on their own faces.
“People traditionally have to go into stores to do this,” Ahmad-Taylor said. “People still really love that experience, but they would like to try it at home” — so this “bridges the gap.”
These ads look like normal in-feed ads at first, but they include a “Tap to try it on” option, which opens up the AR capabilities. And of course, if you like the way it looks in AR, you can go ahead and buy the product.
Facebook says Michael Kors was the first brand to test out AR ads in the News Feed, with Sephora, NYX Professional Makeup, Bobbi Brown, Pottery Barn, Wayfair and King, planning their own tests for later this summer.
Instagram adds the questions sticker, a new way to poll your audience
In October, Instagram added a polling feature to its ephemeral stories. Today, the company is introducing a new twist on polling with the questions sticker, which lets your friends submit questions for you to answer in a subsequent story post.
The new feature can be found in the sticker drawer. Tap it, type out a prompt, and place it on your post. When friends see it, they can tap the sticker to send replies.
From there, you can tap the question to create a new story post. The question will be inserted into the story, and you can answer however you like. You’ll know who asked the question, but their username or photo won’t appear in the post unless you mention them.
Along with regular and ‘emoji slider’ polls, the tool could give brands, in particular, another way to gather feedback from their audience, with questions relating to new products, ideas and opinion.
By allowing open-ended questions within a Story, Instagram is aiming to create more engagement between users and is opening the door for brands and influencers to enable more public conversations with their followers.
The option adds to the growing list of Instagram Stories options, including Music Stickers, Shopping tags and @mention sharing among others.
Instagram’s moving fast to keep the momentum of Stories going – and with 400 million daily active users and rising, they are clearly doing something right.
Instagram hasn’t been shy about focusing on Stories — the CEO of parent company Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has already proclaimed that Stories are a focus for the future.
If you have not added Stories into your social media marketing strategy yet, question stickers could be a good starting point, offering a simple, low effort way to generate engagement. This feature won’t show the total responses to viewers, in case you’re worried about not generating a heap of initial interest.
Stay tuned to #SocialSpeak for more on the latest social media trends, and the inside scoop on what’s happening in 2018.
