The “stories” phenomenon is taking over the social media world. It all started with Snapchat, then Instagram took the idea and developed it in their own way making it a worldwide trend, and soon after that Facebook followed. However, surprisingly, Facebook stories did not take off as much as everyone expected, and they are planning on doing something about it. 

150 million Facebook users engage with stories daily compared to 400 million users on Instagram stories. Even though stories appear at the top of the page, most Facebook users, myself included, seem to ignore them and just go on scrolling through their newsfeed. This might be due to the fact that there’s a lot to see on the newsfeed including images, videos, shared articles, and statuses, that people don’t have the time or energy to go through any additional content. And since Facebook is recognized as a network where people share links about topics that interest them and start conversations about different matters, then the new update will benefit such users as well as benefit from it.

Ready for the update? 

Drumroll please: Facebook is now testing links on stories! So, instead of users sharing their articles and interesting topics on their personal Facebook profiles, they can now simply introduce the topic on their stories and copy paste the relevant link on the bottom of the story. This can help declutter the newsfeed that is full of unrelated topics shared by millions of users, whereby users can selectively choose whose stories to view depending on their preferences and engage with them. Also, research shows that stories are becoming so famous that they might even trump the newsfeeds as the main source of information. So, this might help Facebook catch up with the rapid spread of the trend.

In addition to users benefiting from this update for their own personal preferences and enjoyment, brands can also utilize it to their advantage.

 As Mindshare experts, we believe that this addition will help our clients reach more and more people on Facebook. The platform never disappointed when it came to helping our clients gain exposure and engagement through the app, and this will further help magnify such results by reaching its fullest potential that it wasn’t able to do when Facebook stories first launched. This will give our clients another space to redirect users to their accounts and drive action and engagement.

Brands can now use stories to redirect potential customers to their shop where they will be able to purchase a specific product simply by clicking the link in the story. Also, brands can use links on Facebook stories to transfer users to their personal website where they can learn more about the brand and the products it has or the services it offers. I believe that this update is the right move for Facebook after their not-so-successful Story launch, as well as helpful for users that have strong opinions they would like to share, and finally and most importantly for brands to increase exposure.

 Tamara Jamil

Social Media Intern

YouTube has been very active this year, by activating a set of cool and groundbreaking updates that will shape many aspects on Social Media. So, after announcing new features such as YouTube Music, new VR supported video technology and many more, the top leading video streaming website has announced on September 3, 2018 that they will be activating a new feature which will help NGOs and YouTube creators to contribute more for charitable causes, by adding a “donate” button under their videos, in which will facilitate fundraising and fan donation processes.

The above figure shows how effective the donation process will be; the user can simply press the “Donate” button after watching the video, choose a certain amount, and voila! A donation is served! And to make it even better, YouTube has made it clear that no transactions will be made from the donated amount, which allows 100% of the donations to be transferred to the targeted organization.

Moreover, this update will help all organizations to raise more money by making their own videos or by collaborating with YouTube stars like PewDiePie, Zoella, The Vlog Brothers (aka the Greens), and Trevor Oakley who’ve been very generous to the community during the past three years, after they spread awareness on many social causes, and by promoting many fundraising campaigns for organizations such as BETA, Save the Children, and St. Jude’s Children Cancer Center.

On another topic, the incredible donate button will facilitate the job of popular fundraising companies like Patreon and Kickstarter who tend to support educative and informative channels similar to “In a Nutshell – Kurzgesagt” (Figure 2) and “The Infographic Show”.

On the other hand, YouTube made sure to validate this update for non-profit organizations in the meantime, thus global brands and corporates cannot include their CSR campaigns in this activity. Henceforth, as Mindshare experts, we will be focusing on our non-profit clients – such as Adyan Foundation - who aim to spread their causes and messages throughout all social media platforms, and this button will help them accelerate the fundraising procedure and to maximize users’ support.

Share with us your thoughts on this update. Does it have any disadvantages?

Sources:

TechCrunch: https://bit.ly/2C4DAKf

Social Media Today: https://tcrn.ch/2oSDBYb

UK Fundraising: https://bit.ly/2x0GUAt  

Octoly: https://bit.ly/2QihdUB

Insta-addicts, this one’s for you! I think we can all admit that we suffer from addiction, in the form of endlessly refreshing our Instagram feeds and the never-ending loop of stalking random users that you simply have no interest in stalking. And now that Instagram has become one of the leading social media platforms to exist, the amount of content shared on it daily is mind-blowing. So, for people like me, and you, and everyone that make sure they’re “all caught up”, this comes at a price- real life!

It all began after Instagram introduced the algorithmic feed, which made content discovery complicated and time-consuming. And with the endless content being generated, people were no longer enjoying their feed with posts that interest them, but instead scrolling through irrelevant posts in search of ones they actually care about. This is why Instagram is experimenting with a new content-discovery process that will make it easier for users to find the content they are interested in.  So, after viewing everything on your feed, you will get a “Recommended For You” memo and if you scroll down you will discover new recommendations that Instagram has grouped for you based on posts you like and accounts you follow. Recommended posts will launch in the coming days for everyone and the update is open for user input and feedback.

With Instagram’s endless updates, it’s hard to keep up, but I believe this update will serve us both- the platform itself as well as the users. Since people want to keep up with everything going on in the world around them, but also don’t want to waste time passively viewing things they are not interested in, this update is just what they need and what will make their Instagram experience productive. As Mindshare experts, we believe that this update is just what everyone needs to enjoy a fruitful “stay” on the platform. This update complements the previous update very well. The previous “All Caught Up” update that was launched last month, assured users in a way that they have viewed everything on their feed. This update will give users something extra after they’re done with the posts of the people they follow; it guides them to visit new accounts that are relevant to them. We believe that our clients will benefit from this update as it would invite new users to our client’s accounts that are similar to other accounts they follow. This would help users discover our client’s account without paid promotions but simply by following other accounts that share similar content. Also, since many users have grown fed up with having to actively search for posts they are interested in, most do not scroll down anymore but simply search for the accounts they want to see. This would help in maintaining existing active followers, as well as inviting new ones.

Instagram strikes once again, with new and successful updates that make our lives easier.

The newest addition to Instagram is that people now are able to respond quickly to stories via Reactions!

Just like the way people react to live stories, now you will be able to react to normal stories too.

This could save time, and allow users to be swift and fast in giving their feedback.

How will it be displayed?

This tool will be shown next to one’s name in the “People who saw your story” part.

As Mindshare experts we believe that this update is awesome for brands especially. It will give them new ways to measure what people are feeling about their stories. If they’re happy, interested, angry, bored or any other sentiment they are having. This could make it much easier for the brands to comprehend their audience and upload content according to what analysis and input they’re getting.

Finally, this feature is still in testing face and it is not available in any specific country. Instagram is testing it with a mass of people to see if they should release this update to everyone or not. We hope they do :) 

Kaya Hatem 

Graphic Designer 

Google’s YouTube has been outstandingly active in the past few months, by adding many features including the groundbreaking YouTube Music that raised the standards for music streaming companies. And right now, YouTube is planning to invade the all-new popular virtual reality section right after 12.4 million VR headsets have been sold in 2018, and new users are enjoying the VR experience.

Figure 1 Reference: youtube.com/crashcourse

Since videos are the most popular and engaging post format on social media, we believe that VR videos will become a popular trend soon, and YouTube is certainly aware of that. This will create an opportunity for all brands and active vloggers to create interactive VR videos on YouTube to increase engagement and leverage the user experience to a whole new level. Above in figure 1 is an example on YouTube’s new VR videos, which was created by the awesome Crash Course team, who took their audience on a trip around the solar system.

It won’t be an easy step for brands to start using VR for promotional purposes since it has high production costs, but the fact that VR users are increasing in numbers day after day and since VR devices have become cheaper and easier to use; we have become certain that this technology will turn into a dominant element in the future, and brands will adopt it for promotional purposes.

For example, Car brands can benefit from VR videos to promote their driving experience, highlight the interior of their cars, and so much more! So, we can imagine Volvo sharing a VR video that focuses on the driving experience of the new S60 car.

In addition, we can use those videos in a gym such as Body Masters that has lots of branches, and by using them we can offer the customer a chance to wander inside each branch and discover its services. Therefore, as social media experts, we are considering putting this feature in our future video plans.

 Sources:

Social Media Today: https://bit.ly/2LrmWJ1

Mohamad Komayha

Social Media Executive

We are all familiar with the Explore tab on Instagram that allows us to see various posts from different users we follow or some that we don’t.

Instagram is changing how this tab looks by trying to make it more relatable and personalized to the users.

Soon, the Explore tab will include tabs on the top that are called “topic channels” which will contain topics that the user is interested in, for example, “photography, pets, movies, art…”

These topics will be replacing the row of Stories we can see at the top, although some might pop up when one chooses a certain category.

The layout will be somehow like Pinterest’s Guided Search, where the common and most search trends tend to pop up on ones homepage.

Hashtags one uses on the posts that are being uploaded reveal under which category the post that is being shared will be located.

As Mindshare experts, we believe that brands will benefit from this new update if they actually know a way around it or how to use it properly.

Brands will be able to know the hashtags that are trending and what people are using more frequently in a given time frame. Thus working on their strategies with more details and precision.

Since it is quite known that hashtags are becoming less effective when it comes to reach and engagement, it is very important to be familiar with the way brands should communicate and choose their hashtags.

Finally, experimentation is needed to be able to master this new update and how to benefit from it to the peak.

 Kaya Hatem 

Graphic Designer