Facebooks VR updates and LinkedIn geofilters

Social Media Essentials: 5 updates to inform your social media strategy

Welcome to this week’s edition of our Social Media Essentials, a summary of all the highlights in social media for marketers who want to stay ahead of the game on the key social media platforms.

It's been an interesting week for social media, it was the Oculus connect 4 VR conference, where some big announcements were made about the future of VR. Such as stand-alone headsets, VR replacements for your computer and 3D news feeds.

Brandwatch acquire Buzzsumo

Brandwatch has acquired BuzzSumo, the popular content marketing, and influencer identification platform. This merge will hopefully help take Buzzsumo to the next level and use Brandwatch's expertise and data to improve the overall performance of Buzzsumo.

Buzzsumo released this statement to their users:

'This development will enable us to enhance our products in a number of areas. However, there are several things that won't be changing. The BuzzSumo team are all staying and will be fully dedicated to the BuzzSumo business, our continued innovation and new features and there will be no change to your service, product plans or BuzzSumo contact points

LinkedIn tests geofilters

LinkedIn is testing a new geofilters that allow events and conference attendees to add location-based filters to videos created within the LinkedIn app. This feature is currently being tested with select events and is expected to become a self-serve option like on Snapchat.

Snapchat introduces context cards

Snapchat have introduced a new feature called context cards, which add contextual information to geotagged photos and images shared in public stories. These will help you find more information about any Snap shared by users. Providing key information on restaurant reviews, reservations, Uber and contact information.

Users will be able to swipe up on any snap that displays the word 'more' and see a interactive card with contextual information about the place which include TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Michelin, Goop, OpenTable, Uber, Lyft and more. Context cards will hopefully help Snapchats future effort by building a new way to bring in more revenue and add more value for its users.

Facebook is connecting its 2D social network with the VR version

This week we have seen Facebook announcing some exciting features to bridge together the traditional and virtual versions of Facebook. CEO, Mark Zuckerberg announced his company’s ambitious goal for VR growth, he wants to see 1 billion users using VR. With only a few million headsets being sold since the launch we are further away from this goal than we think.

Facebook firstly announced a few new features to improve Facebook Spaces, making it more accessible and fun for its users. Space's is a place where users can 'hangout' in VR as if they’re together in real life. It allows users to teleport around the globe, share photos and videos using virtual pop-up screens.

Techcrunch reported that Facebook will be going beyond 2D Facebook Live broadcasts, users will soon be able to share 360 Live videos from inside virtual reality. Facebook wants to make its Spaces VR hangout app more fun, so it’s adding new face masks you can wear and will now allow you to play games with friends.

The most popular announcement was the new news feed post format called 3D Posts. 3D posts are a new type of News Feed post where users can grab, spin and interact with a 3D object to look at it from all angles, similar to how a person would watch a 360-degree video.

September trends for all the Pinterest fans

Each month Pinterest release its trending topics to help users and brands identify trends early on. Pinterest tracks and monitors popular pins, tags, and uploads to find upcoming trends. If you work in retail, interiors, fashion or are looking for new content angles to engage your audience, check out Pinterest's blog as a starting point.

Do you use Buzzsumo currently? How do you feel about introducing 3D objects into your news feed? We would love to hear your opinions, so why not connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn and join us next week for another weekly roundup.

Contributer : Smart Insights