June 2020 Social Media Updates You Need to Know

In this month’s social media roundup:

…and more!

Subscribe to get our curated list of the most important social media updates delivered straight to you each month!

Facebook and Instagram Launch "Shops"

FBShops.jpeg

Both Facebook and Instagram are rolling out a new eCommerce feature meant to help eligible businesses build an online store to take advantage of the extensive FB network.

The “Shop Builder” will be an extension of Facebook’s Page tools where admins can load product info. Plus, businesses with existing catalogs can connect straight to platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce. The shop will be free to set up, but according to Forbes, there will be a charge ($ amount TBD) for each transaction.

On the user side, it looks like it’s going to be easier than ever to make a purchase without needing to leave whichever platform you’re using, from the feeds of FB and IG, to DMs on Insta, WhatsApp or Messenger.

Learn more

For more information about shops visit Facebook for Business. To enable the feature on Instagram, check out the IG setup guide.

Note: The Shops feature is rolling out soon, and will not be available to everyone at first. Keep your eyes peeled for more info soon!

Your Retweet Count May Be Going Up!

retweets-with-comments.jpg

Starting on iOS, a Tweet’s retweet count will include both basic retweets AND retweets with comments. This update also means users will be able to see which is which in a new listing within the tweet detail. (See video in the embedded Tweet below.)

This is a welcome change, as previously any “RT with Comment” was counted as a unique Tweet. This made accurate engagement metrics impossible for many marketers.

This update also comes as Twitter has also been tweaking the feed interface for a cleaner threaded conversation display that includes “lines and indentations that make it clearer who is talking to whom and to fit more of the convo in one view.”

As The Verge beautifully said: we will need to wait to see how these updates stand up “to the unrelenting chaos of Twitter in the wild.”

New Ads Criteria Spotted on LinkedIn

 
linkedin-ads-targetting-update.png
 

LinkedIn ads have been improving over the years (especially after LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft in 2016). Improved targeting is one reason that more businesses are considering LinkedIn ads. These newest targeting features may be especially helpful to B2B brands:

  • Company Growth Rate - “Allows you to target companies by their rate of growth year over year, determined by factors such as employee or revenue growth.” (This is especially valuable because most advertising platforms do not have the employee numbers data that LinkedIn owns.)

  • Company Category - “Allows you to target companies by custom segments such as S&P 500.”

How could this be useful to you? AJ Wilcox, for Search Engine Land, offers a number of ideas such as excluding negative growth rate companies for ads pushing products likely to “exceed traditional budgets” or targeting the Fortune-500 with enterprise-only offers.

For more info on LinkedIn ads, download the Targeting on LinkedIn PDF.

How to use "View Collections" on Facebook

Have you ever wished you could save interesting Facebook posts or ads that come across your feed in order to reference later on? Well, Facebook has a built-in “Save Links” feature just for you! Similar to a Pinterest board, this feature is essentially a bookmark that places the post in a designated area of your account. You can even group your saved links into “Collections” similar to a Pinterest board.

 
 

Here’s how to save a link:

  • On the post you want to save, click the three-dot menu button.

  • Click “Save Link.”

  • Afterward, you can click “Add to a Collection” to further categorize the bookmark.

To find your Saved Links and/or Collections later on:

  • Desktop: Go to facebook.com/saved or click “Saved” on the left side of News Feed.

  • Mobile: Click the hamburger (three-line) menu, then click the “Saved” item.

We’ve found this to be especially helpful for brainstorming content with clients. When we come across ads in the feed, we’ll save them to a client collection for reference later on. Bonus: when you click ‘View Collection’, Facebook will also show you similar items to what you’ve saved.

Learn more in the Facebook Help center.

UncategorizedMatthew Dooley