What's what in the social sphere from the social media mavens at SCOUT.

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Contents
Instagram Stories
What’s Happening to Facebook?
• Facebook Pixel
• But I Don’t Even Have a Facebook Page!
• The New Facebook Algorithm
• Facebook Updates Offers
#Hashtagging
Millennials and E-commerce

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Instagram Stories

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Earlier this month, Instagram rolled out
Stories, which allows users to upload a
“story” that is visible only for 24 hours.
Sound familiar? *cough* Snapchat. *cough*

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While the similarities are plenty, there are a
few notable differences:
• Instagram Stories allows you to “rewind”
to play back things you may have missed.
• Instagram Stories lets you post sections of
your story as an Instagram post.
• Instagram Stories doesn’t show you who
screenshots your story, but Snapchat does.
• Geo-filters and facial-mapping are limited
to Snapchat.
• Instagram Stories gives you the ability to
save a story before posting, which would
allow for social media managers to get
approval of content prior to a post going
live.

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Click to read more
These results should prompt brands to
address their current content and customer
service strategy to determine if they are
meeting the needs of the most engaging
group on social media and, if not, how to
do so.
We think brands that have not joined
Snapchat will feel more comfortable
testing out Instagram Stories since they
already have an established audience on
the app. We also predict that brands will
begin by testing behind-the-scenes
content, influencer takeovers, and even
personalized video messages to followers.

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What’s Happening
to Facebook?

8. All the recent changes to Facebook
are enough to make any marketer’s
head spin!
The platform continues to evolve
almost as quickly as we can report on it.
Keep reading for the latest and
greatest from the social media giant!
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Facebook Pixel
Facebook knows that when it comes to
marketing, if you’re not tracking your
results, you’re wasting your time.
That’s why they introduced the Facebook
pixel earlier this year, which is a
combination of their previous Conversion
and Custom Audience pixels. A pixel in this
case is a tiny piece of code that's placed
on a web page; consumers can never see
it, but it allows marketers to gather relevant
information about their audience.

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Facebook Pixel
What exactly is the Facebook pixel? It’s a
pixel that “…allows you to place a single
pixel across your entire website to report
conversions, build audiences and get
rich insights about how people use
your website.”

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Facebook PixelFacebook Pixel
Now the Facebook pixel is getting even
smarter. Facebook has announced the release
of advanced matching in the pixel.
“This new feature of the Facebook pixel
enables advertisers to leverage their own
customer data such as email address, phone
number, and so on. By implementing this
feature, advertisers can report on more
conversions, optimize their ads against more
conversion data, and reach more people on
Facebook with their website custom audiences
or dynamic ads.” - Facebook

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Facebook PixelFacebook Pixel
Basically, there are 3 new features, enabling
advertisers to:
1. See how successful an ad is by seeing what
happened as a direct result of your ad.
2. Automatically bid for conversions after the
pixel is set up.
3. Remarket to everyone who visits your
website, or just people who visit specific
pages or take specific actions.

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Click to read more
Facebook PixelFacebook Pixel
This pixel already seems to be a huge win
for marketers. In beta testing, Facebook
observed an increase of over 10% in
attributed conversions and a 20% increase
in the reach of retargeting campaigns, per
their blog.
Marketers should update their old
Facebook pixel to this new version
immediately and start taking advantage of
all the benefits.

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But I Don’t Even Have a Facebook Page!
In June, Facebook announced that they
would allow advertisers to begin targeting
non-Facebook users in order to expand
their ad network.
“Today, we’re expanding Audience
Network so publishers and developers can
show better ads to everyone — including
those who don’t use or aren’t connected to
Facebook,” – Andrew Bosworth VP of
Advertising at Facebook.

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But I Don’t Even Have a Facebook Page!
By capitalizing on the data obtained from
1.7 billion users, Facebook hopes to
predict the behavior and interests of all
internet users. Facebook claims that not
only will this be of benefit to brands in
terms of advertising, but to users as well as
they will begin to have a more customized
and authentic user experience.
All of this is great news for advertisers, but
users are feeling a bit uneasy about Big
Brother watching them. Stay tuned.
Click to read more

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The New Facebook Algorithm
Brands are hitting the panic button over
the new Facebook algorithm update.
In cased you missed it, Facebook
announced in June that they would begin
giving priority to content posted by your
friends and family over posts from Pages*
and publishers.
The move means that the already declining
organic reach of Facebook will only
continue to diminish. So what should
brands do? Exactly what you should have
been doing from the beginning: creating
engaging content!
*Facebook Pages include local businesses or places, companies, organizations or institutions,
brands or products, artists, bands or public figures, entertainment,

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The New Facebook Algorithm
It’s now more important than ever that
Pages create and post informative,
engaging, shareable, and relevant content
for their audiences.
Now is the time to perform an extensive
analysis of your audience, as well as your
posts, to determine what content works
and what doesn’t. The more interactions
(likes, shares, comments) your post
receives, the more Facebook will reward
you by increasing your organic reach.

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The New Facebook Algorithm
But be prepared to pay to play. Even with
the most relevant content, it will only go
so far.
Also remember that Facebook favors posts
that are geared toward keeping your
audience on Facebook. Posts that are
geared toward driving traffic to your
website — and off of their platform —
generally do not perform as well. Facebook
is just like the rest of us, trying to maximize
time on site and minimize bounce rates.
Click to read more

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Facebook Updates Offers
Ever download a coupon and forget you
have it? There is nothing more frustrating
than having finished checking out in-store
or online and then remembering you had a
promo code for 30% off. Well, Facebook is
looking to end this.
Facebook recently updated its Offers
product by essentially creating a digital
coupon drawer. Facebook revamped Offers
with 2 things in mind: (1) making it easier
for businesses to create and share their
offers, and (2) making it easier for users to
claim and redeem offers.

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Facebook Updates Offers
Advertisers will be able to create ads from
their offers and target people most likely to
redeem them. Offers will also help people
keep track of what offers they already have
and which may be expiring soon.

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Facebook Updates Offers
Not only will the changes make coupons more
mobile friendly for users and more targeted for
advertisers, but they also will go a long way
toward solving the issue of shoppers abusing
coupons. Marketers can assign a code to each
coupon that limits how many times it can be
redeemed. This sort of control will drive the
cost down for brands and increase their
potential revenue from the offers.
While Facebook Offers has been around for
more than 4 years, it has not been widely
utilized. We predict that will change in the near
future. The updated product is a win for both
brands and users.
Click to read more

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#Hashtagging

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Hashtags are an essential part of social
media marketing. They are a way to
categorize, filter, and search content.
They can also be used to connect
content across platforms.

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The frequency of hashtag usage varies
per platform.
• Facebook: Hashtags are growing in
popularity and becoming more of a way to
search for applicable content than ever
before.
• Instagram: Where hashtags are used
the most! All Instagram posts should
include hashtags.
• Twitter: Twitter invented the hashtag.
They are very popular here, but brands
shouldn’t use more than 2 per tweet.
• Pinterest: While clickable, hashtags are
not searchable.

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As hashtag usage and strategy evolves, it is
important to identify how your brand will
use hashtags. Will it be only to participate
in trending conversations? To engage with
particular events? As a first comment or in
the copy? Will you use only branded
hashtags or only ones that are used
organically on the channel?
A quick search for hashtag tools will
uncover numerous options to help you
identify what hashtags will be a part of your
strategy and will give you a better idea as
to how to answer the questions above.

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One way to incorporate a hashtag strategy
is by identifying trending hashtags. On
Twitter, Instagram, and now Facebook, you
can see when a topic or hashtag is
trending. This could be an opportunity for
your brand to engage in that conversation
in a way that is authentic and organic to
the brand. However, be sure not to force a
connection that does not exist!

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Here are a few things to consider before
proposing a hashtag for a campaign:
1. Are others using the hashtag? If no
one else is using it, what purpose
does it serve? Leave it off unless
you’re creating a new conversation
and have a plan in place to promote
and support it.
2. Are you using the right hashtag? Pro
Tip: Always do a search of a hashtag
prior to including it in a campaign.
Even the most innocent of hashtags
may have connotations that you don’t
want your brand aligned with!

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3. Are you adding to the conversation?
Consider what benefit you are bringing
to the community.
4. Will your hashtag benefit you? Will
your account benefit from the
increased exposure to people
following the hashtag?
5. Is it relevant and on-brand? Don’t just
use a hashtag to be cool. Users will see
through it and react accordingly.
Let the #hashtagging commence!
Click to read more

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Millennials and
E-commerce

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A new GlobalWebIndex study provides more
information on the role of social
media in the purchase funnel. While social
platforms do not drive a high number of
direct orders, they still play a role in
e-commerce.

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According to the study, 40% of global
consumers ages 16-24 use social media to
research products before they buy. However,
the study also shows that social platforms do
not actually drive many direct orders.

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Some additional takeaways from the
report are:
• Facebook accounts for 50% of total social
referrers and 64% of total social revenue.
• Despite an audience 6.5 times smaller
than Twitter, Pinterest drives 16% of
social revenue.
• Instagram doesn’t drive significant sales
for retailers, but many companies are
leveraging the platform for brand
awareness initiatives.
Click to read more

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