Twitter and Google partner up, and Pinterest unleashes a blitz of new ad offerings that grab the eye—and marketing dollars. We'll also tell you about Facebook's possible plans to integrate WhatsApp into your marketing mix, and reveal which socnet CEOs favor. Skim to stay on top!

Pin yourself some cinema. Pinterest's named Tim Kendall its first-ever "general manager of monetization," and he's kicking off with a splash: Get a load of "Cinematic Pins" (shown below)! When users scroll, the Pin moves (GIF-like) at the same speed as the scroller. When scrolling stops, the movement stops too. And new targeting features let you address users by interest, life stage, and persona.

Finally, there's new pricing: "cost-per-engagement" means you pay when a user "signals intent" (repinning, clicking through to the site, or clicking on a pin to view it better). And "cost-per-action" focuses on when somebody actually makes a purchase.

Imagine what you can do with this array of new options, and remember that users come to Pinterest for three future-focused things: discovery, saving for later, and taking action (like clicking through and making a purchase). Lights, camera...

Smile! Your tweet's on Google. Google and Twitter have partnered up! When you run a Google search on your phone, you'll also see relevant tweets, served up in real time.

Those search results will be hugely beneficial for when you're running an on-the-go search for a given trend or hashtag (think #madmen): You'll see both Google search results and the latest on Twitter, meaning you can cut your research time in half.

Googling people will also bring up their latest tweets, provided they're using Twitter under their own names. The feature will roll out in weeks to come.

1. WhatsApp's got a future in lead-gen

Facebook's playing with the idea of enabling businesses to contact users through WhatsApp for a fee.

WhatsApp sports 800 million users, not far from the 1B level Mark Zuckerberg indicated would make it a meaningful business. And usership will grow: It's a popular alternative for people looking to avoid data charges for texts. Watch this space.

2. YouTube: Don't just entertain... teach!

Google reports there's a growing demand for how-to videos on YouTube: Many of its most popular channels are tutorial and how-to based.

The hungriest age group is Millennials: 67% agree they can find a YouTube video for anything they want to learn, and nearly 3 million have made a purchase after watching a tutorial. It's also great mobile bait: 91% of mobile users check YouTube for inspiration while working on projects.

So if you're looking for an authority-building and engagement opportunity, consider going into teaching (via YouTube, that is). While considering your options, here's a lesson on how to cut cherry tomatoes (9 million views and counting).

3. How do small businesses use social?

Nearly half (47%) of SMBs aren't social media-active, and 25% are unlikely to use social in the future, says research firm Clutch. Despite that, 38% of respondents expect to spend more employee time on social this year, and 30% expect an increase on social media ad spend this year, while 25% expect it to remain flat. Those stats and more in this action-packed infographic:

4. Jump straight to top tweets when searching

Twitter's rolling out a new search results interface that includes more images and enhanced filtering. Important tweets, images, and accounts related to your queries will be highlighted.

Toggle between "top" tweets from prominent accounts (or just most-retweeted tweets), and "live" tweets—giving you the real-time scoop. The advanced search option hasn't changed: It still lets you filter tweets by location, date range, and positive, negative, or interrogative tweets.

5. Spotify: The soundtrack to your life

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#SocialSkim: Tweets in Search Results, Cinematic Pins, 11 More Stories in This Week's Roundup

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Angela Natividad
Angela Natividad is a social media strategist, copywriter, and journalist based in Paris. A Bay Area native and lover of vending machine candies, she co-founded AdVerveBlog.com and is a frequent guest on marketing podcast The Beancast. You can follow her on Twitter at @luckthelady.