Learn everything you need to about Facebook Signal (and how to get journalists interested in your content). We'll also talk about Facebook's 360° videos, how the Emmys did on social, Dropbox's new tools for teams, and Atlas, your new charts buddy. Skim for all the sauce!
How can Facebook Signal help brands?
Facebook's brand-new tool, Signal, is designed to help journalists discover what's trending, and bring up videos and posts from Facebook and Instagram for both storytelling and reporting. The content can be curated, then embedded into their own work. This makes the 'Book a juicier contender to Twitter, the preferred tool for tracking and sharing breaking news.
Steps for you to take: Find out who your local journalists are on Facebook, and make sure they know where to find your brand. Then consider the newsworthiness of your content: If it's moment-relevant and adds something significant to a local story, journalists can use it.
1. 360° videos come to Facebook
Just months after YouTube released the same ability! This is the first project Facebook created with Oculus since buying it. Expect to start seeing 360° vids in your feed, with a full rollout over the next few months.
To create them, a special set of cameras is used to record 360° of a scene simultaneously. The videos allow users to move their devices around to see any direction in the video. Try it at [this product page, and ask whether it's worth giving users a deeper, more immersive glimpse into your world:
360 Video on FacebookPosted by 360 Videos on Facebook on Tuesday, September 22, 2015
2. #Emmys: 14+ million Facebook interactions and 4.5+ million Twitter engagements
The Emmys marked the most popular TV event this past week. Other stats: 6.9 million Facebook users produced over 14 million interactions; on Twitter, 1.46 million mentions of #Emmys and #EmmyAwards drew 4.54 million engagements.
Viola Davis's win for lead actress in a drama was the most social moment (over 181,000 mentions and 227,000 engagements on Twitter, not to mention 66.2% positive conversation), and the top Emmy-lovin' state on social was California.
Check out the best Instagrams of the Emmys, and we'll leave you with Coca-Cola's epic recognition of Mad Men, which used a Coke ad to wrap up its gripping last season. This post, of course, appeared after Jon Hamm finally scored an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (after losing seven years in a row):
If there were a "Best Ending to a Drama," we all know who would win. Join us in raising a bottle to #MadMen. #Emmys pic.twitter.com/uAAboocupn
— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) September 21, 2015
3. Speaking of data...
Say hello to [Atlas] https://atlas.qz.com/ , a spankin' new Quartz property that lets you run searches for any charts you can think of. Think of it as your presentation-making buddy. Here's what we got when we ran a search for "Facebook" and "Millennials":
4. Dropbox launches new Teams option
The feature lets small teams organize files with less rigmarole. It will appear for both Basic and Pro users, making it SMB-accessible. The team option will appear on the left-hand menu of the online interface.
After you make one, pop all your necessary files into the shared folder. Each team member gets access—meaning you don't have to set up individual permissions every time you add someone new. Teams can also be subdivided into different groups by projects. The feature was developed after Dropbox learned that 60% of users use it primarily for work.
5. Ramp up for the holidays with Pinterest
Did you know that 47% of Pinners start holiday-buying before Thanksgiving (versus 39% of regular shoppers)? Or that 38 million users have already saved 92 million holiday pins (including 3 million ugly Christmas sweaters)? Prep for the social shopping season with this holiday infographic, and get your strategy on (pin)point.
6. Storytelling in a post-ad era, with examples from Nescafé and Buzzfeed
AdBlock got you down? Turn that frown around; Jack Simpson's summed up a Dmexco 2015 talk about storytelling, rich with insights about how you can captivate users. Step one to being a great storyteller: Find the personal tone of voice that weds you to customers and sounds like your brand, without weirding them out.
Step two: Look at how other platforms let you tell stories differently. To wit: to evolve with Millennials, Nescafé consolidated its global portfolio of websites... and packed it all onto Tumblr, where it's focused on building "rented relationships" with young people and opening up to user-generated content.