Obsessed with B2B marketing? You should be a PRO member! Join now at 25% off (or 50% off for teams).

This week is packed with portents for the year yet to come. Find out why brands might want to prioritize websites less (and social content discovery more), and get a first look at the ad tool Google's releasing to help brands market live to users across devices (just in time for the Super Bowl!).

We'll also reveal Foursquare's plans to go B2B, and we'll share a tool that's packed with 5,000 social-ready free images.

Skim to stay savvy!

Websites could be over... and it might be Facebook's fault.

Last year, Apple released iOS 9 with ad-blocking support. In the same year, Facebook introduced Instant Articles, meaning content could be hosted on—and read from—its platform without ever visiting a website. Publishers, such as Vox, are already publishing directly to Facebook, and others, including the Washington Post, have started posting 100% of its stories to the platform.

Over time, this trend would mean plummeting click-through rates and Web traffic, but it also provides new ways to discover brands, with social as the central point of contact.

This year, take a serious look at how your strategy can better accommodate this apparent shift. And if you feel uncomfortable placing all your bets on Facebook (as one should), consider how to hedge risk by cleverly incorporating Snapchat and Instagram into your content dissemination plans.

1. Facebook launches dedicated feature for sports fans

Just in time for Super Bowl 50. Facebook's "Sports Stadium", currently only available for iOS users in the US, empowers the site's 650 million sports fans to talk about games, stats, and even enjoy live play-by-play action. Think of it as a new spin on ESPN... with a much larger pool of fans.

2. WhatsApp changes pave the way to more customer-brand interactions

Facebook's other standalone mobile messaging application, WhatsApp, is knocking down its paywall. (Previously, users had to pay 99¢ per year after the first year of service.) And instead of introducing third-party ads to cover the lost revenue, WhatsApp is testing tools that let brands communicate directly with consumers.

Mimicking Facebook Messenger's efforts to incorporate services like Uber, WhatsApp plans to stimulate organic interactions between users and businesses to increase monetization opportunities once a critical mass of users is participating. Examples include contacting your bank to check recent transactions, or your airline to check the status of a flight.

3. Facebook's testing a new browser to ensure users never have to leave

The social giant's current "browser" is limited in functionality: It just loads the pages users want to read, and follows hyperlinks to external sites. The company's now testing a design that includes back and forward buttons, bookmarking capabilities, a status bar that tells you how popular a post is, and possibly even a URL bar where users can navigate elsewhere without ever leaving. Well, we always knew Big Brother would come in blue.

4. Google introduces a real-time, event-centric ad product

Dubbed "Real-Time Ads," the new format lets brands distribute ads in real-time on YouTube, across hundreds of thousands of Android apps, and on the two million-plus sites on Google's display network. The ad type will let brands interact with users instantly during live events—think Twitter, in an ad format!—to capture more engagement.

The tool will be available during the Super Bowl; brands Comcast and website-builder Wix pledging to use it already. (It'll be Oreo's Super Bowl Blackout coup every day!) But since brands can't always react as quickly as they'd like, Google admits that for the time being most ads are still pre-planned.

5. Foursquare changes leadership, shifting focus to B2B

Foursquare may have coined the concept of the "check-in," but in the last seven years it has struggled with how best to build on that model. Some years ago, it relegated location-based check-ins to a spin-off app called Swarm and transformed Foursquare itself into a review-based Yelp competitor.

With its latest leadership shift, the CEO is repositioning Foursquare to "[make] consumer experiences richer and [inform] business solutions," suggesting it will be more B2B-focused than it is today. Watch this space!

Enter your email address to continue reading

#SocialSkim: Will Social Kill Websites in 2016? Plus 13 More Stories in This Week's Roundup

Don't worry...it's free!

Already a member? Sign in now.

Sign in with your preferred account, below.

Did you like this article?
Know someone who would enjoy it too? Share with your friends, free of charge, no sign up required! Simply share this link, and they will get instant access…
  • Copy Link

  • Email

  • Twitter

  • Facebook

  • Pinterest

  • Linkedin


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.