Facebook to open live streaming to verified profiles
Facebook's "Mentions"
aren't just for celebrities anymore. "In the future, Mentions will be available to verified Profiles," the company confirmed, in response to requests from verified pages about when they'd get access to the exclusive app that houses
Facebook Live. Live lets broadcasters instantly start a live video stream on Facebook and users can then tune in and submit comments that appear on the screen. Facebook Live streams are permanently saved as a video, differentiating it from competitors like Meerkat (streams disappear instantly) and Periscope (streams can only be replayed for 24 hours).
Farewell, LOL
According to a
recent study conducted by Facebook, no one says "lol" anymore. When looking for expressions of laughter in a text sample, "haha" accounted for 51.4 percent, the laughter emoji claiming 33.1 percent, and "hehe" made up 13.1 percent. The once popular acronym only appeared in 1.9 percent of the text. The laughter emoji was used more frequently by younger users while "haha" and "hehe" leaned towards older individuals. Now enjoy this video of animals looking in the mirror and haha all day. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veEb8rg7SMg[/embed]
A new way to distribute video content on social media
Good news for video enthusiasts with little patience. Buffer has announced the launch of
Buffer Video which enables users to upload, share and schedule videos across all of their social networks. Users only need to upload the video once to share to any connected Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or LinkedIn account.
What happens when a brand's Twitter voice goes silent?
Over the past few years, the brand voices of Oscar de la Renta and DKNY on Twitter have been renowned in the fashion world for their uniqueness and creativity in a sea of sameness. But with the recent departure of SVP of Global Comms Erika Bearman (aka
@OscarPRGirl) from the former, and a “new creative direction” coming to the latter — as announced by DKNY super tweeter and SVP of Global Comms
Aliza Licht — it begs the question: is this the beginning of the end of the "
social media voice"? With visual platforms beginning to take over, this may be the case.
Long-winded tweeters, rejoice!
You can now DM with abandon, laughing in the face of character limits. Twitter has officially
dropped its 140-character limit for direct messages. This is just one more tweak to the social network in an effort to make it more appealing overall. The change puts it in line (but not in the same league) with the likes of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, all of which report larger user bases than Twitter.