Facebook continues its campaign to dethrone YouTube
Facebook is taking aim at Youtube and has set its phasers to kill. The social media leader
announced that video creators will now be able to restrict their audience by age and gender. The new "secret" mode is similar to YouTube's Unlisted function, and makes videos playable only to those with a direct link. Facebook videos accrue more than four billion views a day, and the platform aims to give advertisers more targeting options than others.
Old Spice lets you "choose your own adventure" on Instagram
On the heels of
Instagram's first interactive game, Rick and Morty, Old Spice has launched an amusing and addictive "
choose your own adventure" parody game. Clicking on the tags in each photo takes you to another newly created Instagram account that lets you continue the story. Clicking the wrong tag takes you to comical dead ends in line with the brand's spirit of self-awareness. The ending is intentionally anticlimactic, but no spoilers here.
Publishers are hiring Snapchat specialists
Some publishers are seeing enough potential upside to
Snapchat to hire teams of specialists to create content strategies on the platform. CNN, Daily Mail and National Geographic have already hired a handful of specialists and are looking to add more. Snapchat claims 100 million active daily users, and the 18-24 demographic (37 percent of total users) is an age group to which traditional publishers are looking to appeal.
Even as ad sales rise, Twitter still searching for magic bullet
While
Twitter reported higher-than-expected revenue during its second quarter, new (old) CEO Jack Dorsey remains dismayed at the pace of growth on the platform and has promised a full-scale "marketing blitz" to grow its user base. Twitter continues to lag behind other social competitors not only in growth but also innovation, and has turned to everything from Periscope to suggestions from
Kim Kardashian, to the release of
Project Lightning in the fall for the next big fix to get it over the hump.