Tuesday Newsday: #BrandBowl Winners, Instagram Scheduling and More Facebook Updates

February 6, 2018

by Virtucom Group Team

Touchdown on Twitter

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles were awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and your favorite commercials received accolades on Twitter. This year marked the first #BrandBowl, in which brands vied for the highest amount of Twitter activity during the game.

Using the hashtag #SB52, brands supplemented their commercials with interactive Twitter campaigns. In the end, only a few could stand victorious. Twitter announced Monday morning, February 5th, that the winners were:

  • #MVP: Pepsi. For its #FortheFans commercial and for the halftime show with Justin Timberlake, Pepsi had the highest percentage of all brand-related tweets.
  • #Blitz: Doritos & Mountain Dew. Featuring Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman, these two brands collaborated for a single epic commercial that drove the highest velocity of tweets per minute.
  • #QuarterBack: Jurassic World trailer. The new trailer was retweeted more times than any other tweet during #SB52.
  • #Interception: Ally Bank. This award went to the brand that didn’t have a national TV spot, but still managed to spark a high percentage of brand conversation during the game.

Prizes included custom trophies, use of a custom emoji for 90 days and an insider’s marketing survey.

Twitter also had some honorable mentions per brand category:

Image shows all the #BrandBowl category winners

Google Set to Improve Featured Snippets

On January 30th, Google announced improvements are coming to the way featured snippets work. This update comes after they received criticism for featuring incorrect and biased information. Examples cited include claiming that women are evil and that former U.S. President Barack Obama was planning a coup.

Despite the 97.4% accuracy rating, users found that featured snippets don’t always respond accurately to their queries. The provided answer may be related, but not quite right, or it may show a biased answer based on how the question itself was framed.

To compensate for these errors, Google has made featured snippets more interactive by introducing selection options and showing several different snippets in hopes that one will be able to answer the user’s question correctly.  In addition, the Search Quality Rater Guidelines were improved to help raters differentiate between low-quality and high-quality web pages.

Screenshot of the featured snippet for the query, what is a copywriting agency

In their announcement, Google also invited people to send feedback whenever they encounter a false featured snippet or a near-match. Because featured snippets are so useful to voice search and allow people to get answers much more quickly, Google plans to continue making improvements.

Facebook to Make More Changes that Favor Community and Local News

Look out, there’s more Facebook change headed your way. In a January 29th statement by Alex Hardiman, Head of News Product, and Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships, Facebook says they won’t just be prioritizing friends and family, but also local news now.

They write, “Today, we’re updating News Feed to also prioritize local news so that you can see topics that have a direct impact on you and your community and discover what’s happening in your local area.”

This change helps push small publishers with niche geographic audiences into the spotlight, while large, more generalized sources take a back seat. Facebook also says content with specific topics and arts and human-interest stories will benefit.

Map graphic

Instagram Scheduling Arrives

Social media managers around the world breathed a sigh of relief on January 30th. As part of Instagram’s shift from their current API to the Graph API, users now have access to scheduling features for the first time.

Real-time sharing has been the backbone of Instagram since it started, and now it looks like the platform is taking steps in a different direction. This change allows business profiles to plan, operate and monitor their feeds like they’ve been doing with Facebook and Twitter all along. But unlike the other social media platforms, Instagram scheduling is limited to third-party sites only – which is great for companies who use HootSuite or Sprout Social, but not necessarily so great for everyone else.

At this time, the feature is also limited to photo posts only. Nonetheless, it’s sure to make a significant impact on the way businesses can share content and engage with their audience on Instagram. And since people interact with brands on Instagram 10x more than Facebook, 54x more than Pinterest and 84x more than Twitter, according to Brandwatch, Instagram scheduling is bound to affect positive growth.

Calendar and pen

The Risky Business of Influencer Marketing

A report released by the AI company, GumGum, explores the dark side of working with influencers. Amidst the controversy surrounding YouTuber Logan Paul, this report offers relevant and timely advice for content marketers. From measuring risk to cleaning up PR catastrophes, GumGum helps quantify brand safety in this digital marketing world.

To summarize, the data shows that 75% of brands have dealt with at least one brand-unsafe exposure in the past year. Most companies perceive LinkedIn to be the safest promotion outlet and Facebook to the riskiest. These companies that have aligned themselves with risky influencers report receiving negative press, social media backlash, brand confusion and even loss of revenue as a result.

Having systems in place to prevent unsafe exposure can safeguard against costly consequences.  What will you do if the influencer you’re sponsoring comes under fire for vulgar, sexually explicit, violent or insensitive content? Because your brand is attached to this person, your own values can get called into question.

For this reason, brands are starting to shy away from working with big names and opt for micro-influencers instead. Although massive audiences garner more exposure, they can also cause massive disruption when something goes wrong.

A dark room with social media logos

Check back next week for more content marketing news.

Can’t wait for next week’s news? Here are some recent posts you might be interested in reading:

Content Bots Can Write 100 Articles For $100, But Are They Any Good?

5 Of The Worst Business Blog Mistakes Your Content Writers Are Making

Digital Marketer’s Guide To Unforgettable Content Marketing Campaigns

Stop Guessing About Content Marketing ROI: Know Your KPIs

Keep in touch with our team of expert writers, content editors and content development specialists on Instagram and Facebook, or learn more about us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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