It’s summertime, and while we’re all out working on our tans, Twitter and Facebook too have been perfecting their beach bods with some notable facelifts.
Twitter Dashboard: Baywatch Beautiful
Twitter Dashboard has single-handedly halved the number of tools you used to need to aggressively manage one or multiple twitter profiles, hashtags and analytics. Hootsuite and Keyhole might not be thrilled.
Among the greatest improvements are the ability to schedule tweets AND the ability to monitor hashtags or keywords, including your own handle or brand-specific tags. Or your competitors tags. Or #Rio2016, or #PokemonGO, or whatever you deem helpful for your business to keep tabs on (and if your ‘business’ is catching those Spokemon, more power to you).
Also of note is the new Gallery feature, wherein you can choose 5 media posts to pin to the top of your profile. Certainly something to take advantage of–after all, a picture = 1,000 words, and here Twitter is, letting your feature 5,000 words worth. That’s, like, 35 tweets worth. Get on that.
For more factoids on Twitter’s new features, check out the article here.
Facebook for Business: Call a Lifeguard
Essentially, last week Facebook played a big old game of tetris with its business pages. A little move here, a little twist there, and now the profile picture doesn’t overlap the cover photo, the page navigation is in the left column, the call to action button is bigger and more prominent, and there are no more ads.
Does it matter? Time will tell. The new design is certainly cleaner, and the navigation more consistent with a website. But without any new functionality, the change pales in significance to Twitter’s overhaul. Merely a tan, dwarfed by Twitter’s new 6 pack. Now, you’ll never believe what Facebook did to their News Feed algorithm. . . .
. . . they changed it. Again. This time, to ensure pages which rely on Click-Bait titles and links rank lower in News Feed priority. I was SHOCKED when I checked out this article from the New York Times. . . . I wasn’t, and you won’t be either, but it’s good info to have if your social strategy includes fishing with click bait.