Back in late February, Facebook made one of its most major changes to post interaction ever by introducing reactions, This was, supposedly, to offer us a new way to engage with our favourite brands. And the five new reactions would also give social media teams a greater depth of analysis, allowing for some interesting insights into the way people engage with content.
But two and a half months on, new research from Quintly could have Facebook feeling both
and
Having analysed 130,000 Facebook posts they’ve come to the conclusion that a meagre 3% of engagements utilize the new reactions, with many users choosing the familiarity of likes, shares and comments to express their feelings instead.
Facebook reactions are still in their infancy, so it might be too early to draw any serious conclusions from this research. The initial excitement in the office quickly turned to apathy as the expected flood of loves, wows and hahas simply never appeared. Rome wasn’t built in a day though, and Facebook will be hoping that over time users become more accustomed to the new set up, and so should we.
Here at Lucre, we’re always striving to make our content even more engaging and Facebook reactions allows us to take a more detailed look at how users are responding to content, brands and campaigns. With this improved insight social posts can be tailored more specifically allowing us to create fantastic and engaging content.
So give a love and a haha once in a while, you’ll be thankful when it results in that dull and dreary content disappearing from your timeline.
Instagram has unveiled big changes to its logo, moving away from the highly recognisable polaroid-camera style icon in favour of a new, flatter and multi-coloured design. The app has also been tweaked, now sporting a black and white look, in a move Instagram’s head of design Ian Spalter says was made to reflect the aesthetics of its users. The brand’s other apps, Boomerang, Hyperlapse and Layout have all been given the same treatment.
The new look is undeniably more minimalistic and sleek; a big departure from the retro style Instagram was known for. In a world where sharing a picture of your smashed avocado on toast with your friends is no longer the sole purpose of the app, some changes were expected, but this complete image overhaul has come as a surprise to many.
There’s a few mixed opinions on the new look flying around the office so it’s safe to say the jury’s still out on this one. Instagram will be hoping, however, for a favourable reaction. No brand wants to emulate the Gap logo disaster…
Photograph: from unicode.org website
The tech and innovation sector has taken a step forward, according to reports in the Guardian and elsewhere; Google employees have proposed a new set of emojis designed to promote workplace gender equality.
These emojis would include female engineers, plumbers, farmers and chemists.The Google team presented the designs of 13 new emojis on Tuesday at the Unicode Consortium, a Silicon Valley not-for-profit group that runs an “emoji subcommittee” overseeing the creation of new emojis. (Who knew?)
Turns out there is a whole world dedicated to emojis and their creation. You can read the full proposal here, and it makes for fascinating reading. Here at Lucre Towers we’ve been going through Emojipedia and finding out if we’re right about the meaning of each emoji (the answer is yes, because we’re all about tech and innovation PR here).
Jeremy Burge, the founder of both the online resource Emojipedia and World Emoji Day (yep, that’s a thing and it’s on July 17 2016, so don’t miss it) was reported as saying: “It’s pretty clear that female-oriented professions are under-represented in emoji, and this approach is a clever way to address the issue now, rather than pushing it down the line.” We couldn’t agree more. And… about time.
It seems like only yesterday that Instagram introduced its full-blown ad business, but already the photo and video sharing app has announced another change to the service that will allow marketers to utilise 30-second clips as part of their ad campaigns.
Lifting the 15-second limit that consumers face when posting video content, the new video ads follow hot on the heels of the platform’s recent formatting update, and will be able to be posted in landscape mode. Commenting on the update, Instagram said that lifting the 15-second limit will “give ads a more cinematic feel.”
The move to introduce longer advertisements is thought have been made order to compete with other video-sharing networks such as YouTube. The overhaul will also allow brands to target specific groups of consumers with their clips, like they can on parent company, Facebook.
