Every week, updates are released, products are announced, or an event happens that could potentially affect your marketing strategy. Some things spell disaster while others scream opportunity. So each week, I’m going to provide you with some updates from the news that could affect your marketing strategy, for either better or worse. So checkout this week’s weekly marketing roundup.
Instagram is now allowing everyone to post 60 second videos
Two months ago, Instagram began allowing advertisers to post 60 second videos. Now they have opened it up so that all users and brands can take advantage of this new feature. Update your Instagram app to check it out!
Why is this important?
In the past six months, the time Instagram users spent watching videos has increased 40 percent, the company says. Video is by far the most powerful medium on social media and it gives brands a great opportunity to extend their marketing reach. With Instagram allowing for more than 15 seconds, brands can now post much more in-depth videos, where if done correctly, they should provide a good amount of value to their followers. Be sure to update your Instagram app and give the new 60 second videos a try.
Source: TheVerge
Brands can now pin how-to guides on Pinterest
Since 2013, Pinterest has been an extremely strong asset for brands. Pinterest allows brands to add things like app-install buttons, maps, article info, product prices and availability, recipes and movie ratings. Now, how-to guides are joining the mix.
As of now, brands cannot run these how-to guides as ads and they can only be seen on Pinterests site or the Android app. Support for the how-to guide feature will be coming to iOS soon. Currently, the feature is available in categories that appear to be particularly popular on Pinterest (at least in terms of the number of category-specific pins): DIY and crafts (3+ billion pins), health and fitness (500+ million pins), food and drink (4+ billion pins) and hair and beauty (1+ billion pins). Being that how-to guides are a great way for brands to gain interaction, it won’t be long until this feature is far more widespread.
Why is this important?
With the current content marketing craze, how-to guides are becoming more popular than ever. They are a perfect balance of providing value and making a sale. Being able to promote them on Pinterest will allow brands a very effective way of reaching their audience with their content. So if you are a part of a brand that fits into one of the categories above, you are going to want to take advantage of this new feature.
Source: MarketingLand
