Facebook now tracking social conversations for intent
Facebook Messenger’s M personal assistant is going one step further in its desire to help users – by eavesdropping on social messages and conversations to see how it might assist.
An ‘M’ logo will appear in conversations where Facebook recognises an intent in the conversation that it has a solution for – such as sharing your location, making a purchase, setting a calendar date or plan for an event, starting a poll or even arranging a taxi.
This next level of conversation tracking and detection of trigger words and phrases will undoubtedly increase Facebook’s breadth of knowledge about its users. However, the question remains as to whether users are comfortable with being ‘spied’ on in such a way by the all-knowing social network.
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Purge of fake accounts continues on FB
Facebook continues to come under fire for allowing distribution of fake stories via falsified accounts – and is taking steps to show how seriously it’s taking the issue.
The social network has announced it has purged more than 20,000 further accounts that it deems to be fake, either by disseminating fake content or sharing it.
These fake profiles being deleted will also see all of their likes and shares deleted too, so some brands may see a slight dip in numbers. As a result, it’s advisable for brand page admins to look at their analytics to see if they have been affected.
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Organic post reach rising (just) on FB
A study by Locowise into Facebook organic post reach has revealed that while publishers are suffering, individual pages and brands are in a better place.
While the latest tracked monthly figures of more than 5,000 FB accounts shows a rise to 12.5 per cent reach of total audience, an increase of 1.6 per cent, this does still mean almost nine in 10 of a page’s audience don’t see posts.
In terms of what content is going furthest, videos reached 13.52 per cent of the audience, photos 12.97 per cent, links 8.41 per cent and status updates reached only 4.74 per cent.
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Lights, camera… twitter goes live
Twitter is putting its faith in live broadcasts after unveiling a string of new partnerships.
The social network is already seen as the go-to for major breaking news stories and live events – and is seeking to build a video audience around these unique points.
Twitter has struck a deal with Bloomberg to provide a 24/7 video news service on its platform, with further deals on the way with Live Nation covering concerts and shows, plus Buzzfeed and Viacom to broadcast original content.
Stories boosts Instagram to 700m users
Instagram’s user base is now at 700m, with the rise being put down in part to the launch of the popular Stories format.
It was only in December that Insta announced it had hit 600m users, now as it reaches 700m it is now twice the size of twitter.
Of those 700m, Instagram claims that 200m are active daily users of the social platform, sharing photos and videos.
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