We’ve heard the advice a thousand times: Your headline is the most important part. It’s 80 cents of your dollar . Visuals are key. Visitors want to see high quality photos, infographics, videos, charts, diagrams, memes, and more. The user experience – or UX – trumps all else. It’ll be the key…

One third of marketers believe personalization will be the most important trend in the future. That’s ‘cause 86% of consumers say it informs their purchases. But there’s a problem. Because less than 10% of marketers believe they’re “highly effective” at it. That’s because slapping on “Hey $FNAME” to…

Visual content has become the core of the social media marketing package. However, any marketer starting out or trying to modify their previous strategy may have trouble adjusting to the new fundamentals. A new e-book from visual media creation platform Venngage provides a road map for creating…

Those ads have to go somewhere, and now, for a small test group of users in Australia and Thailand, “somewhere” is the home screen on Facebook Messenger . Product manager Eddie Zhang announced in a blog post that the social network is testing a module on the Messenger home screen that resembles the…

Let the Snapchat flattery continue, as Facebook began testing its imitation of Stories with select iOS and Android users in Ireland . Alex Heath of Business Insider reported that Facebook Stories is a virtually identical feature to Instagram Stories , also a “direct descendant” of Snapchat Stories .…

Facebook issued yet another update to its Trending feature, with three major changes rolling out to users in the U.S. starting Wednesday. Vice president of product management Will Cathcart introduced the revamp in a Newsroom post , saying that the three changes that should be rolled out to all U.S.…

Is there a Snapbot in the middle of Madison Avenue? Not quite, but Snap Inc. is apparently spending a lot of time with ad agencies there. Suzanne Vranica , Maureen Farrell and Steven Perlberg of The Wall Street Journal reported that the messaging application has engaged in discussions with the…

Walt Disney World has always been a popular destination for kids, families and even adults who still feel a special connection with the “magic” that the destination seems to provide its guests. More recently, it’s become a holiday-season attraction, and you can chalk it all up to organic…

Snapchat beefed up its ad-targeting capabilities by reaching a partnership with Nielsen ’s mobile Digital Ad Ratings unit. Christopher Heine of SocialTimes parent Adweek reported that Snapchat advertisers will now be able to buy audiences by age and gender, much like they do with television. Prior…

Twitter said Tuesday that its livestream of the inauguration of President Donald Trump with PBS NewsHour drew 6.824 million unique viewers. The social network added that the six-hour livestream peaked at 12:15 p.m. ET on inauguration day, last Friday, at 377,000 viewers. The inauguration livestream…

LinkedIn senior vice president of Infrastructure Kevin Scott was promoted to chief technology officer at parent company Microsoft . Microsoft announced its acquisition of the professional network last June, and the transaction officially closed last December. Scott will continue in his role as…

Instagram announced live video for Instagram Stories last November and began rolling the feature out in the U.S. the following month. Now, it is available globally. The Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing network said in a blog post Tuesday: Today we’re excited to share that live video on…

Google launched an update for Google Voice on iOS, Android and the web. The update changed the application’s interface and also introduced new features. With this update, the app’s inbox is now split into separate tabs for text messages, calls and voicemails. In the Messages tab, conversations are…

Following in the footsteps of many other businesses, the Trump administration is turning to Facebook Messenger for customer service . However, there’s a slight problem. Janko Roettgers of Variety reported that the White House comments line is no longer active, and a recorded message directs callers…

It’s no secret that in 2017, like every year, marketers want to get the biggest ROI from their advertising spend. So which channels are worth your attention? A new survey from Ascend2 took a look at the most lucrative and engaging channels of the past year to determine which ones could give you the…

The National Football League ’s two conference championship games Sunday dominated the Nielsen Social Content Ratings for the week of Jan. 16. The Atlanta Falcons ’ rout of the visiting Green Bay Packers in the National Football Conference title game drew 26.431 million interactions across Facebook…

The new layout and search bar that Snapchat introduced for Android earlier this month has now been extended to iOS, as well. The new search bar offers easier access to friends, groups, Discover and Our Story , and users can access their own profiles by tapping their bitmojis on the left-hand side of…

Snapchat is making its move to help curb fake news and clickbait . Katie Benner of The New York Times reported that Snapchat updates its guidelines for publishers in its Discover section, advising them to avoid posting photos or images with no news or editorial value, as well as reports on or links…

Twitter will be spending a lot of time on red carpets in 2017, following an agreement with Dick Clark Productions . The social network will host exclusive livestreams from: The 52nd Academy of Country Music Awards April 2 The Billboard Music Awards May 21 The American Music Awards in November…

Twitter saw almost as many tweets about the women’s protest marches in Washington, D.C., and throughout the country Saturday as it did about Friday’s inauguration of President Donald Trump . The social network said in a Twitter Data tweet Friday afternoon that 12 million tweets were sent that day…

Over the past few months, several reports have described major inaccuracies in age and gender targeting. Pinsight Media reported that not only is 60 percent of age data on mobile exchanges inaccurate, but it’s also off by an average of 10 years. This is a big problem—a massive problem, in fact.…

It’s 2017. We’re neck-deep in the age of ‘Big Data.’ No matter what aspect of marketing you want to measure, there’s a tool to help you track it. In fact, ‘powerful analytics’ is probably the most highly-touted feature for most of tools we use as online marketers. We have access to so much data, so…

Google announced Friday that it is developing a cloud-based measurement solution for YouTube with an emphasis on more detailed cross-device analytics. Director of YouTube product management Diya Jolly said in a blog post that more than 50 percent of views on YouTube are now via mobile, prompting its…

Fans of 13 top European soccer clubs received a surprise from Snapchat Friday. The messaging application released selfie lenses for those teams, which will be available in those clubs’ respective countries until midnight (local time, we presume) Sunday, and at their stadiums for the rest of the…

Will Facebook start letting users know when they read or share stories that turn out to be fake news ? Vice president of News Feed Adam Mosseri spoke on a panel at the University of California Berkeley Thursday night and mentioned doing just that as a possible solution, Megan Rose Dickey of…

One of the greatest challenges a new marketer will face is getting into, and staying in the right mindsight . By its very nature, marketing is highly tactical. There are countless ways to engage your audience. Unfortunately, most of the tactics tend to be done in a vacuum without any thought to…

Twitter rolled out a hashtag-triggered emoji for Friday’s inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump . The special emoji will be added to tweets with the hashtags #inauguration and #inauguration2017. Your official inauguration hashtags have arrived. Tweet #Inauguration and #Inauguration2017 to…

Facebook recently threw yet another curveball at marketers, but this time, it’s a challenge worthy of embracing. Aiming to improve News Feed , Facebook’s recent algorithm update has nothing to do with relevance, reach or relationship settings. This time, it’s after clickbait . The social media giant…

For digital marketers, it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. There are serious challenges inherent to the digital landscape that nobody is talking about. Not long ago, advertisements were the end result of days, weeks, or even months of painstaking research and creative work. Ingenious ads from…

Mobile conversions outpaced desktop conversions on Black Friday and throughout the holiday shopping season , according to Facebook data, and Facebook IQ set out to find out why. The social network’s research arm tapped internal data and commissioned a survey by Kantar , and its findings included:…

Twitter’s update on its diversity efforts followed the same theme as counterparts Facebook and Pinterest : modest progress, along with the acknowledgement that more work needs to be done. Vice president of inclusion and diversity Jeffrey Siminoff said in a blog post that the social network met or…

Nintendo announced Fire Emblem Heroes for iOS and Android. The strategy role-playing game will challenge players to save the Kingdom of Askr from the Emblian Empire by summoning heroes for their teams from different Fire Emblem worlds. In Fire Emblem Heroes, players will compete in turn-based…

Facebook wants to make sure page administrators don’t let the content on their pages become stale. Reader Chris Ruberg , digital marketing specialist at OneCommand , shared the screenshot below with SocialTimes, in which page admins are given the option of setting custom reminders to update their…

“Conversations and content” were the key elements of LinkedIn’s overhaul of its desktop experience. Director of engineering Chris Pruett introduced the redesign in a blog post , saying that it will roll out to all users worldwide “in the coming weeks.” Pruett stressed that navigation on LinkedIn’s…