Instagram revealed a new feature earlier this month that many retail brands would love to jump into: taggable products , a new shopping experience inside the application. The taggable products feature allows users to tap the tags that are applied to photos. Apart from the usual tags, these will…

2016 has undoubtedly been a remarkable year for social media. Below are just some highlights: The total number of active social media users reached 2.307 billion. Facebook reached more than 1.79 billion monthly active users . Social media had a significant influence on the recently concluded U.S.…

People always ask me how I’ve built up such a huge audience for my blogs. Part of my secret sauce? I’ve been blogging for well over a decade now. But not everyone has been blogging for years, and I get that. Some of you may have started a blog years ago but abandoned it. I can relate. There were…

Today’s economy is all about social proof. User-generated content (UGC) is one way to showcase why your brand matters. Moreover, email combined with UGC is a chance for ecommerce businesses to connect with consumers and generate revenue. Olapic found that “user-generated content in email sees a 43%…

Mobile marketing and customer loyalty are not new ideas or tactics, but the strategy behind them has been evolving dramatically in the past few years, and that momentum is going to continue through 2017. According to eMarketer , the majority of U.S. marketers intend to allocate more of their budgets…

Cybersecurity requires agile improvement and dedicated resources. Unfortunately, instead of businesses taking the recommended holistic approach , cybersecurity is often critically overlooked. An infographic based on a study from security solutions provider Resilient Systems and market research firm…

Tesla has announced their solar panels are nearly entirely powering the island of Ta’u in American Samoa. SolarCity developed a microgrid with 1.4 megawatts of solar generation capacity — enough to power nearly 100% of the island, according to a SolarCity blog posted on Tuesday. The microgrid is…

Some users of Facebook’s flagship iOS application are part of a test of a new feature enabling them to locate nearby WiFi networks. Bryan Clark of The Next Web reported on the test, and Facebook confirmed it to Raymond Wong of Mashable , saying: To help people stay connected to the friends and…

If you’ve been reading our blog for awhile, you likely already know that a good product description can help sell a customer on your product or service. But too often, we put too much emphasis on the description itself while blissfully ignoring the other aspects of a product’s presentation.…

The holiday marketing campaigns are underway and consumers are gearing up for the height of shopping season . While everyone seems prepared, it’s important to note that consumers have expectations when it comes to social messaging and communication with brands during the holiday season. A…

Feel like something’s missing on your blog? Maybe it’s your font… Maybe your theme… Or could it be your logo? While most B2B bloggers focus on improving minutiae, the truth is their content is just plain boring . As a B2B owner who engages in online marketing, you were probably told that a blog…

Facebook announced Friday that its Atlas advertising platform will phase out its ad-serving activities to focus on measurement . The social network acquired the ad-serving business that was then known as Atlas Solutions from Microsoft in February 2013. Facebook then introduced a completely revamped…

The food industry is a $5.32 trillion dollar business . The alluring profitability of the food business along with increasing competition has inspired a new discipline: menu engineering . As the name suggests, it is a deliberate construction of menus to generate greater profits per customer. When…

By many accounts, social media and out-of-home are among the fastest-growing segments of marketing today. But even the most enlightened of marketing organizations see them as two very different channels. Sure, we have seen social media play a role in recent OOH campaigns. But generally, the…

More than 40% of brands forget one of the best performing marketing campaigns there is: the welcome email . This marketing campaign must-have generates, on average, 33% more engagement with your brand than your average email marketing campaign. Are you forgetting about your welcome email? Or are you…

Facebook added a new targeting option to custom audiences : “everyone who engaged with your page.” Reader Chris Ruberg , digital marketing specialist at OneCommand , shared the screenshots below with SocialTimes, noting that advertisers can create audiences of users who engaged with pages in various…

If you’re a consultant or agency, qualifying clients is painful–explaining what you do, assessing if they’re nice people, determining if they can pay and seeing if you can solve their problem, all before you get a dime. So I asked Sarah Sal , a longtime friend of BlitzMetrics and an amazing Facebook…

Did a Snapbot make a surprise appearance at Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters, or did Snapchat parent Snap Inc. file its initial public offering documents via a more traditional courier? Lauren Hirsch , Liana B. Baker and Matthew Toole of Reuters reported that Snap Inc. secretly filed…

I feel like LinkedIn is a social media platform that receives a fair amount of attention but is still overshadowed by other networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. That’s a shame. Why? Because in the B2B space especially, I’ve found LinkedIn to be incredibly effective for professional…

Google announced the release of PhotoScan , a mobile application designed to help users quickly scan real-world photographs and create digital copies of them that can be stored online. With the PhotoScan app, a user can position their device over a real-world photograph so that the entire photograph…

Whether you’ve been running an online store for 6 months or 6+ years, it’s a never-ending battle to win conversions. With average cart abandonment rates hovering around 68% – a mix of new and returning customers – you want to do everything you can to both acquire new customers and get them spend…

Livestreamed sports programming on Twitter is being monetized for the first time, as American Express and JBL Harman reached an agreement for ad inventory during the National Basketball Association ’s original fare for the social network. Twitter and the NBA announced in July that two exclusive…

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Partner Program expands to agencies and technology partners, rolling out to more markets Nov 15, 2016 by Ginny Marvin Customers that meet certain engagement…

Facebook announced that businesses on the social network can now link their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram accounts and receive all communications from those channels in a single inbox. The social network said in a Facebook for Business post that the new inbox will roll out to brands using the…

WhatsApp announced Tuesday that video calling will launch for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone “in the coming days.” The Facebook-owned messaging application said in a blog post that the feature had been requested by many users “over the years,” adding: We’re introducing this feature because we…

Twitter updated its efforts to enable users to avoid seeing abusive content and content they have no interest in , highlighted by expanding its mute feature to notifications. The social network said in a blog post that users will be able to mute keywords, phrases and entire conversations from their…

Hallmark ‘s opinionated character, Maxine , now has her own mobile game: Maxine’s Snack Attack. Developed by Chupamobile , the food-themed line-drawing puzzle game allows users to complete 100 levels and read quotes from Maxine. In Maxine’s Snack Attack, players are challenged to complete a…

Google has started testing its mobile-first index . This new index will look first at the mobile version of your website for its ranking signals and fall back on the desktop version when there is no mobile version. Google has been slowly moving toward a mobile-first index for quite a while now.…

Skype now allows users to participate in text chats, voice calls and video calls with their contacts without signing up for accounts. With this update, a user can join Skype as a guest and start a conversation by going to Skype’s website, clicking “start a conversation” and typing their name. The…

If your conversion rate is flat-lining and you’ve tried virtually everything to stop its downward spiral – split testing could be to blame. Yes, split testing – that incredible flip-switching, conversion-boosting, audience-wooing strategy that boasts major lifts – but seldom delivers on its promises…

Facebook is testing a redesigned status update composer for pages. Reader Matteo Gamba shared the screenshot below with SocialTimes, and a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the test, saying in an emailed statement: To make it easier for page owners to achieve their goals, we’re running a very small…

NBC’s Saturday Night Live rode the post- election wave to the top of the Nielsen Social Content Ratings list of TV series and specials for the week of Nov. 7. Meanwhile, the National Football League in general and the Dallas Cowboys in particular continued to dominate the sports category. SNL…

Facebook Connectivity Lab announced a record-setting successful test of its millimeter wave technology for providing high-speed data over long distances. Facebook said in an email to SocialTimes that a test at its Southern California lab successfully beamed data at a rate of nearly 20 gigabits per…

The Rooms feature in Messenger that Facebook began testing in September has been rolled out to users in Australia and Canada. The social network introduced a stand-alone Rooms application in October 2014 , saying at the time that it was intended to bring users together to discuss topics of their…

The demand for social customer service is growing. Unfortunately, many brands struggle to meet the rising demands of consumers on social platforms , and there are still some major pain points, including providing human interaction at scale. A report from customer engagement platform provider…

Twitter launched new featured stickers based on the popular Pokemon franchise. Mobile users can add these stickers to their pictures by adding pictures to tweets and then tapping the smiling face button on the bottom-right corner of a picture to access the stickers menu. From there, users can choose…