Social Media Daily News Roundup 03.09.2019

Today’s social media news, rounded up in one place so you don’t have to go anywhere else. 

👾  Facebook may soon hide total like counts on posts, mirroring Instagram’s test

👾  Facebook highlights page stories in feed separate panel, expanding opportunity for brand exposure 

👾 Google introduces seasonality adjustments for smart bidding In Google Ads

👾 Gmail will now tell people you’re on holiday before they email you

Facebook may soon hide total like counts on posts, mirroring Instagram’s test - Social Media Today

First Instagram, now Facebook as well?

Amid testing of hidden like counts in seven countries on Instagram, Facebook is now also considering the same in its main app, with reverse engineering expect Jane Manchun Wong spotting this test Like display:

As you can see here, the post Like listing doesn't show the full count, but an indicator of Reactions to the post and an "...and others" summary, as opposed to a full Like listing.

When questioned about Wong's discovery by TechCrunch, Facebook did indeed confirm that it is considering hiding total post like counts.

Facebook highlights page stories in feed separate panel, expanding opportunity for brand exposure - Social Media Today 

Facebook Stories may not have taken off the way Stories have on Instagram, but it is slowly gaining momentum. 

Now at 500 million daily users (across Facebook and Messenger), up from 300 million at this time last year, Facebook remains confident that Stories are the future of social sharing. And as such, the platform continues to test out new ways to promote Facebook Stories, and boost interest in the option.

And this new test could be of particular interest from a brand promotion perspective.

As highlighted by social media expert Matt Navarra, Facebook's latest test sees it showcasing Stories from Pages, specifically, in a new, in-Feed panel.

That could provide expanded promotional opportunity - already, the top of feed placement of Facebook Stories makes it a great potential option for getting in front of users, but a specific listing of Page Stories amplifies that even further.

Google introduces seasonality adjustments for smart bidding In Google Ads - We r SM 

Google is introducing seasonality adjustments for smart bidding Google Ads Search and Display campaigns.

Different Smart Bidding strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS already consider seasonality, but advertisers just might want to adjust for significant conversion rate shifts. For example, during or following a product launch, or during a period of sales, an advertiser might want to apply extra seasonality adjustments for a campaign.

This will help Google’s machine learning improve campaign performance because it will expect a significant change in the conversion rate.

For these purposes,  and to provide “more control in these rare situations,” Google is now introducing seasonality adjustments for Search and Display campaigns. Support for Shopping campaigns should be expected later on in the year.

Gmail will now tell people you’re on holiday before they email you - We r SM 

Gmail’s new Out of office feature on G Suite accounts will give people advanced notice that you’re on holiday – before they even contact you.

We’ve all emailed someone, received their Out of office reply, and suddenly realised that we’ve actually known for ages that they’ll be on holiday for the next few weeks. And we’ve all received an urgent-sounding email during our holidays that is then followed up by an apology from someone who forgot we were not at work. Sure, it happens, but it’s far from ideal.

To make these awkward situations a thing of the past, Gmail is soon rolling out a new feature that recognises the Out of office (OOO) entry on your calendar and shows an OOO status in Gmail and Hangouts Chat when people either start writing an email to you, or try to initiate a conversation with you.