BYE-BYE SEARCH ENGINES – SOCIAL MEDIA IS TAKING OVER

82% of businesses believe that consumers will find brands using social media rather than traditional search engines, according to HubSpot’s recent Social Media Report.

With 70% of brands selling products directly via social media, and nearly 80% buying advertising on the big four platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok), it’s clear that businesses are seeing the value in reaching consumers on these channels.

But it’s not just about shopping. 74% of organisations stated that social media will become consumers’ preferred means of customer service this year. That’s right, people are turning to the direct messages of a company over spending hours on hold for a telephone conversation.

Julie Lock, marketing director UK&I, at HubSpot said: “The future of marketing is no longer about interrupting what people are interested in, it’s about being what people are interested in. With social media shopping on the rise, and customer service increasingly moving online, it’s clear that brands need to have a strong presence on these platforms in order to succeed.

(Via Marketing Tech News)

LINKEDIN WILL FINALLY OFFER WAYS TO VERIFY YOUR JOB

In the never-ending battle against online impersonation scams, the professional social media platform LinkedIn announced today a set of new verification features that enable users to authenticate aspects of their identities and job histories. Crucially, users will now have a few different options to verify their identity and current jobs on LinkedIn. That way, if someone tries to make a copycat LinkedIn account, there can be clear differences between the imposter account and the verified profile. 

LinkedIn facilitates verification in three ways that are all free to individual users. The most low-key option launching today is to verify your current employer by receiving a security code on your work email and entering it into LinkedIn. The social media platform has recently been piloting this work email verification feature with a small group of companies.

The second option is to verify your identity on LinkedIn through the airport security service Clear. The authentication company will take your United States phone number and government-issued ID and use the information to verify your name. You have to weigh whether you want to trust a third party like Clear with your personal data, but the option might be particularly appealing if you already use the company for travel verification and they have your data on file anyway.

The third verification feature allows users to confirm their name and current employer through the Microsoft Entra Verified ID credential, a workplace identification platform Microsoft launched last year. This option will have a slower rollout, and it will be available at the end of the month to employees at a few dozen pilot companies that are already enrolled in Entra.

(Via Wired)

LINKEDIN’S LATEST STUDY HELPS YOU OPTIMISE YOUR B2B VIDEO AD CAMPAIGNS

A recent study by VidMob and LinkedIn has analysed over 16,000 Sponsored Content ads on the platform, from brands in EMEA, the US and Canada.

The study found that highlighting the key campaign message early in the video can result in higher engagement rates.

Including your brand logo or name at the very beginning also results in a +17% lift in click-through rates on average.

Additionally, the study suggests that including statistics and data can also help increase engagement, along with brand recognition.

HOW TO BOOST YOUR B2B AD PERFORMANCE ON LINKEDIN:

Shorter videos work best. Videos between seven and 15 seconds drove a 54% lift in engagement, and increased click-through rates by 15%.

Think people-first. Showing a person within the first quarter of a video clip resulted in a 175% increase in view-through rates.

Prompt viewers with a call-to-action in the first six seconds, which resulted in almost a 100% lift in view-through rates.

Mix your media. Videos with text overlays can help increase your click-through rate by 72%.

Use colours wisely. Brighter colours with high contrast work for upper funnel objectives while low contrast works best for lower funnel objectives.

(Via Social Minds)

TWITTER WILL LET USERS BUY STOCKS AND CRYPTO AS ELON MUSK PUSHES FOR ‘EVERYTHING APP’

Twitter will allow users to trade stocks and cryptocurrencies as part of a new deal with social investing company eToro, CNBC reported Thursday, the latest step towards achieving owner Elon Musk’s expansive vision of transforming the platform into a multifaceted “everything app” in the vein of the Chinese behemoth WeChat.

Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion last year, has been open about transforming the social media company into an “everything app.” These superapps, most notably China’s WeChat, are ubiquitous in Asia but have struggled to make inroads elsewhere, something Musk hopes to change. They are like digital Swiss army knives and combine the functionality of various apps in one, including ride hailing, financial services, chat, media, gaming, food delivery and investing. Musk has ambitious plans for his superapp, “X,” and has previously said he wants it to be the world’s leading financial institution. In early April, Twitter’s incorporated name was quietly changed to X Corp.

(Via Forbes)

WHAT IS LEMON8? TIKTOK SISTER APP ON THE RISE WITH U.S. 650,000 DOWNLOADS IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS

There’s a new app for Gen-Zers, and it’s becoming more popular every day.

Lemon8, a new photo and video-sharing app that’s owned by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has been installed 650,000 times in the U.S. in just the past week and a half, according to data shared with Axios from analytics firm Apptopia.

The app is currently sitting at the No. 2 spot in the Apple App Store for the top lifestyle apps. Lemon8 launched in the U.S. and U.K. in February 2023 after debuting in Japan in 2020, per Fast Company.

However, the rise of Lemon8 follows controversy around its ByteDance parent company and national security concerns with the brand’s ties to China. TikTok, which is also owned by the same parent company, has been under scrutiny in the U.S., with several agencies even banning the app from government devices. (TikTok has 150 million users in the U.S. composed primarily of teens and young adults, per AP News.)

(Via Entrepreneur)

WHAT IS AUTO-GPT? HERE’S HOW AUTONOMOUS AI AGENTS ARE TAKING OVER THE INTERNET

Auto-GPT is an open-source Python application that was posted on GitHub on March 30, 2023, by a developer called Significant Gravitas. Using GPT-4 as its basis, the application allows the AI to act “autonomously” without the need for the user to prompt every action. You can get Auto-GPT an overall goal, and step-by-step, will take actions to accomplish that goal. That is where the concept of “AI agents” comes from, which are using the internet and performing actions on a PC completely on its own — without the need to be prompted at every step.

The simple example posted in the original GitHub is of Auto-GPT given the goal of browsing the web to come up with unique and original recipes for “the next upcoming event,” such as Easter. Chef-GPT, as it was named, then starts searching the web for a solution. The second goal was to save the recipe as a file on the user’s computer.

On its own, that might not sound all that innovative. But Auto-GPT’s ability to search the internet on behalf of the user and perform actions like saving files takes this AI far beyond a simple chatbot.

(Via Digital Trends)

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