Twitter launches an assistant for business owners, while Facebook suffers a rare defeat, and Pinterest shares some 411 on what pinners are latching onto. These are some of the social media stories in the news this week.
Twitter Gives Businesses a Boost with Dashboard
Twitter is adding a little dash on insights into its recipe for business owners. The platform announced on its blog that it is introducing Twitter Dashboard. The new tool helps businesses connect with their customers and community. With an iOS app and desktop web experience, Dashboard is a one-stop center to better understand the audience, giving brand managers and business owners a clearer picture of what’s being said about their businesses.
In addition to offering a monitoring service, it also allows for the scheduling of tweets and provides insights on the best time to connect with customers. The dashboard appears to offer an intuitive look at your social messaging performance on Twitter. This service is free.
Facebook Cancels the Paper
Many believe that social media is killing off newspapers. Well, even some virtual newspapers can’t make the cut. Facebook, the most popular social media platform, raised the white flag this week for its news-reading app Paper. Facebook will deactivate the app at the end of the month.
Facebook launched Paper in 2014, as a place to be the news resource on the platform, offering journalistic pieces instead of status updates. But Fortune reports that Paper has been underwhelming when it comes to download figures.
It isn’t a total defeat. Facebook says the technology and ideas used to create Paper are being used in popular Facebook apps today including Instant Articles. News also is quite popular on the Facebook, as users turn to the platform to share hot topics and discuss current events.
What’s Hot on Pinterest
Pinterest offered up a little insight on its blog into what’s sizzling this summer on the platform that celebrates the virtual pushpin. Their Editorial Curation Manager Christine Cassis shared what’s hot on the pinboards this month.
When it comes to burgers, the west coast was wild about non-beef burgers searches. Chicken burgers with avocado searches grew by 50%. East coast foodies are begging for bacon burgers with searches up a whopping 370%.
Pinners are also searching for a lot of summer activities and among the hot finds are backyard lawn games (20%) and outdoor movie nights (36%.)
And of course, beauty is a hot topic on any platform, as makeup artists and stylists share their secrets and techniques. Pinterest is no exception! This month’s trends include champagne eyeshadow, which is up 125% and bold brows, which saw searches increase by 45%.
It should be no surprise that pinners love their health too. It’s hard to skim the site without coming across a few delicious looking smoothies. The popular searches for June included Turmeric (200%), Acai (61%), Matcha (54%), and Chia (30%).
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