Pinterest Launches GIFs

The social site added another feather to its illustrious cap with the launch of GIF images. Pinterest also launched a recipe search feature at the same time.

Pins with a GIF image will have a small ‘play’ button at the bottom left corner using which, users can play and pause the GIF image. The feature will be available to users world over on the web version of Pinterest. However, the company promises to activate this feature for mobile users soon.

Brands can use GIF images on Pinterest to showcase real quick consumer reaction about a new product/service unveiled. Since GIF images are animated and so different from normal static images but aren’t videos at the same time, they can help capture user attention for a quick few seconds.

Google Now Provides More Info about Sites before Clicking

Their SERPs will now provide users with more information about sites that appear post a search. Users can find out more about every site in the results by clicking on the page name adjacent to the actual link.

Image Courtesy: Mashable

The catch here is that this feature will not be active for all websites. For this information to be shown, a website has to be recognized online, there should be sufficient information to show or the content should be interesting for users.

This information is drawn from Google’s Knowledge Graph, which strives to improve Google Search by taking semantic search information from multiple sources.

For brands, this can mean better chances of increasing site visits when users see what their site is about before clicking. This can mean more engagement with site visitors thereby helping in gaining leads. If people are avoiding clicking on a link because they are not sure about the content of the website, this update solves the problem by briefing users about a site’s content aiding in resolving any qualms about legitimacy of site content.

Facebook Updates News Feed Algorithm

The latest to its news feed algorithm by Facebook has lead to reduction in the visibility of Page Updates.

According to Facebook’s tests, more text status updates from users’ friends prompted them to write more status updates. But this was not true in the case of text status updates from Pages.

Post this algorithm tweak, text status updates from Pages will be treated as a separate category from friends’ text status updates. Applying its learning that Page posts behave differently from friends’ posts, Facebook is reworking its ranking algorithms.

Page admins will now see a dip in the distribution reach of their Page’s text status updates. A positive here is the hike Page admins may see in engagement and distribution for other story types. If your brand’s Page shares links simply by putting it together with a text status update, post this algorithm change, you should use a link-share.

Facebook recommends that brand Pages should choose the story type that best fits their message without simply going for a text status update.

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