Hootsuite launches social media video Integrations

Hootsuite integrates video via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

hootsuite

Social media platform Hootsuite has announced video integrations with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Now organisations can manage their videos from a single platform, reducing complexity and increasing reach across social to improve customer engagement..

According to the company, ‘in the ever-changing digital landscape, video has shifted from a nice-to-have tool for marketers to an integral communication channel for businesses’. It cites that in 2015 Facebook more than doubled its video view sto eight billion, tweets containing video receive more than twice as many RTs as those without and the time users spend watching videos on Instagram has soared 40% in the past 6 months.

From the Hootsuite platform, users can approve, schedule, and publish videos across social networks. The video integrations also allow users and companies to monitor comments and collaborate to manage multiple accounts so that they can respond faster to customers’ enquires.

While investing in videos is a good first step, just posting videos is not enough to make an impact with audiences. To truly get the most out of video, businesses need to use social to increase its reach and credibility. According to a new online survey conducted by Hootsuite, 58% of respondents are more likely to watch a video if it has been shared by friends or family on a social network.

“Our new video integrations with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram underscores how crucial video is to organisations as they evolve their digital transformation strategies. These integrations will better support our clients who are investing in video for broad appeal, promotion and education to really engage and grow their audience,” said Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite.

All of this is very interesting, but I prefer TweetDeck to Hootsuite, but if it wasn’t for either platform, then Twitter would not be the so-called force it is today. The future is clearly video; brands and companies need to start acting quickly or they will be left behind.

Collins English Dictionary launches new word search on Twitter

Collins_DictionaryIn a so-called ‘new development for dictionary publishing’, the Collins English Dictionary is using data from Twitter to identify new words, and asking Twitter users to vote on which one should be included in the next edition of the dictionary.

Every year new words come and go, but online interaction and social media have speeded up the process as new words and ideas go viral. Lexicographers at Collins are using Twitter’s powerful data as a research tool to help uncover new and emerging words on the internet, to study their usage, and measure their popularity. Continue reading

Howl for a spontaneous night out in London… and beyond

howl_logoThe last time I put the word ‘Howl’ and ‘London’ together was in 1982 when I went to see the vastly overrated movie An American Werewolf in London with some mates of mine.

Fortunately things have moved on in the past three decades and juxtaposing the words ‘Howl and London’ means a very different experience when getting your mates together to go out in London or other global cities. Continue reading

UK women like marriage proposals over digital

proposalSomewhat bizarrely, a recent survey says that 15% of UK women want their beau to use some kind of digital device when popping the question.

If that particular survey was conducted with people over the age of 70 and that digital device was a replacement knee used when getting down on that particular limb to do so, then it would be more credible. Continue reading

Will Vine become THE social network of 2014?

* This is a guest blog from Oliver West, Digital Director of design agency Arkitex

vineIf we compiled a list of all the available social networks it would stretch from our desk to the moon, OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but there are lots of them on the web, 99% of which you will never have heard of before.

There are obviously a collection of the more popular ones that you will be familiar with, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram. New networks are popping up all the time trying to compete with the big players and ultimately most of them fail to gain the necessary traction to enter the game for one reason or another. Continue reading