Facebook's data management challenges remained the main news on social networks during 2018. The constant flow of Facebook user privacy scandals has left no attention for other social platforms, but some have made a statement. Twitter focused on election integrity and did a massive sweep of bad user accounts.
While Facebook and Twitter focused on cleaning, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn continued to create their promotional offers.
Almost all platforms have released new rules regarding advertising, and you will not be able to open the application without encountering them. In his spare time, Facebook did its best to attract more YouTube video blogs. Its creators have more opportunities for monetization. And Instagram has launched its video platform.
Feedback on user data processing
This year was not the first year that Facebook was subjected to rigorous analysis for improperly handling user data, but it was the first time that a company had to take serious action against companies that had access to it.
This year, Facebook assumed full responsibility for not being able to protect its users, but Twitter also had to do it. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took part in a 45-minute live broadcast in March, answering questions about the spread of misinformation and abuse on the platform. At that time, the CEO stated that Twitter’s main task was to determine how it could measure the performance of the platform so that it was public and accountable. Four months later, the company continued to focus on the serviceability of the platform - suspending other work initiatives to focus on efforts to ensure the integrity of the elections. Google, whose data collection network covers virtually every corner of the Internet, has remained virtually unscathed.
Facebook has suspended applications, restricting API access to user information and deleting third-party data brokers, Twitter has deleted thousands of accounts, changed the way that conversations were conducted on the platform and, trying to curb spam, made it difficult for brands to search for identical messages. Twitter also restricted access to its API.
Marketers were forced to consider privacy issues with the launch of the EU GDPR in May
Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn focused on building their advertising business in 2018. The number of Snapchat users has declined, but this year advertising revenue has increased. The company began the year with the opening of its advertising API for all advertisers. By the 3rd quarter, Snapchat reached a record revenue growth after launching several new ad products, including an advertising platform for Discover partners, e-commerce advertising options, commercials and AR lenses in the Advertising Manager, sponsored Snappables and location-based ad targeting tools.
This year, Pinterest hired its first SMO, as the company's desire to expand its advertising business has increased. In 2018, Pinterest released a number of new promotional offers - from advertising of the promoted merry-go-rounds and the updated ad manager to widescreen video ads and new categories of Pinterest marketing partners. He also increased his audience to 250 million active users per month.
LinkedIn has completely updated its Campaign Manager, rebuilding it to better serve advertisers managing large accounts. The social network advertising management tool was rebuilt to target, with new personalization options, one-click campaign breakdown for reports and new search options for advertisers. LinkedIn also added dynamic ads to its promotional offers.
Stories, stories and other stories
In June, Instagram reported that 400 million people use Stories daily on their platform, more than double the total user base of Snapchat, the company that first created the Story concept. Facebook, which launched Stories on its platform in 2017, also faced an increase in their use. In May, Facebook began testing ads in Stories and made an ad product available to all advertisers in September. In November, YouTube launched its own version of Stories, providing this feature to channels with 10,000 or more subscribers.
Facebook plans to challenge YouTube
Facebook provided the authors with the opportunity to monetize and an expanded set of video tools.
In June, the company launched IGTV - both on Instagram and as a separate application - giving users the ability to upload 60-minute videos. The adoption of the platform was slow, but there are no promotional offers yet. In fact, the biggest news that came out of Instagram this year was the announcement of company CEO Kevin Sistrom and technical director Mike Krieger that they leave the company in September.
YouTube, for its part, has deployed the “Go Live” feature so that video creators can broadcast live from their desktops. He also lowered the threshold for the number of subscribers for the channel so that he could use the new function - from 100,000 to 50,000. In June, YouTube said that the creators who earned five numbers on the platform increased by 35 percent, and those who earned six numbers , rose 40 percent.
Changes in political advertising policy
After Facebook, Twitter, and Google confirmed Russian interventions in their platforms during the 2016 US presidential election cycle in the form of advertising campaigns for disinformation, most social and search networks made radical changes to their advertising policies. Months after the mid-term elections in 2018, Facebook set new rules requiring all political advertisers to be tested on the platform, and Twitter added labels to political candidate accounts to easily identify anyone who is running for office.
Both Facebook and Twitter have launched advertising archives for greater transparency of advertising on the platforms. The Facebook Archive focused on political advertising, while the Twitter Archive records all ads that have been displayed on the platform over the past seven days.
Google introduced new identification requirements for political advertisers in the United States, requiring them to provide an identifier issued by the government. After that, they will be able to purchase ads on all Google platforms.
LinkedIn has completely withdrawn from political advertising disputes, banning political advertising in June.
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