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We spend a lot of time on social media sites — globally, it’s around two hours per day. But for all of that time spent social networking, we may not always know what’s going on behind the scenes with the sites themselves.

To help you save time while staying informed, we’re launching a monthly social media news roundup.

This month, we’ll discuss Snapchat’s growth and content diversification, Google’s step into live-streaming, and other changes worth knowing about. The list isn’t exhaustive, but you can expect to learn the major highlights in the social media space this month — what was launched, what changed, and what these stories could mean for marketers.

10 of the Biggest Social Media News Stories This Month

1) The Washington Post starts curating content for Snapchat Discover.

The Washington Post announced it would become Snapchat’s first editorial partner to provide breaking news updates on the platform. The Post will publish multiple times per day as headlines break in its print and online newspaper editions so Snapchatters can easily consume the content in a more visual way. Snapchat is all about innovative visual content, and this step moves Snapchat in the direction of becoming a content destination site instead of just a content sharing site. Here’s what it will look like on the Discover tab (when a Snapchat user swipes to the left):

Source: The Washington Post

2) Saturday Night Live produces its first skit exclusively for Snapchat.

NBC’s Saturday Night Live produced its first short comedy sketch published exclusively on its Snapchat Story. Snapchat plans to produce a series of shorts from Saturday Night Live and other shows on the network. To watch the next short, add Saturday Night Live on Snapchat (@nbcsnl).

SNL is a viewewship juggernaut — almost 11 million people watch it each week. If it sees success with posting original content on Snapchat outside of its regular distribution strategies on YouTube and other social media platforms, marketers might consider producing their own “shorts” on Snapchat and seeing how they perform.

Source: Saturday Night Live via Snapchat

3) Snap Inc. files for $3 billion initial public offering (IPO).

Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., filed for a $3 billion IPO on February 2nd. After rebranding as a camera company and launching Snapchat Spectacles in September 2016, marketers eagerly waited to hear what they would do next.

Snap Inc. now faces intensified competition from other social media platforms with larger user bases that have adopted features similar to Snapchat’s. For example, Instagram launched its own version of Stories last year, and it currently has more users making Stories than all of Snapchat’s total user base. Marketers should keep an eye on how Snapchat evolves and which platform is better suited for ephemeral content for their audiences.

Source: Securities and Exchange Commission 

4) Snapchat launches first original reality show on A&E Network.

Snap Inc. announced its forthcoming partnership with A&E to produce “Second Chance,” an unscripted reality television show about breakups on Snapchat. The show will diversify audiences for both Snapchat and A&E and get existing Snapchat and A&E audiences on the other platforms. Marketers who aren’t already advertising on Snapchat may want to start doing so as it grows its audience even further with original content.

Source: Deadline

5) YouTube launches mobile live-streaming for creators with 10,000 subscribers or more.

YouTube took a big step toward competing in the live streaming video space by launching mobile live video recording for users with over 10,000 subscribers at the beginning of February. YouTube hopes to beat out the competition — Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, and Instagram have similar live streaming features — by providing higher quality to the thousands of creators already publishing frequently on the platform. Given the searchability of YouTube videos in Google Search, marketers might consider broadening their video strategy to include live video on YouTube, too.

Source: YouTube

6) Facebook adds a weather tool to desktop and mobile apps.

In early February, Facebook started rolling out its in-app weather tool that lets users see five-day forecasts on their Facebook News Feed. Additionally, users can receive notifications about weather alerts at specific times — like before they leave the house in a rainstorm. Facebook continues to make the site a destination, one-stop shop for users, so marketers should make sure to dedicate strategy and budget toward producing content and ads for the platform with a massive, engaged user base.

Source: TechCrunch

7) Facebook cracks down on discriminatory advertising.

On February 8th, Facebook updated its advertising policies to explicitly prevent discrimination on the platform. Previously, it was possible for advertisers to target based on race, ethnicity, and other demographic traits. In recent months, Facebook has taken steps to be more responsible to its community of users — by starting the Facebook Journalism Project in part to prevent fake news, for example. Marketers should make sure to review the new advertising policies to ensure that ads aren’t potentially discriminatory against users.

Source: Facebook

8) Instagram experiments with publishing photo albums.

At the beginning of the month, Instagram started beta-testing the ability to publish up to 10 photos in a single post on the platform. It’s only being tested with a few Android users for now, but when it’s rolled out to all users, the Instagram news feed will start looking more like Facebook’s if users can publish photo albums, or galleries. If your audience is highly engaged on Instagram, or if you market physical products, galleries could be a unique approach to generating engagement. Here’s what uploading looked like in one user’s app:

Source: Twitter

9) Medium announces new subscription service.

Medium CEO Ev Williams announced that Medium would launch a subscription product to develop additional revenue streams apart from simply advertising. This news came shortly on the heels of the layoffs of 50 Medium staff members to move toward a model where storytelling quality is prioritized over clicks and shares. Medium publishers should keep their eyes peeled for updates on any algorithmic changes coming with this new direction that could impact their readership.

Source: TechCrunch

10) Pinterest adds Visual Discovery to search through your camera.

Pinterest launched new visual search tools that will enable users to point and shoot their camera and receive suggested Pins based on photos they capture. Users capture photos through Pinterest Lens, the in-app camera, and the app starts suggesting Pins related to their search. For example, Pinterest says that if users take a photo of a pair of shoes, the app will suggest clothing Pins that could work as an outfit with the shoes. This tool makes visual discovery much easier, and users might be more willing to purchase from the app when their ideas have context from suggested Pins. Marketers and sellers on Pinterest should improve Pinterest strategies to fully take advantage of the ability to be found as a result of this update.

Source: Pinterest

Did we miss any big social media stories? Share with us in the comments below.

Sometimes, it seems like keeping up with a search engine’s algorithm is like learning a new language. Only, it’s a language that keeps updating over time and changing with things like technological advances, evolving topic interests, and constant improvements to user experience. And often, it seems like those changes are quiet — like there’s no way to find out about them unless you, say, subscribe to a blog that keeps you in the loop.

While many marketers make the time to do that — which is great — there are days, weeks, and months when constantly keeping up with Google’s algorithm is a task that gets pushed to the wayside. But SEO is more important than ever, and has many implications for inbound marketing, especially as mobile usage continues to rise. It’s not just about traffic anymore. SEO and its accompanying algorithm updates are soup-to-nuts measures of user experience.

But what pieces of the user’s experience are reflected in these algorithm changes? And is there a way to keep up with them in manageable chunks, as many people like to do when they’re learning a new skill? Yes — starting with the infographic below. E2M compiled the major Google algorithm updates from that year into this visual, animated representation. So relax — you’ve got this, with a fun, informative image to help.

The success of a marketing agency isn’t just tied to what you do (and do well) but also to the services you don’t provide.

The services we’re going to discuss today are — in our judgment — firmly in the “don’t” column. They’re either paths that have already been well-trodden by other big players, obsolete tactics that are starting to lose relevance, or services that don’t fit well into the modern marketing playbook.

If you’re thinking of adding any of the following four services in 2017, it might be time to change up your agency’s approach this year.

5 Services Your Agency Shouldn’t Offer in 2017

1) Facebook Killed the Video Ad

Video is touted as an excellent way to engage customers and convert leads, but it can also be relatively expensive and inconvenient to produce. If you agency hasn’t yet made the leap into video production, consider your next move carefully — investing in digital video capabilities is a high-risk, high reward strategy.

But how high is that reward, exactly? Late last year, Facebook drew ire when it revealed it had been artificially inflating video viewership statistics since 2014. If major video platforms have a history of inaccurately reporting views, it raises some big questions about the dependability of video ROI. 

If concerns about ROI don’t give you pause, think about this: specialized video marketing agencies have been doing video longer, know the marketplace better, and will have larger budgets. They’re also beginning to build in advanced features, such as interactive video, and 360-degree video ads. As a video neophyte, you’re unlikely to be able to offer these capabilities if you’re building a video service from the ground up in 2017.

2) Hang Up on Appointment Setting

Appointment setting has always been a weird fit in the marketing universe. Essentially, it’s like running a sales bullpen as a service (SBaaS?), which really has nothing to do with the typical content generation and placement duties of a traditional agency. Therefore, it’s going to be difficult and expensive for any agency to boot up an appointment setting service from scratch — and again, what’s the benefit?

The ROI of cold calling has always been low — and it’s been getting lower. A survey from the middle of last year shows that a large majority of sales professionals think that the effectiveness of cold calling has shrunk dramatically over the last several years.

A lot of people just don’t have phones at their desk any more, and most will simply hang up on numbers that they don’t already know. That’s why it’s probably a good reason to hang up on appointment setting in 2017.

3) Market Research: Don’t Compete, Collaborate

For your dollar, it’s nearly always going to be more lucrative to partner with an existing market research service than to build one of your own. As with video, the incumbents are going to rule — they’ve been around longer, know their subject better, and have more money to burn. In this case, however, it’s better to adopt that old maxim, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

There’s absolutely no shame in collaborating with a pre-existing market research agency. In fact, marketing collaboration has increased across the board. Last year, most client-side marketers (52%), collaborated with external agencies. The most common reason for this was a skills gap. If client-side marketers know that it’s okay to collaborate in the case of a skills gap, agencies should know it too.

4) Approaching the Link Building Apocalypse

Remember the “Mobilegeddon?” A new revision of the Google search algorithm set to raise the visibility of mobile sites at the expense of their desktop-bound competitors. The effect wasn’t initially epochal, but it did cause several major sites to drop in the rankings. Soon, link building may undergo a similar collapse.

Back in September, a new update to the Google algorithm known as Penguin went online. Its goal has been to find and penalize sites that operate in ways designed to game SEO. Link building isn’t shady by definition, but many companies have been using it in shady ways.

One example is by building private blog networks (PBNs) with no purpose except to link back to agency generated content. This Fall’s Penguin update — plus a secretive update that launched in February — appears to be specifically targeted at PBNs. Now, the black-hat link building community has been thrown into turmoil.

As with most of the services listed above, if you’ve been link building for a while, and you’ve been doing it in a balanced and organic manner, you’re probably in the clear. If you haven’t been link building at all, and don’t know where to begin, 2017 probably isn’t the best year to start.

Stick with What Works

To make it as a marketing agency, you don’t necessarily need to break new ground — but agencies should probably avoid the well-trodden paths. In the examples above, the marketplace of ideas is either so crowded that a new player can’t really get a toehold, or the edifice is beginning to crumble. Black-hat SEO tactics never have a great deal of longevity, and even venerable tactics such as cold-calling are seeing their last days.

With that in mind, the principles for agency success still haven’t changed. Iterate on successful strategies. Collaborate when necessary to aid in the success of your clients. Keep on like this, and when you find the idea that does put you over the top, Facebook-like success may not be out of reach.