Social Media & SEO

M&A: W2O Group early today acquired Marketeching Solutions, LLC, a research and social listening consultancy specializing in healthcare and life sciences. Founded in 2008 by Kevin Johnson, Marketeching has offices in New Hope, PA, and Philadelphia. Johnson will remain, operating Marketeching as a subsidiary of W2O. Earlier this year, Mountaingate Capital secured an investment position in W20 to propel growth through acquisitions.

So you’ve been thinking about finally getting started with a brand Snapchat account, and all of a sudden, a new competitor comes along: Instagram Stories. An admitted copycat of Snapchat, Instagram Stories seems like a platform where you could produce the same content, which would be viewed in the same way. What’s your next move? Flip a coin?

From the typically right-brained perspective of PR, securing a high rank in search results can seem like an opaque process. While a comprehensive knowledge of search algorithms and web crawlers is handy, there’s more to SEO success than understanding the numbers. In fact, it’s possible to rank highly on Google with small teams and a tiny budget.

Hype’s only brand adopters as of this writing are News One, MTV and TechCrunch. But for brand communicators who have been looking for “the next Snapchat” now that teens’ parents are sharing Snapchat Stories, Hype might just be the one to watch.

Barack Obama is back on Snapchat. While the president still doesn’t have his own account, Obama will make an appearance on the “Good Luck America” Snapchat story, according to The New York Times. Available for 48 hours starting at 6 a.m. on Nov. 1, the Times reports that this installment will provide a behind-the-scenes look into Obama’s campaign efforts for Hillary Clinton, including footage of endorsements of the candidate and a ride in the presidential motorcade.

Get PR pros together to discuss Instagram and the topic moves to the Instagram Storiesfeature very quickly. That’s to be expected: What some call a Snapchat clone has gained popularity fast. Just weeks ago, barely two months after its introduction, Stories confirmed a TechCrunch report that it already has 100 million daily active users. And, yes, for those in the glass-half-full camp, that means 200 million daily active users of Instagram haven’t availed themselves of Stories. Still, brand communicators are taking advantage of Stories’ capabilities to show a montage-like sequence of photos on Instagram. In addition communicators are excited about Oct. 21 media reports that Instagram is testing live video.

The Social Shake-Up is May 22-24, 2017 at the W hotel in downtown Atlanta and will bring together hundreds of social media, digital, marketing, PR, tech and communications professionals looking to better integrate social media into their overall business strategies. Our speaker roster of 70+ corporations, agencies and nonprofits will share an out-of-the-ordinary social media success that will equip attendees with the knowledge to effectively break through the noise and drive better business outcomes for their brand.

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a “Twitter canoe”? The term refers to the frustrating dead-end effect of replying to users on Twitter, wherein the users’ handles take up most of the allotted 140 characters. More often then not, this ends up curbing a conversation that might have continued given more space, which can be frustrating for PR pros who use Twitter for relationship-building. The good news: Twitter is testing a character-freeing update that could put an end to the annoyance.

Continuing it’s push to become a video-first platform, Facebook execs showcased new filters for Facebook Live at Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive conference. The new filters use a form of machine-learning technology to transform live streams into the style of famous artists like Van Gogh.

We’ve told you numerous times that video is booming on social, right? The data that Shareablee provides exclusively to PR News Pro shows video powering strong increases in consumer engagement. There are exceptions, however.