Social media is a boon for US small businesses which often lack the resources to invest in costlier marketing tools. In fact, for these marketers, social channels largely outpace email and mobile as customer communication methods.

Source: How SMBs Are Leveraging Social Media – eMarketer

The number of posts bearing the FTC-mandated #ad hashtag reached 1.5 million worldwide last year.

Source: Instagram Influencer Marketing Doubled in 2017 – eMarketer

Snap is struggling. Snapchat may have 178 million daily users, but its growth has plateaued while its competitor Instagram continues to expand. As Snap’s stock sinks, the company is trying to address its growth problem. For instance, it has even given up the esoteric, speakeasy-style interface that millennials adored and adopted a more conventional approach to UX that would be more intuitive for anyone to use–especially people over 34, the company hopes.

Now, Snap has announced it will go even further to woo the masses: The company is going to open up the “Discover” contents of its app, even to people who don’t use Snapchat. Starting today, you will be able to share many Snapchat Stories to external social media platforms with a link. On Twitter, that means Snap videos will play natively, right inside the Twitter feed. On most other platforms, or even email and texts, snaps will appear as a link, bringing you to Snapchat’s website to watch the clip.

Source: Snap Makes Its Most Important Design Change

ShoShortly before markets closed yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted that the social media company’s News Feed would prioritize news from sources that are “trustworthy, informative, and local.” Facebook users themselves will be responsible for determining what those are.

Source: The New York Times’ stock jumped following Facebook’s “trustworthy” news announcement – Recode

We want more control over our data and user experience, not less.

Source: Instagram’s Latest “Feature” Proves It’s Not Listening

With more than 2 billion users, Facebook’s reach now rivals that of Christianity and exceeds that of Islam. However, the network’s laser focus on profits and user growth has come at the expense of its users, according to one former Facebook manager who is now speaking out against the social platform.

“One of the things that I saw consistently as part of my job was the company just continuously prioritized user growth and making money over protecting users,” the ex-manager, Sandy Parakilas, who worked at Facebook for 16 months, starting in 2011, told NBC News. During his tenure at Facebook, Parakilas led third-party advertising, privacy and policy compliance on Facebook’s app platform.

Source: Facebook is a ‘living, breathing crime scene,’ says one former tech insider – NBC News

In many ways, Facebook’s planned changes to News Feed are a retreat from the online public square the company helped create. They’re a tacit admission that the company’s great news experiment — which made it one of the most successful publishers in the world — failed. And now Facebook wants to go back to an idealized safe space, free of hyperpartisan pages, misinformation, and fake news. But when you’re home to nearly 2 billion humans, no change is ever simple; Facebook moved fast, broke things, and changed the way that the world produces, consumes, and shares information. And changing course more than a decade into one of the most disruptive social experiments ever might prove more than just a little difficult.

Source: Facebook Couldn’t Handle News. Maybe It Never Wanted To.

Near-term ad revenues may take a hit, but user growth is more important.

Source: Facebook Inc (FB) News Feed Change Is a Necessary Evil | Stock Market News | US News

Brown said that because posts from friends will be weighted most heavily, people are likely to see less content from publishers, brands and celebrities.

Source: ‘This change will take some time to figure out’: Here’s how Facebook is explaining its feed change to publishers – Digiday

In the next few weeks, you will see fewer viral videos and news articles from media companies, and instead see more posts that include interactions between you and the people you know.

Source: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share – The New York Times

Twitter has finished the last of their scheduled updates after #womenboycotttwitter with updated Twitter reporting tools.

Source: Twitter checks off last item on boycott-sparked list with updated reporting tools

Facebook wants to make it easier for people to find local news from vetted sources. The social network is testing a new section inside its app called “Today In,” a feed made up entirely of local news, events and announcements.

The test is running in just six cities for now: New Orleans, La.; Little Rock, Ark.; Billings, Mont.; Peoria, Ill.; Olympia, Wash.; and Binghamton, N.Y. Facebook users who self-identify as living in those areas will be able to visit the new section to see local information, like stories from local publishers or emergency updates from local authorities.

Source: Facebook is testing a new section of the app specifically for local news and events – Recode

Snapchat keeps its partners, investors, and even employees in the dark about how core features are performing. Now, some of those figures are finally being dragged into the light.

Source: This Is the Data Snapchat Doesn’t Want You to See

Facebook’s fundamental problem is not foreign interference, spam bots, trolls, or fame mongers. It’s the company’s core business model, and abandoning it is not an option.

Source: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed. – NewCo Shift