Social Media News For You In March
It’s one of my favorite times of year and March Madness is in full swing! I’ve been watching the men’s and women’s tournaments all weekend, and I told myself I could write this log in between halftime.
This week, we’ll be covering Instagram’s latest update to improve it’s search capabilities, March Madness ad sales reach record levels, and TikTok provides more tools for creators and influencers to create content.
Instagram Updates its Hashtag and Search Experience
SocialMediaToday noted a new Instagram update that has broadened the overall hashtag search results. Moving forward when you click on a hashtag, you will now view more comprehensive search results for that topic, similar to the explore page, rather than just the top posts associated with that hashtag.
The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, wrote on Threads, "We're simplifying the hashtag and search experiences on Instagram to make it easier to see everything in one place. Now, when you tap on a hashtag, you'll see the search results for that hashtag. You will still be able to follow/unfollow or report specific hashtags."
While not a significant update compared to others on the platform, it is a strategic one that can potentially affect profile discovery, broaden discovery within the app, and expand user search behaviors. This leans into the consumer trend that more people are using social media as their primary search engine and social media platforms want to make sure their app is the one people use.
March Madness Ad Sales Hit Revenue Records
With CBS Sports and TNT Sports broadcasting all 67 games of the men's tournament on four national television networks: TBS, CBS, TNT, and truTV, both networks have "basically sold out" of ad space for this year's men's March Madness tournament.
According to Warner Bros. Discovery's EVP of Ad Sales, Jon Diament, "This will be the best revenue tournament we've ever had," Diament stated during a virtual press conference on Wednesday.
Diament stated that the advertising on the live streams will be the same as those seen by linear viewers, whereas March Madness Live will have different commercial logs. The Women's Basketball Tournament is ready for an explosive year with ad space for women's March Madness, selling quickly, according to media buyers.
TikTok Adds Search Insights to Better Inform Content Strategies
Speaking of search capabilities, TikTok is introducing "Creator Search Insights," a new analytics feature that allows creators and influencers to adjust their overall content strategy based on user search volume in the app. These search insights will allow creators to see popular search terms related to their published content. Creators can also filter the results by topic or industry, such as "Food and Beverage," "DIY,” “Music” and more, to get more specific data insights.
Creators and influencers will also be able to search for "gap topics," which are topics that are often searched for on TikTok but there is a lack of actual content around said topic. This indicates an opportunity for creators to create content that should likely have more eyeballs on it over time. Whether or not this feature will be available if TikTok is forced to be sold off is up in the air.
Looking for more? Be sure to check out more of my writing, covering my favorite social media tools to use, like GoCharlie.ai. Or get the keys to gaining success with influencer marketing, and more deep dives on other social media or influencer marketing topics.
