🔊 Spotify-owned app converts video conference recordings into podcasts

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Plus, Facebook expands test of in-stream ads for Live.

Apr 30, 2020

Good morning Marketer ever thought about creating a podcast for your business?

First things first: podcasts don’t work for everyone. But if it makes sense for your brand, there’s a handy new tool to help make it easier. Anchor, Spotify-owned podcast recording and distribution platform, has launched a new feature that lets users convert video conference recordings into podcast episodes, the company announced Tuesday. Of course, this process could be accomplished through other means, but for businesses tight on time and resources, Anchor is a free option that takes care of the audio conversion while hosting and distributing your podcast content.

In other news, Facebook is expanding its test of in-stream ads in Facebook Live to include “pre-vetted entertainment, news and sports partners,” according to a spokesperson from Facebook. When watching Live content from a creator included in the test, viewers could be served three types of in-stream ads: Pre-roll ads that run before the stream, an image ad that appears below the video, or a mid-roll ad that plays during the stream.

Up until now, Facebook has been testing in-stream ads exclusively with gaming developers in Live. Now that it’s rolling out to more interest areas, advertisers across the spectrum could see an uptick in impressions with the in-stream Live format – especially now as people seek virtual ways to experience their favorite live moments.

We’ve got more for you below, including a new ad unit from Snapchat and an update on Twitter’s SMS service.

Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor

Social Shorts

A new ad format for Snapchat, WhatsApp forwarding, and Twitter’s SMS service

Snapchat’s First Commercial. Snapchat is launching a new ad format called First Commercial, which lets ads show up as the “first commercial a user sees when they tune into Snap’s robust suite of shows,” the company announced. It’s a lucrative addition to Snapchat’s ad businesses, especially since viewership of the Discover feed has increased 35% since Q1 of last year.

Viral messages plummet on WhatsApp. Earlier this month, the Facebook-owned messaging platform introduced new restrictions on how many times a user can forward a message, limiting forwarding to only one person or group at a time. The good news? It’s working. WhatsApp said on Monday that highly-forwarded chain messages (you know the ones) have dropped by 70% globally since the new restriction was implemented.

Twitter SMS no longer. Remember Twitter’s SMS days? This week, Twitter announced it was officially turning off its ‘Twitter via SMS’ service for the majority of its global users. As a result, some long-time Twitter users may have noticed followers dropping off – with as many as 10% removed as part of Twitter’s efforts to sunset the SMS service. Mashable notes that the changes appear to be minimal, with the accounts affected being those that received SMS notifications for tweets. “Besides adding to the follower count of those users, they did not exist on the platform. These users did not have a profile or an ability to sign into or engage with Twitter,” Mashable reported.

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