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Top 7 Digital Industry News and Trends From This Week.

Welcome to the The StrataBlog Round Up

Don’t have time scour the entire web and read every blog out there about the digital market today? Don’t worry we have you covered.

Here is everything you should know from this week in the digital marketing industry.

Working around Facebook’s muted auto play subtly with subtitles.

When Facebook stated its auto-play feature for videos at the beginning of the year, marketers rejoiced. View were now bountiful Cost per views were on the drop. Everybody was happy. But there was a catch, the videos were muted unless clicked on by the end users. Some brands have found ways around this, by simply embracing it. With a slight nod to the days of old when subtitles were king.

http://digiday.com/brands/clever-hotels-com-workaround-muted-facebook-video-ads/

Facebook now supports .gifs but not for uploading.

Prepare yourself for a gifs galore. Facebook now supports gif in both its desktop versions and mobile versions. If you don’t know, .gif’s aka (Graphics Interchange Format) are short soundless videos that repeat over and over again. They are most commonly used for reactions to digital content and are prevalent on sites such as Imgur.com, Tumblr, or Reddit. You cannot yet upload a .gif as an ad, but they can be posted. Brands however should be wary to post .gifs featuring copyrighted content they do not own themselves, in order to avoid potential legal trouble.

http://mashable.com/2015/05/29/facebook-gif-support/

Instagram ads are on the way!

Powered by Facebook targeting abilities, Instagram will soon be available to everyone as a advertising platforms and not just those who can shell out more then $500,000 per ad. While Instagram works out the kinks of their ads serving and buying back end, they have added additional powerful features catering to tech and such as a Buy now and App Install buttons.

Here is a fantastic tech crunch article on the matter. http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/adstagram/#.5qbaaa:hCYT

The future of YouTube is mobile. Go small or go home.

YouTube is now more than a decade old. What started as a small site for users to upload videos for other people to watch, has grown to a media powerhouse before being purchased by Google. That’s its past but where is its future? Mobile. More than half if its users are already on some sort of mobile device. Mobile watch time has grown nearly 100% this past year and will continue to rise. The future of video is mobile, and advertisers must embrace it.

Here is The Guardians interview with YouTube’s Head of content and business operations, Robert Kyncl http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/02/youtube-future-small-screens-mobile-robert-kyncl

Is the pin mightier than the data? Pinterest buying power vs Instagram data.

Facebook and Instagram both have massive amounts of  digital data on their users. This allows extremely relevant ads to be served to audiences. Pinterest, however can allow brands to be part of the planning mode (or skip right down to the bottom of the sales funnel) Users go to Pinterest for inspiration with Pinterest adding “Buy It” buttons, it has the potential to flip the traditional sales process with top of funnel conversions and become am E-commerce powerhouse.

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/instagram-offers-big-data-pinterest-has-purchase-intent-165168

The psychological power of color.

A Picture says 1000 words, what does a color say? We are visual creatures who associated different colors with different meanings for example Red is an exciting or alert color, blue is a calmer, more competent color. Colors have personality just like brands. There are some best practices to use when thinking about what colors to use in everything from call-to-actions, to general branding.

http://thenextweb.com/creativity/2015/05/16/the-psychology-behind-color/

7 Reasons to pay for experiences over things.

We see the past through rose tinted glasses. Giving users more of a brand experience can lead to better recall and better feelings towards that brand or product, than simply seeing an ad scrolling through your news feeds. Here is an example: which is more memorable, a real life recreated Pac-man game, or a picture of a model drinking a beer? A slight exaggeration but you get the idea.  There is something to be gained when you offer your customers a unique digital experience online with your brand as opposed to just seeing an ad while scrolling through Facebook.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3046696/the-7-reasons-that-science-says-you-should-pay-for-experience-not-things

Want To Know More About How These Ideas Can Help Your Brand?