Check out this week’s summary of all the latest social media news, including changes and new features for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn:
- The great Facebook email experiment is over – Facebook is retiring its email address system due to lack of use, and will focus instead on mobile messaging; emails sent to Facebook email addresses will be automatically forwarded to the user’s default personal email address (re/code)
- Facebook to begin rolling out new ad campaign structure March 4 – ad sets will now be placed between two existing levels of campaign structure (campaigns and ads); this new campaign structure will be incorporated into all ad interfaces starting March 4th (AllFacebook)
- How Facebook’s News Feed now lets brands ride the coattails of other brands – users will now begin seeing posts about Facebook pages they follow, even if those posts are made by pages (or brands) they do not follow; marketers that properly tag other pages now have the opportunity to receive extra visibility (Marketing Land)
- Twitter brings its ‘Amplify’ ad program to movie screens – Twitter is partnering with NCM Media Networks to produce a branded entertainment series that will be fueled by Twitter data (including insights about current movies and stars); once a sponsor is found, the minute-long segment will run prior to every movie in theaters within NCM’s network (AdAge)
- Twitter is bringing Promoted Accounts to its search results – last week Twitter announced that Promoted Accounts – where businesses pay to advertise to users – will now show up in Twitter search results (TechCrunch)
- ABC joins other U.S. TV networks in Twitter Amplify program, just in time for the Oscars – ABC has now partnered with Twitter, starting with the Academy Awards; ABC’s first Amplify campaign featured ‘Twitter Mirror’ selfies of stars taken backstage at the Oscars (Marketing Land)
Google+
- Google quietly begins pushing its photo backup software to Google+ users – Google is now promoting its “Auto Backup” photo archival software to Mac and Windows users through Google+; the actual software was launched back in December (TechCrunch)
- LinkedIn is doing what Facebook, Google, and Twitter can’t: expanding in China – LinkedIn is the only major American social network with a significant presence in China, and last week it launched a beta version of a mainland China-focused, Chinese-language site that should further broaden its reach (Quartz)
Any social media updates that we missed?