Social Media Weekly Recap: Microsoft, FB Author Tags and More

Here are the top social media stories that you might have missed last week.

1. Microsoft Leads LinkedIn's 10 Most Influential Global Brands

Microsoft has once again earned the highest content marketing score on LinkedIn for this year's top 10 list of global brands, beating other brands like Forbes, Harvard Business Review, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.  A year ago, Microsoft was the first tech brand to win the top slot on LinkedIn's inaugural top 10 global brands list.

While Microsoft gradually loses out to its close competitors like Google and Apple, this latest recognition bolsters this tech giant's efforts in engaging their audience through content marketing. Here is the complete list of the top 10 global best-in-class Content Marketers on LinkedIn: 1. Microsoft, 2. Forbes, 3. Harvard Business Review, 4. IBM, 5. Inc. 6. Hewlett-Packard, 7. Google, 8. Salesforce, 9. Domo and 10. EY.  Content Marketing Score is measured calculating the ratio between the total target audience and unique visitors engaged with the content.

2. Twitter is testing new features to help discover new products and places

Twitter announced recently that they are rolling out two ways to discover relevant content about products and places on your Twitter feed. You will soon start seeing tweets with product or place recommendations embedded on dedicated pages. These pages will showcase videos or images about products and places and include other details like description, price, buy button, book reservation or website information. The product and place page is still being tested on selected number of Twitter accounts and shared by brands and influencers.

In addition, Twitter is also experimenting with product and place collections where people can create and share collections of products and places. Followers can browse collections from influencers they follow and get details about the products and places that interests them. Click here to check out what collections look like for the Ellen Show.

3. Youtube launches Newswire, a channel for verified eyewitness videos

Youtube in partnership with Storyful, a social news agency, launches Youtube Newswire, a new channel that provides a curated feed of news-worthy videos from eyewitnesses verified by Storyful's editorial team. Newswire videos can be embedded from the original source. Newswire will feature regional and global feeds that aims to provide journalists with a helpful source to discover breaking news around the world.

4. Facebook introduces Author Tags to Grow a Publisher's Audience

Facebook recently launched Author Tags, a new feature that will help publisher's grow their audience and help followers to easily follow authors of content they enjoy reading. Author tags is integrated in the story preview's byline in the Facebook news feed that links to the author's profile or page with an option to follow. Once a reader clicks on the article posted on Facebook feed and returns to Facebook after reading it, the story preview page will display options to follow or like the author's page or profiles. Followers who clicked on the like or follow button will then receive updates from the author.

5. New things to look out for on Pinterest Image Search

Pinterest announced that they have rolled out several improvements on their search suggestions to make it easier to search for people and creative pins. Before, search results were filled with different filter settings for pins, pinners and pinboards. Today, Pinterest search now lets you retrieve closest search result matches. Once you type keywords on the search box, it will populate related suggestions. When you tap or click on the results, a search filter button appears so you can switch between seeing pinboards, users or just pins.

Just like in Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest accounts of popular brands and influencers are marked with a check mark. You can also check out what's trending when you tap on the search bar but this feature is only available in the US for now.  Another great feature is the spellcheck, which provides users with relevant suggested results that Pinterest thinks you might actually be searching for even when you might have spelled the search terms wrong.

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