This Week in Social Media... Exciting New Apps and Incredible Twitter updates

Patrick Carroll

Jul 14 2014

This week in social media features an exciting new visual app called Pixotale, important (and incredibly useful) analytics updates from Twitter, ANOTHER LinkedIn App, and a few interface updates from Vine.

New Tweet Activity Dashboard

Looking for more detail from Twitter’s analytics platform? Just released on Friday, the “activity dashboard” offers more metrics for the data-driven social media marketer, including the long-awaited “impressions” stat.

“In addition to the number of impressions, Retweets and favorites your Tweet received, the dashboard gives a breakdown of how people are engaging with it. Just click on the Tweet you’re interested in and it will expand to show you more detail. For Tweets with links, for example, you’ll see link clicks; for Tweets with hashtags, you’ll see hashtag clicks; for Tweets with App Cards, you’ll see how many times people clicked to install your app or open it (if it’s already downloaded). And if you receive follows or profile views from a particular Tweet, you’ll see that too.”

New LinkedIn Connected App

A few weeks after releasing the job search app, LinkedIn has launched another app targeted toward the super-networkers. LinkedIn Connected offers networkers a clean app simply for networking and staying in touch with your connections. Just like the job search app, LinkedIn Connected offers features already available in the standard LinkedIn app, but with a much simpler interface and narrower focus.

“We know you’d love to reach out and catch up with everyone in your network over coffee, but that isn’t always possible. Connected gives you relevant, and timely, reasons to reach out and keep in touch with the people in your network. This app helps you invest in your relationships today, so opportunities blossom for you tomorrow.”

Vine Adds Loop (Play) Counts and Milestones

Vine has added a counter on every video that shows how many times the video has been watched. Interestingly, it updates in real-time to give users the feeling that they’re watching a video with others. Vine has also updated the activity feed to notify users when their vines reach certain milestones (view counts).

“With this update, there’s now a new way for you to quickly get a sense of how popular and interesting a Vine may be –– based on how many times people watch a Vine loop.”

Former Microsoft Engineers Launch Pixotale

Social media has gone visual and countless apps are taking advantage of the trend. Pixotale, a new app best described as a cross between Instagram and a blog, is one to keep an eye on. Focused on creating deeper connections with long-form visual content, it is poised to compete with simpler but incredibly popular apps like Instagram.

“The app is also designed to make creating longer-form content easier on mobile, with a simple interface for adding text, photos, a map and soon video and audio. You can tap to add elements to the story or adjust its layout on the page before publishing. You can also work on stories while offline, and save them to publish later.”