Need your weekly dose of top social media news? Hope so, ‘cause that what we’re serving up this morning via Buffer’s Science of Social Media. Last week, several huge updates were made in the social media realm and today’s podcast unpacks what they mean for marketers and how they’ll affect the future of its platforms. 

There’s a lot of crucial news uncovered in this quick 12-minute listen, so press play to stay on top of your game. 

• (01:15) Facebook announces their Q4 earnings – Zuckerberg hints that the news feed days might be numbered…
• (01:40) To quote Zuck, “We expect stories are on track to overtake posts in the feed as the most common way people share across all apps”
• (02:55) Also revealed that users spending 50 million fewer hours a day on the platform.  
• (04:20) Instagram now allows businesses to schedule their posts
• (05:05) Businesses are being given a lot more opportunity on the platform
• (05:35) Right now, the Instagram API beta is super limited – those testing the new feature say their reach isn’t as good as before
• (06:10) When is Buffer going to offer this feature?
• (07:00) An article in the NYT called “The Follower Factory” pulls back the curtain on what is a massive industry of fake followers and bought accounts
• (07:50) Facebook disclosed that it has twice as many fake followers than the previous year
• (08:10) How this affects social proof and social currency
• (09:15) What this means for influencer marketing –  Beware, an influencer’s followers might very well be fake, but they get paid based on the # of followers they have…
• (09:20) How social media platforms will be cracking down on this issue
• (09:45) The genius of Twitter’s latest photo update
• (10:30) Twitter powering up its predictive analysis
• (10:45) How to make the most of LinkedIn’s website demographics

More insights inside →

You ever read a killer piece of content and wonder how the heck that company actually created that? Like, obviously someone sat down and wrote the thing, but what was their actual process for creating this amazing piece of content? How many people are involved? How much research went into this or are they just winging it? What’s their distribution strategy?

We have a lot of questions.

Apparently, the people over at the Content Marketing Institute have a lot of questions too. That’s why they decided to ask a bunch of great content creators what their processes are. We’ve got their answers for you right here:

• Massimo Cheiruzzi, AdEspresso — They use internal and external writers for their content. For external writers, they pay above market rates to get the best writers. To find topics, they use Twitter, Facebook, Quora, emails, and customer support to figure out what their audience is asking about.
• Alfred Lua, Buffer — Their content is almost entirely produced by a two-man team. They plan everything on a Trello board (which is open to the public, view it here). Buffer comes up with topics by looking back at posts that have performed well, using social listening, doing keyword research, and just using good ol’ intuition. Google Analytics and Looker are used to track performance.
• Nathan Ellering, CoSchedule — Nathan has a team of 5 people working on content. They come up with content by looking back at their best-performing pieces to develop new ideas. CoSchedule has a very detailed social-sharing plan for all of their blog posts. And Kissmetrics is their analytics platform of choice.
• Patrick Whatman, Mention — At the beginning of each month, they brainstorm as a team to come up with major content pieces and decide who will write them. Aside from the usual distribution tactics, they use Inbound.org, GrowthHackers, and LinkedIn Groups to get their content in front of the right people.

Smash the button below to get more content creation tips from the pros.

You know we had to do it to ya… But if Super Bowl ads aren’t talked about post-championship, did they even happen?

Adweek, doing what they do best, reviewed every single spot that played during the game. We’re only gonna focus on the top 5 they thought smoked the competition, awarding them the coveted title, Best Super Bowl Ad. You can even read what makes them such supreme spots.

From Amazon’s LOL-worthy “Alexa Lost Her Voice” to Tide’s “It’s a Tide Ad,” which knowingly comments on Super Bowl advertising itself, this collection of marketing genius has no shortage of quirky humor, clever creative, and unexpected narratives.