Ayaz Nanji says, “Half of Fortune 500 brands are now on Instagram, and the platform is providing the highest engagement levels for these businesses of any social network, according to recent research from TrackMaven. The report was based on an analysis of Instagram content posted by Fortune 500 brands between May 1, 2015 and May 1, 2016. The researchers examined 41,071 unique Instagram posts, in total. Only 123 Fortune 500 brands had Instagram accounts in 2013 (24.6%); today that number is up to 250 (50%), and an additional 1.4% have Instagram accounts for subsidiary brands. Below, additional... [...]

Karissa Bell says, “If you were hoping to get more followers on Telegram or Snapchat from your Instagram profile, you may be out of luck. The photo sharing app recently began cracking down on certain types of links in users’ profiles, including those that link back to Telegram and Snapchat accounts. The move only affects links that allow people to directly add followers on outside networks, not all links to those services. SEE ALSO: 12 awesome Instagram features you’re probably not using An Instagram spokesperson confirmed the change to Mashable saying in a statement that the... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Facebook recently released its second annual State of Connectivity report on global internet access. The tech giant has long pushed for increased global internet connectivity and this report is designed to increase the sharing of data around this issue. You can see all the data by downloading the report, but here are a few of the stats that spoke to me. 1. Availability 3.2bn online 3.2bn people had internet access at the end of 2015, with 4.1bn people not yet connected. The chart below shows how internet penetration has increased fairly steadily since 2006”. Key stats... [...]

Andrew Weber says, “Back in September, I conducted an examination of e-commerce advertising and purchase activity run through Nanigans software, which was developed by the company that employs me. I noted some clear behavioral patterns, such as consumers generating the greatest share of purchases on Wednesday or Thursday of a given week. In this column, the focus turns to lead generation advertisers who, as a whole, seek to drive more complex conversions, like contacting a mortgage lender or requesting a car insurance quote. Facebook advertising data shows how advertisers in this ecosystem... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “It’s finally here: after months of speculation following Mark Zuckerberg’s comments about the creation of a Dislike button, Facebook has unveiled an extension to the Like button that will allow users to express emotion when reacting to content. As Facebook product manager Sammi Krug explained: For more than a year we have been conducting global research including focus groups and surveys to determine what types of reactions people would want to use most. We also looked at how people are already commenting on posts and the top stickers and emoticons as signals... [...]

Luke Richards says, “The start of the year is a good time to dig into social trends. As usual, our latest Internet Statistics Compendium update sees a swathe of new data from across the world of freely accessible stats and our own in-house research. This month it is the social arm of the compendium that boasts some of the stand-out insights. This is in no small part thanks to two major reports from We Are Social and Internet World Stats. I thought I would take this opportunity to dig into the Latin American social data. After all, it is a huge and still-growing market, as well as being one... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “LinkedIn is shuttering its nascent ad network just under a year after launching it. Resources will instead focus on growing the Sponsored Content business. Last Feburary, following a path now well worn by the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn started an ad network to target ads using its data to users outside its own walls. The ad network and a standalone product called Lead Accelerator grew out of the company’s acquisition of B2B marketing technology firm Bizo in July 2014. Steve Sordello, LinkedIn’s CFO, wrote in LinkedIn’s quarterly earnings statement... [...]

Carly Okyle says, “While most social-media platforms emphasize their commitment to brevity — Vine’s six-second videos, Twitter’s 140-character per tweet limit and Snapchat’s vanishing messages — one company is hoping to extend attention spans. Instagram is rolling out a new feature for advertisers today: an option for minute-long ads. Previously, advertisers had a maximum time limit of 30 seconds to convey their messages, which is double the 15-second limit users have for their videos. Already two companies — T-Mobile and Warner Bros. — have taken advantage... [...]

Corey Eridon says, “We have a 9 a.m. meeting? Yikes! Hold on — let me just click around the internet like a maniac to find something for the morning tweet. Sound familiar? Scrambling for social content is not a new phenomenon. We have meetings. We run late. Things come up. And it’s really hard to get any meaningful amount of work done when you have the next social media update looming over your head every 30, 60, 90 minutes. It all moves so fast that you might periodically feel a case of the vapors coming on, which is why pre-scheduled social media content should be your new... [...]

Carly Stec says, “What do overalls, Mariah Carey’s Christmas album, and hashtags all have in common? Believe it or not, they are all products of the 90s. While hashtags didn’t rise to popularity (with the help of Twitter) until after 2007, they were actually first used during the late 90s to categorize items into groups on IRC (Internet Relay Chat.) Since then, you’ve seen them, you’ve used them, but it’s likely that you’re not quite sure why. You’re not alone. While the concept has been around for a while, the social application of hashtags is... [...]