IGTV lands as Instagram hits 1bn users
To celebrate hitting 1 billion users, Instagram has launched IGTV, a video extension to rival YouTube. It’s now allowing users to post up to 1-hour-long videos, leaving room for influencers and brands to bring their longer-form video into their highly curated Instagram accounts. They’ve launched IGTV in the Instagram app, but will also be launching a stand-alone app.

Follower mills beware – Unilever bans follower-buying influencers
Unilever is cutting all ties with influencers who buy followers. At Cannes Lions this week, the company made its announcement and urged other companies to follow suit. With transparency at the heart of this move, brands should take note – marketing products to bots just isn’t worth your time.

Hablamos español: Facebook introduces auto translate in messenger
Facebook has launched a new AI assistant, M, which will allow messages in Spanish to be auto-translated to English in Facebook Messenger and vice versa. Further changes have been made within the Messenger app, allowing video ads to auto-play as well as augmented reality tech to allow brands to showcase 3D product models.

Bringing blockchain into digital advertising
In full 21st century fashion, blockchain tech is being brought into the digital and social media ad space. Anheuser-Busch InBev and ad tech and data platform Kiip successfully launched the first ad campaign run on the Ethereum blockchain this week, opening up a whole world of possibilities for transparent ad supply chains, especially relevant in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. With more secure, ethical data sets and more visibility into practices, this new technology could mark a big shift in digital data usage.

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