As originally in The Verticals Collective newsletter, July 25, 2017.

VERTS NEWS 

There’s so much, we’re breaking it into sections….

Acquisitions and Sales

Briefing Media Sells Media Assets to Haymarket (Campaign Live)
Briefing Media  can now focus on agriculture and agribusiness.

Access Intelligence Buys AdExchanger (Folio)
The marketing company Access Intelligence, which has a heavy presence in programmatic advertising, also owns events and intelligence company AdMonsters.

Greentech Media’s Parent Buys Make (GreenTech)
The acquisition adds wind energy expertise.

Initiatives and Coverage

Fatherly Runs The First Ever Ad Campaign With a Trans Dad (MediaPost)
This dad gave birth to his own child(!). More coverage and here, here and here. And Fatherly started  a new series, “My Father the [Blank].” First up: Pablo Escobar’s son, and John Wayne’s.

“There’s An Opportunity to Go Deep” (Nieman Lab)
What’s next for Rafat Ali’s growing travel site Skift, five years in? Rafat talks (not) raising  money, getting subscribers, and handling events. Plus Skift has moved into a bright, big new office.

Cool Hunting has a new personalized gifting service “Omakase,” which is a Japanese word for putting it in someone else’s hands.

PSFK’s Chat a Researcher lets members ask reporters and researchers questions, then get a follow-up report.

The College Art Association joins Hyperallergic ad network Nectar Ads, which is for art and design.

Launches

Next Money’s Asia Fintech, 2018

Senior Housing News’ New “Skilled Nursing News”

VinePair’s Cannibis Lifestyle for Women Site (AdWeek)
It’s called Jane Street.

Galore’s GirlCult Festival (Billboard)
A “day of media, pop culture and talent-related discussions centered around community empowerment and issues facing the women of Generation Z,” featuring Tyra Banks and Willow Smith.

FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM: DRIVING MORE OR LESS TRAFFIC?

Ahhh, the platforms. Maybe they’re using us as guinea pigs (we’re all test subjects), and so our members are seeing varied results.

I can tell you the CEO of one major social media optimization company all but threw up his hands in an email to me: “Facebook & Instagram change their algorithms all the time; it just doesn’t typically get reported. Unfortunately I don’t know of any good way to stay on top of it, other than to trade anecdotal stories.”

OK, then. Here’s what various Verts publishers report.

Facebook:

• Significant increases, significant declines, and little movement in organic referral traffic. (Yes, all three scenarios.)
• Reach down but referral traffic up.
• Overall traffic down, but spikes occurring with little rhyme or reason.
• Reach achieved only via video posts.
• Rewarding of content that’s repetitive of what others post. (Blech.)

So, if you are frustrated trying to figure it out, you’re not alone. As for what Verts are seeing on Instagram…

Instagram:

• Significant decreases in follower growth.
• Quality more important than quantity, maybe.
• Instagram Stories doing well (rather than posts).
• Maybe favoring pods — linked accounts that engage with each other. (Here’s a contrary  piece on how pods didn’t work for one author, with some tips on what she thinks might work better.)

There are suspicions that Instagram may be following Facebook’s lead in throttling organic reach to get us to spend money on driving traffic.

We do know Instagram re-ordered priorities to make what they deem most-interesting to users appear in their feeds rather than having chronology be the rule. There’s talk of something going on with hashtags. And there’s a petition to Instagram to help those whose engagement has dropped.

We found this piece on “how to beat” the Instagram algorithm (focus on engagement, hashtag care, tagging). This bulleted list breaks down some tips from a talk the video of which is embedded.

If you want to simply follow at least some of what’s known of the platforms’ algorithm changes chronologically, you can look here for Facebook, and for Instagram here.

Whatever the beefs we have, Facebook is at least trying to woo publishers …

Facebook to Help Publishers Sell Subscriptions (NY Times)
Meanwhile, this roundup from Verts member Digiday has more on various moves. And this tell how Facebook is helping generate email signups for Bauer Xcel media with their call-to-action buttons in Instant Articles.

…. plus, …  

Facebook Journalism Project, Update (Facebook)
Simultaneous publishing on AMP, more related stories links, ads every 250 words (down from 350), and a tool to let publishers know how their mobile web versions do vs. Instant Articles (wonder which, eh?).

’Course, Facebook ain’t alone in this party …

Apple News May Let Publishers Sell Ads Their Own Way (AdAge)

Amazon’s New Social Network, Spark (Buzzfeed)
In case you don’t have enough social networks to concern yourself with, Amazon has launched “an Instagram competitor with a commerce-y twist.”

And here’s a piece of the song “She Drives Me Crazy” we alluded to above, which kinda sums up how we feel about platforms right now… 

“Things you do don’t seem real.
Tell me what you’ve got in mind,
‘Cause we’re running out of time.”