Facebook is making real-time content more visible in its News Feed after confirming that live videos will feature more prominently, giving users a greater chance of viewing these videos while they are currently in progress. Facebook claims that people now spend more than three times the amount of time watching live video compared to standard, saved videos.

A new report by LSA and Buzzboard has reiterated the importance of mobile for local searches, as 60% of respondents said they now use a smartphone or tablet to get the latest local information online. Google recently stated that more than half of searches globally are now made on mobile devices, and the demand for mobile is growing fast.

Social media management system Hootsuite has launched a beta version with new analytics and additional reporting options. The latest update brings a revamped interface, which allows marketers to track metrics such as posts, followers, engagement and the number of posts published from Hootsuite – otherwise known as Ow.ly Traffic – via a new informative dashboard. The beta version should be rolling out to all users this week.

A new report by Accenture has called on enterprises to “equate content” with their “most essential asset” if they are to develop a successful digital marketing strategy. The State of Content Survey found that while marketing teams are motivated to transform their content offerings, more than half admitted that they feel their competitors are better at executing a successful digital strategy. An impressive 100% of the marketers surveyed said they now recognise the crucial role that content such as social media posts, videos and blog posts play in meeting strategic business goals, but just 20% said they managed it well.

The set of five new animated emoji expand on the now ubiquitous Like button and include Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry. The Yay emoticon that was present during the pilot launch has not made the cut.

Facebook is reportedly planning to introduce paid ads to its messaging platform within the next few months. Tech website TechCrunch claims the social media giant has already distributed a document to businesses stating that they will have the ability to message customers directly from around April onwards.

Google has confirmed that it will be removing AdWords ads located on the right-hand side of search results in favour of a new layout, where ads will be placed at the top and bottom of a page. It has already begun rolling out the changes in all languages for desktop searches worldwide as it continues to bring SERPs closer to the mobile experience.

Google is making it easier for advertisers to make multiple changes to their campaigns without implementing or publishing them via new Drafts and Experiments options in AdWords, which will be rolled out during the coming weeks.

Microsoft has updated its Bing Ads app for iOS and Android, bringing a range of new features. These include a pie chart visualisation for Share of Voice and a Quality Score metric that provides a weighted 1-10 numeric value for the performance of changes made to ad copy and landing pages.