Whether you’re a day-to-day user, an influencer, a business owner or working in the industry, social media has become a part of all our lives.
And in the ever-evolving landscape of social media, it’s essential keep on top of new updates and trends happening on social media platforms.
So, we’ve done the hard work for you! Check out below some of the biggest updates in social media this month…
1. Instagram is testing a new Stories UI
Marketers who have made Instagram stories a priority may be disappointed by this new update to the stories feature.
Apparently, Instagram has been testing new stories display UI for a couple of weeks now, which will essentially conceal Stories after a certain frame count.
If implemented the stories will only display the first three frames of a sponsored post, along with a little 'Show all' prompt in the upper left of the screen, as shown in this sample supplied by Content Strategist Claudia Flannery.
Social Media Today asked IG for some insight and they were provided with a response saying:
“This feature is in early development and testing with a very small percentage of people.”
My hot take: This could be related to Instagram’s recent focus on Reel’s to compete with TikTok. It has been speculated that this could lead the company to explore a new full-screen UI that would combine feed posts, reels and stories into one single stream. An example of this was posted by mobile developer, leaker, and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi on Twitter.
The source article can be found here.
2. New TikTok tool unveils key insights
TikTok has released a new tool that provides marketers with data they can use to target groups worldwide.
You can learn all about your audience's behaviour, interests, and general sentiment towards you or your brand using TikTok Insights.
TikTok Insights has dozens of filters to help you cut through data that isn't relevant to your business and receive only the information you need.
And the best part? TikTok Insights is free to use! An excellent addition to your marketing toolkit.
Find more information here.
3. LinkedIn’s “Funny” reaction.
LinkedIn has acknowledged the ever-varying content on its platform by introducing a new reaction option.
LinkedIn is expanding its current reactions set with a new 'Funny’ option, so you'll soon have another way to react to amusing content on the platform.
Personally… I don’t think it suits the platform. It also encourages the copying and pasting ofmemes from other platforms, which LinkedIn is already seeing, and cluttering up the feed.
The source article can be found here.
4. Twitter is experimenting with new tags to indicate tweet author engagement.
Twitter is continually developing new features, the most recent of which is new ‘tweet labels’. If implemented, they would be added to tweets to give more context and information around specific conversations.
The aim is that this will increase interaction by alerting users to the most relevant comments from the author, as well as giving fans more prominence in comment threads.
Twitter is now also showcasing some retweet author replies in a similar fashion, with a different text colour and a microphone symbol next to the comment.
More information on the topic can be found here.
5. Snapchat introduces a new feature that allows users to see eBay listings in their Snaps.
Snapchat has launched a new partnership with eBay, allowing users to share eBay listings directly from their Snaps.
Users will be able to share an item from the eBay app as Snaps and Snap Stories, with the listing appearing as a sticker on their post.
Snapchat is also integrating a range of AR shopping tools, shoppable Bitmoji digital products, better product listings and more as part of its eCommerce expansion.
This is an interesting direction for Snapchat to take – will Snapchat follow in the footsteps of Depop and Etsy?
More information can be found in Snapchat's newsroom here.
