What’s new in Social Media (October 2019)

Thankfully we are always keeping up to date with the latest changes, so you can always come to us for help. Here is a look at what’s new in social media for October

Facebook:

Facebook has now begun testing the removal of likes from News Feed posts. While users and business will be able to still see the number of likes for a post, these will be hidden from public view. It is hoped that the test will allow users to openly express themselves better and eliminate people liking posts because others have liked it.

Stories on Facebook also received a new update for business pages. Those posting to stories can now add a “swipe up to message” call to action button on their stories. When a user viewing the story swipes up, they will then be able to send a message to the business page via Facebook messenger. This feature is also being added across all of Facebook stories including Instagram Stories and stories viewed in Messenger.

Updates to Instagram:

Instagram has an interesting couple of months ahead of it with a whole range of new additions and enhancements. The biggest is probably the announcement that Instagram is removing the “Following” Tab that usually provides a detailed list of likes and comments that friends make on posts that are not their own. Now Instagram users will only be able to see activity involved with their own posts and accounts. The aim is to make the “Explore” feature more prominent within the app and reduce the lurking and creepiness that was involved with snooping on friends’ activities!.

Instagram also released a new app called Threads. The new app is dedicated for sharing your snaps with only your closest friends. Users will be able to have their status updated automatically based on their Geo-Location and provide dedicated chats with friends that the user has added as a close friend. The app allows you full control over who you have listed and does not provide a way for people to request access to your list. In fact, if you add close friends from Instagram, they won’t be notified that you have added them to the app. Instead, any snaps or messages will appear as if they have been sent through the normal Instagram platform. The app has been developed as a way to provide users of Instagram a more private social network free from influencers and creatives on Instagram.

Other features that Instagram is set to roll out include the launch of a @Creators account to provide tips and advice for influencers, new product launch reminder stickers and tags as well as easier restriction tools to limit exposure of trolls and cyberbullies. Instagram is now also testing new AR ‘Try On’ ads with specially selected advertisers.

The aim would be to allow users to potential try on makeup and outfits to see how they would look using the camera of a mobile device. The product would be projected on to the subject using the camera and their main mobile screen. 

New updates to Twitter:

Twitter has received a number of new tweaks and updates in the last week or two. The first is the addition of a search bar being added for direct messages (DM’s). If you are using twitter to DM followers and connections, this will prove to be a handy tool.  The new addition is currently in testing on iOS and web browsers.

Twitter is also refining some of its other advanced search tools that include the ability to perform an advanced search on engagement and sort through query results by the number of replies, likes or retweets. This should better help determine what you most engaging tweets are and allow you to tweak future tweets to match your most engaging content. Twitter has also added the option of filtering direct messages that contain offensive content, spam and non-followers. The new filter tool is designed to reduce the number of abusive and unsolicited DM’s which unfortunately have been on the rise recently.

In other Twitter news, the company is in the process of testing the ability to stream tweets. With this feature turned on this would mean that your timeline would display the latest tweets as they happen in real-time. Updates as appear as they happen in real-time instead of tweets being displayed based on relevancy from your followers. In addition to the current updates and new tools in testing, twitter is also now starting to suggest accounts to follow based on topics and is part of the new Topics list options that have been added to twitter.

Finally, twitter live video streaming service Periscope has announced that it is removing support for 360-degree video and go Pro video streams.  Periscope noted that it is removing this feature in order to better enhance the quality of the platform. For those looking to live stream 360-degree video content, Facebook and YouTube still very much support this feature.

WhatsApp beta:

WhatsApp is currently rumoured to be testing an option to make messages self-destruct after a set amount of time much in the same way SnapChat works. Initially, the tests have been confined to WhatsApp groups but could potentially roll out to private messages as well. The feature, of course, is optional and can be toggled but users could, in theory, set their message to disappear after 5 seconds or set it to disappear after a full hour. The new features are part of Facebook's drive to develop more private social network options.

That’s your update on what’s news for social media in October. If you would like to find out more about our social media strategy, management or training services, why not give us a call?