After what seemed like a tsunami of updates last month, this month seems to have been a little quieter. Nonetheless, the updates from Instagram, Facebook & more are still beneficial to businesses and individuals…. So let’s get going!
If you’ve got little ones who are missing their school friends, there are a few updates coming to the Messenger Kids App. The need for increased online safety and parental controls on apps are as important as ever, so the extra parental controls that Facebook has added are great. We’ll certainly be featuring them in The Parents Social Media Hub over on Facebook.
One of the changes to the app is the ability for parents to opt into allowing their child to control their incoming and outgoing friend requests. That may seem scary, but parents will get a notification about friend requests and can override if they need to.
There is also a change to how groups are working with parents being able to approve another adult joining the group. These adults would be people such as teachers, other parents, or coaches. With homeschooling in full swing and some parents struggling, this sounds like a good addition for anyone wanting to reach out for additional support.
These updates are being rolled out in the USA first before being rolled out to the rest of the world.
There is nothing worse than receiving notification after notification, especially when winding down for the evening. One of Facebook’s new digital wellbeing tools is a quiet mode which will silence notifications on your mobile, without turning them off completely.
If you don’t see the quiet mode option on your phone, it means your app hasn’t updated yet. While you’re waiting you can still mute notifications via the ‘my time on Facebook’ tab on your profile page.
TikTok is all the rage at the moment and Instagram knows it! They’re channelling TikTok with their newest update to Stories – the challenge sticker.
The new sticker is available now via the sticker tab on Stories. It works in the same way that the location and hashtag stickers do. You’ll be able to take a look through other people’s challenges or even issue your own challenge. This new challenge sticker could help business users increase their engagement in a big way!
We couldn’t be more excited about the next update that Instagram is said to be testing. Simulcasting will allow users to stream live from Instagram to Facebook at the same time! Here at Naturally Social HQ, we’re hoping this feature is rolled out sooner rather than later.
Another great update from Instagram this month is for the small businesses out there. Last month we discovered the Donate sticker. Instagram are now in the process of adding gift card, fundraiser and, online food ordering stickers, allowing customers to shop direct from businesses via Instagram.
We are pleased to hear that WhatsApp continues to hold its place as one of the most secure platforms to video call on. Their end to end encryption has called out any platforms that aren’t using this feature to ‘step up’.
WhatsApp has made some additional tweaks to their video calling option which allows users to video call with up to 8 people! Testing is in full swing and doesn’t require any setting changes, but you will have to sign up to the beta program. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to convince friends/family to do the same!
WhatsApp has also teamed up with WHO to create a set of stickers to help with the Covid-19 messaging. The ‘Together at home’ sticker pack was created to help continue to spread the key pandemic health messages. With the new sticker’s you’ll be able to give an air high five, and will encourage people to continue to social distance. It will also reiterate messages around the importance of washing hands.
For those of you who dislike fake news as much as we do, you’ll enjoy this update! Last month Twitter removed a massive 2230 misleading tweets from the platform.
In addition to the removed tweets, Twitter also updated its Covid-19 policies. The updates require users to remove tweets that include unverified information that could cause widespread panic.
This is a welcome step from Twitter and should slow down the amount of fake news we see on our timelines.
With an increase in shopping activity on Pinterest, it’s been flagged that most businesses find it hard to make the most out of the platform. These issues are down to the lack of available best practices. As a response, this month they’ve released resources to help small businesses make better use of their pins.
With the expansion of the Pinterest Partner Program, Pinterest has included additional creative partners like Canva and Adobe Spark. These creative partners show users the trusted resources available to design, edit, and publish pins.
If you haven’t checked out Pinterest yet, or you’re using the platform and still aren’t sure about how to use it, follow our account and reach out to us.
If you’re using Pinterest, and aren’t on Tailwind yet you’re missing out on a great scheduling tool.
With the pandemic hitting businesses hard, Tailwind has introduced a relief fund. This relief fund is worth $1m and aims to help support small businesses throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
The fund is available via credits of up to 3 months on the Tailwind Plus Plan. To make things better they have also added a ‘pay it forward’ section on their application. Businesses applying for the fund will be able to nominate up to 3 businesses that would also benefit from the relief fund.
Snapchat teamed up with the UN Environment Program to remind people that everyone is in this together.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth day, Snapchat released new lenses aimed at encouraging snap-chatters to learn more about the earth and ways to save the planet.
The new lenses include a hand tracking feature and an earth expert game and are both available in the filter carousel.
That’s it for this month. Hopefully, you’ve found the updates useful! Don’t forget you can watch Natalie live on the last Monday of each month on our Facebook page. This is also a great opportunity to ask us any questions live!
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