Staying up to date with the latest social media news is essential for anyone looking to maintain a competitive edge in today’s digital landscape. With platforms constantly evolving, new features are introduced regularly, and trends shift at lightning speed. Whether you’re a business owner, a marketer, or a social media enthusiast, understanding these changes can help you stay ahead of the curve.
In this roundup, we’re covering the latest updates from your favourite platforms, so you can make the most of what’s new in the world of social media.
We’re kicking off this month’s roundup of social media news with Instagram… who have had a very busy month!
Firstly, Instagram has introduced new tools to help creators manage high volumes of message requests and become more efficient. Users can now filter messages by factors like follower count, verified accounts, and brands, making it easier to prioritise important interactions that could impact their business.
There is also a new feature that allows users to create AI-generated versions of their profile pictures. This tool aims to provide a more stylised and artistic representation of yourself, offering a creative way to personalise your profile. If you’re in to (or getting into) A.I this a fun little update for you!
You’re not alone if you’ve ever closed Instagram and lost the content you were looking at. This long-standing frustration may soon be a thing of the past. Adam Mosseri (Head of Insta), has confirmed that the platform is working on a solution to prevent feed refreshes from erasing content you were viewing.
Well, sort of! Instagram’s popular Following Hashtags feature, which helps users discover content more efficiently, is being retired. From 17th December, users will no longer see posts from followed hashtags in their feed or be able to follow hashtags at all.
If you’re an avid user of Story Highlights, this update is for you! Instagram is shifting Story highlights into a dedicated profile tab, removing them from above the profile grid. While they’ll still appear in your main grid, we’re not sure how they’ll be displayed. This update will roll out later this week, bringing a fresh look to profiles.
Finally for Instagram, they’re introducing a new feature that will allow users to manually reset the recommendation algorithm that determines their Explore, Reels, and Feed content. This is a HUGE update!!
While it’s designed to ensure a safer experience, particularly for teenagers, this update enables users to clear recommended content and review their “following” list. This is a great step toward a more tailored and appropriate browsing!
Over to Facebook next, and the platform will be removing the option to have public followers on personal profiles. At the moment, users can set their “Following” setting to public, allowing non-connections to follow their posts. However, Meta has decided this feature is unnecessary for non-creator or business accounts, leading to its removal.
Next, Meta has introduced a unified metric called Views on Facebook, replacing unique distribution metrics across Reels, videos, posts, and Stories. This update aligns with Instagram’s recent updates, providing a consistent way to track content performance across platforms. Views counts the number of times your content appears on-screen, including multiple views by the same person, helping creators gauge engagement and audience interest across all content formats.
With a big increase in users for Threads this month, it’s not surprise we have a few bits of social media news for you!
First, Threads continues to generate significant attention as it was the most downloaded app on iOS in October! This update highlights the growing popularity and impact that Threads is having within the social media space.
The platform is also, finally, addressing long-standing user complaints by testing improvements to its search and trending topics features. In what Adam Mosseri has called “long-overdue improvements,” these updates aim to enhance user experience and make the platform more functional.
With an eye on the growing popularity of BlueSky, Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that Threads is testing a new feature allowing users to set any feed. This includes making the “Following” stream their default. This is a good piece of social media news as it may well enhance user control and help with competitiveness.
It’s the first, main, appearance for BlueSky in this months Social Media News Roundup, so let’s get straight to it!
If you’re unsure what BlueSky is, it’s a social media platform originally developed within X, formerly Twitter, before evolving into a standalone company in 2022 and founded in part by Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Since the US election, BlueSky has seen a surge in users migrating from X.com. The decentralised social media platform reported an impressive 700,000 new users in the week following Donald Trump’s victory, with most of these new users coming from the US and the UK.
Despite that, the European Union has stated that the Twitter alternative BlueSky violates the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) rules. This specifically relates to information disclosure. However, as BlueSky is not yet large enough to be classified as a “very large online platform” under the DSA, the regulator has noted that it cannot regulate BlueSky in the same manner as it does X or Threads.
BlueSky is still up and coming, so we’ll be sure to keep you posted on any Social Media News coming from their HQ in upcoming Roundups!
Anyone for an X-odus?!
Following the election, around 15,000 users have left X (formerly Twitter), but their departure is not solely due to the election result.
Many users are also leaving in response to new terms of service introduced by Elon Musk. These updated terms, which took effect on 15th November, give Musk the right to use users’ tweets, photos, and videos — even from private accounts — to train Grok, the platform’s AI bot. The terms state that content may be analysed and used for AI model training, and could be modified for use in other media, with no compensation for users.
Next, X is rethinking its plan to remove all post function buttons from the main feed. Instead, it’s taking a more cautious, adjusted approach – one that could turn out to be one of the platform’s most user-friendly updates yet. If you’re an iOS user, you’ll be able to choose to side swipe to like and reply… just turn it on within your settings!
If you’re all in on AI and wanting to trial more applications… X appears to be expanding access to its Grok AI chatbot, with a version for non-paying users reportedly in the works. This move could mark a significant step in making the AI tool more widely available. We’ll keep an eye on this news and share more once more information is available!
Over to LinkedIn now, and they’ve announced that it will be merging Audio Events with LinkedIn Live, resulting in the shutdown of the audio-only streaming feature. As of 2nd December, ‘24, users can no longer schedule new Audio Events. Existing Audio Events scheduled before December 31 will proceed as planned.
Next, LinkedIn is introducing AI tools to help users create descriptions for their profiles and job postings. The platform encourages users to review the AI-generated content to ensure it aligns with their tone and experience. Additionally, a new employment tool aims to simplify the hiring process by generating job descriptions based on the role’s title and company name. Employers can then update the generated descriptions as needed to suit their requirements.
Sticking with AI, and LinkedIn has introduced a new AI feature in its Sales Navigator platform. The new AI features will provide a summary of key insights about prospective contacts. This tool is designed to help users build connections and foster meaningful engagement more effectively.
It’s been a quiet month for TikTok and we only have a couple of pieces of social media news to share!
First, The owners of TikTok, ByteDance, is further integrating Lemon8 with TikTok, allowing users to log in using their TikTok accounts. This move strengthens ties between the two platforms as ByteDance faces ongoing legal challenges in the U.S. that could see TikTok banned nationwide.
In case you don’t know, or don’t remember… Lemon8 combines features from Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, offering short-form videos, photos, and Pinterest-style idea posts. It also includes category tags for easy sorting and familiar elements like a “For You” page and a “Following” tab.
Next, TikTok has launched Symphony Creative Studio, a globally available AI-powered tool for TikTok for Business users. This will enable advertisers to create high-quality video ads in minutes, streamlining the ad production process following a successful testing phase.
We hope these updates help you stay ahead of the curve as platforms continue to evolve. We’ll be back before Christmas with a roundup of ‘December to date’.
We’d love to hear which update you’re most interested in, so let us know over on Threads!
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