Throughout August social media platforms have been working away, providing updates both big and small. We’ve scoured the web for the latest and greatest of these updates to make sure you’re getting the most out of your social media experience. Let’s get going…
Facebook is getting ready for the Christmas period by providing tips for getting your shop display ready for the holidays! Not only that but they will also be adding a preference label to shops. This will assist buyers in making more confident purchases through the shops on site.
But Facebook isn’t stopping there! They have added some new tools to mark the 10th birthday of Messenger! While some of these features are more humorous than resourceful, their new contact sharing feature could look to create a larger network.
Over on Instagram, the platform is looking to grant users more protection while online and reduce online bullying.
With the new limits feature, you can prevent users who don’t follow you or who recently followed you, from being able to directly message you and comment on your posts.
Limits could also have a positive impact on businesses too. Especially if they are receiving a high number of messages and comments. Using this feature will help them filter for the most significant comments or messages.
As well as utilising Limits, we recommend using Hidden Words.
Hidden Words would detect offensive words or phrases found in direct message requests and keep them in a hidden folder. Users can then choose whether they want to view the message or not.
With online anti-bullying features being a necessary precaution, especially for high profile users, Instagram’s updates look great!
You may have noted that LinkedIn previously utilised video calls through third-party applications, such as Zoom. But they’re now launching their own in-app video calling feature.
It appears that LinkedIn has introduced this feature so that users won’t need to worry about downloading more apps than necessary. It should also prevent interruptions to the flow of conversations, which could happen when you’re waiting for the third-party sites to load and connect with the other user.
We’re looking forward to seeing this new LinkedIn feature in action. But it is worth noting that this feature is only allowing one-on-one meetings for the time being, although we imagine that it won’t be long until LinkedIn finds a way to allow meetings with multiple people!
Snapchat will now allow advertisers to track new trends. Advertisers can do this through Snapchat Trends, a new public website where users can enter a search term to see what is popular among public stories. The new website functions similarly to Google Trends and TikTok’s hashtags.
TikTok has been busy finding ways to give you a boost online. The first update sees TikTok launching features to support live videos. Some of the new features include Live Events, which will allow users to schedule and manage their live streams – this is being tested in the UK. Another feature being introduced is the ability to assign a helper, this trustee will help them manage the live stream and monitor the user behaviour.
It’s not just live streams that are getting boosts, but your posts will be too! The new promote option will allow you to give select posts more traction on the For You Page. You can even filter the target audience to your liking or set it to automatic and let the algorithm find who would be interested in your post. It is worth noting that you can’t promote posts with copyrighted music, so take care with the sounds you want to use.
The last social network we go to is Twitter. They’ve been busy updating their Spaces feature this month!
Firstly, Twitter has been experimenting with topic tags to help increase the discoverability of Spaces.
When creating a room, users will be able to choose subjects that are relevant to their room. This would then allow other users who are interested in those subjects to filter out lower quality and less relevant streams and find your room easier.
The next update introduces a raised hand emoji during live audio rooms. The raised hand emoji was introduced as a way for speakers to signal that they have something further to add to a conversation without interrupting the current discussion or speaker. This can be useful in large meeting settings where disruptions are more likely to occur.
And those are the updates for August – it’s been a busy month.
We hope you’ve found this month’s update useful and will be able to take advantage of some of the new features to improve your social media experience!
Don’t forget to share these updates with your friends and colleagues! If you’re curious to find out more about social media, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter!
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