And just like that, we’re back with another blog: ‘Social Media Updates January 2020’! It’s important to keep up with the latest social media trends so your business is up to date and can stay as best connected with your customers as possible. Without further ado, here’s what January had in store:

Twitter

After adding Topics last year, Twitter is now working to make it more specific with updates designed to connect people to increasingly relevant and engaging Tweet content. There will be a new preview element on Topic listings, which will show related hashtags and follower counts to help you understand what will come up on your timeline if they follow. It will also show the estimate of daily tweets volume, so you know exactly what you’re signing up for!

Now for our favourite Twitter update for this month: Twitter provided a first look at a coming feature which enables users to limit who can reply to their tweets. There is a ‘panel’ option which means only people you directly mention within the tweet will be able to reply. With this, users will be able to facilitate exciting one-to-ones, interview style conversations or live chats!

Twitter is removing the Audience Insights section from Twitter Analytics. You may already be aware of this, as when you log into the analytics tab, there is a pop-up which notifies you of the change. The insights section was launched in 2015 to show in-depth data on your followers, including their demographics, purchase behaviour and mobile device usage. Twitter hasn’t yet provided any information on what will replace it, but we’re sure something far better will come along!

Twitter has also officially launched it’s ‘promoted trend spotlight’ ad option, which enables brands to take up the top section of its Explore tab. This is a great placement opportunity for major brand awareness campaigns. The option will support images, six-second videos and GIFs. In other related news, Twitter confirms it won’t be adding an edit Tweet option any time soon. This is because when Twitter first started, you could send Tweets as a text and once you’ve sent the text, you can’t take it back. Twitter wants to keep that authenticity from it’s earlier days.

Lastly, the platform launched emoji reactions for Direct Messages, enabling users to respond to any message within a thread. Twitter says:

“It’s quick and easy to add an emoji reaction to a Direct Message – both text and media attachments. To add a reaction, hover over the message and click the reaction button (heart and plus icon), or double tap on the message and pick an emoji from the pop-up. All conversation participants will receive a notification any time a new reaction is added to a message.”