Social media is forever changing which makes it easy to miss an update from time to time. Twice a month, we look into three of the latest key updates from the past few weeks from the various social media giants. Here’s what’s been happening recently…
Snapchat Launches ‘My Places’ To Highlight Local Businesses of Interest Within the Snap Map
Here’s one for you Snapchatters! Snapchat is looking to improve business discovery in the app with a new element in Snap Map called ‘My Places‘ which will highlight popular businesses, and places you’ve previously visited, on the map display.
As you can see below, with My Places, you’ll now be able to locate a range of businesses on the map, with three different listing categories – places that are popular with your Snap friends, places you’ve liked, and places that you’ve previously visited.
As explained by Snapchat:
“With My Places, Snapchatters can discover more than 30 million businesses, log their favourite local spots, and even find personalised recommendations informed by their friends and the global Snapchat community. Now, a quick pan around Snap Map not only helps Snapchatters stay in touch with the people they care about and keep up with global events, but also offers even more ways to help friends connect IRL.”
It could be handy addition to the Snapchat user experience, with the map now not only showing what your friends might be up to at any given time, but also places nearby that you could arrange a meet-up, which also provides additional promotional opportunity for local business.
WhatsApp Provides New Archive Options to Permanently Hide Noisy Group Chats
Got an annoying group chat that constantly pings? Well WhatsApp has now added a new option to manage your group chat threads, with archived chats now remaining archived and hidden, even when new messages are sent into the group.
Archive on WhatsApp lets you organise your private messages and prioritise important conversations. Your Archived chats will now remain archived and muted but you can always change them back! pic.twitter.com/QbAY6iu81p
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) July 27, 2021
To be clear, users have always been able to archive their WhatsApp chats, but now, you won’t get notifications about new messages to those chats that you’ve archived, essentially enabling you to hide them from view. You can check them out in your archive and re-activate them whenever you wish.
As summarised by WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart:
“Have a WhatsApp group that’s a little noisy and cluttering up your inbox? With the new Archive, you can now keep an active thread out of your inbox, but still have access to it whenever you want!”
It’s a relatively minor update, but it’ll be big for heavy WhatsApp users. Update your app today and have immediate access.
LinkedIn Publishes New Guide on Effective Brand Building Strategies
This could be rather handy! LinkedIn has published a new guide to help businesses maximise their longer-term branding goals, in alignment with short-term sales targets, in order to improve their overall marketing performance as we look towards the next stage.
The pandemic has obviously impacted all marketing approaches, and as LinkedIn notes, it’s important for brands to keep their longer-term prospects in mind, while also managing immediate pressures.
“Short-term sales activation messages are unlikely to be a hit right now, which is why your brand is more important than ever. Binet and Field are two of B2B marketing’s leading thinkers on brand effectiveness, and they are pretty clear on what works. Brand building – broader messaging that works on an emotional level – is far more effective at driving long-term growth. And that’s exactly what content marketing can help you achieve. Just as importantly, those emotions are absolutely crucial to realising the kind of fame that puts you at the forefront of your audience’s mind.”
With this focus in mind, the new 13-page guide book provides a range of notes on key elements to consider within your branding strategy, and how LinkedIn can help to boost your presence and connection. Some bed time reading for you! …
Want to be the first to the latest news in social media? Subscribe to our email newsletter and we’ll send the latest updates straight to your inbox every Friday morning.