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…
Messaging to Takeover Social Media Discussions?
Messaging is the new social feed, with more and more users opting to share updates via more intimate circles within DMs, as opposed to posting to their main, public stream.
A key reason behind this is the divisive nature of conversations within social apps, with more political and topical discussion leading to argument, and often causing more angst than it’s worth.
How many times have you felt an urge to post something, started typing it out, then thought ‘hmm, not worth it’? You might have an opinion on an issue, but is that opinion strong enough to defend your position if you get challenged, and do you really want to wade into an argument with randoms in the comments?
For most, they don’t – which then pushes more people towards more private sharing. Most people have simply had enough of the back and forth that can come with public posting, and that’s now leading to a significant shift in focus for the main social apps.
Meta, which has seen a big shift towards engagement within messaging, is leaning into this, with new additions like ‘Channels’ on Instagram, which is essentially broadcast messaging, and the re-integration of Messenger into the main Facebook app.
That could have big impacts on the way that people interact across Facebook and Instagram, and important for marketers to take note of.
Twitter Launches New Video Marketing Education Course
Twitter has launched a new, eight-part educational series on video marketing, and how to create video promos that stand out in the Twitter feed.
Called ‘Unskippable’, the new series aims to provide a practical overview of all the key elements of thumb-stopping video clips.
As explained by Twitter: “Receiving a list of best practices is always helpful, but it can be tough to translate a list of do’s and don’ts into a high-performing video. Content can become watered down when every tip on the list is implemented in a single advertisement without proper care – losing its entertainment value and creative spark. That’s why this course was created for creatives, by creatives, and doesn’t just teach you what the best practices are, but how to use them to think about and approach your next piece of content.”
Each video in the series is around 2 minutes long, making it easily consumable, without a major time investment.
You can check out the new ‘Unskippable’ Twitter video course here. Let us know what you think!…
Instagram’s Testing a New ‘Top 3’ Sticker for Stories
Remember the Myspace days where we could feature our ‘top friends’, well this new Instagram feature in testing reminds of us very much of that! It’s not clear if this will be an official update, or whether it’s just a small internal prototype but it feels like Meta are struggling to think of new fresh ideas and are delving deep into the social media archives for inspiration.
As you can see in these images, posted by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Instagram is currently testing a new ‘Top 3’ sticker option for Stories, which would enable people to highlight their top 3 favourite accounts, tracks, places, etc.
The Top 8 in the Myspace days were a cause for much angst and argument – and now, a whole new generation will get to experience the same, when they start posting their top 3 friends on IG, and angering everyone who’s not included in the showcase.
At least this is bound to spark engagement, which is probably what Meta wants, and again – it’s interesting to see them continue to mine existing and previous trends for new inspiration and options.
Watch this space!…
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