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…

Meta Adds New Tools and Settings To Protect Young Users from the Dangers Online

As we head into the festive period, where a lot of teens will be spending more time online and engaging with friends, Meta has announced a new set of updates to better protect younger users from potential exposure to predators, and other harmful behaviours in the app.

Firstly, Meta will now implement stricter privacy controls by default on Facebook for all users under the age of 16 that sign up for an account.

These new privacy settings will limit who can see their friends list and the Pages that they follow in the app, while it will also hide posts that they’re tagged in, and stop non-connections from commenting on their public posts.

The measures will ensure that youngsters have a higher level of privacy in the app, and while they can still revert from the defaults, establishing this as the norm could go a long way toward ensuring younger users are at the least aware of these settings.

Facebook’s new process doesn’t go quite as far, as user profiles will still be displayed in the app. But it’s essentially the same, in that it ensures that the only people who can see their content, or contact the user, are people who they’ve approved as connections.

In addition to this, Meta’s also testing a new process which will limit the capacity for kids to make contact with ‘suspicious’ adults in its apps.

As per Meta:

“A ‘suspicious’ account is one that belongs to an adult that may have recently been blocked or reported by a young person, for example.”

In such cases, Meta will now stop these users from being able to message young users, while it will also remove their accounts as suggestions in young users’ ‘People You May Know’ recommendations.

“As an extra layer of protection, we’re also testing removing the message button on teens’ Instagram accounts when they’re viewed by suspicious adults altogether.”

Meta’s also adding new notifications which will encourage young users to utilise its various protective tools and features as they use the app.

Snapchat Launches New Features to Celebrate the World Cup

Snapchat has announced a range of new features to help fans engage with the 2022 World Cup, including team-based AR filters, new AR Try-On features, so that you can see what you’d look like in each team’s kit, and live update overlays to keep you informed of the latest.

First up are Snap’s new face-paint inspired team colour Lenses, which provide a simple way to show your support in the app.

Snap says that all of the participating teams will have their own Lenses, enabling all supporters to display their team colours in an interactive and engaging way.

Snap’s also launching a new experience called ‘Live Garment Transfer Lenses’ which will enable you to virtually try on each participating team’s uniform.

Snap’s also launching a Global Match Data Lens, which will be dynamically updated with live match data visualisations during the tournament.

“The experience includes selfie and world modes for Snapchatters to virtually explore, share, and celebrate notable stats and scores with their friends.”

Finally Snapchat has also added new themed clothing options for your Bitmoji characters, as another means to get into the spirit of the tournament.

Come on England! ⚽️ 

TikTok Launches New Audience Data Insights Tools

TikTok advertisers just got a big boost, with the addition of new Audience Insights in TikTok Ads Manager, which enables you to drill down into specific demographic details about your audience in the app, including interests, usage behaviours, gender splits and more.

As you can see in this example, TikTok’s Audience Insights filters are now listed at the left-hand side of the Ads Manager ‘Reporting’ section, with a range of categorisation options to choose from.

The available filters are:

• Age demographics – You can choose, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-55, 55+
• Gender splits
• Interest Categories – Including ‘Pets’, ‘Food and Beveridge’, ‘Games’ and other interests
• Video Interactions – Filter users by the videos that they watch on TikTok in different categories, including ‘Lifestyle’, ’Talents (including magic and dance), ‘Supernatural and Horror’ and more
• Creator Interactions – Which enables you to filter by TikTok users that have followed creators in different topic categories
• Hashtag Interactions – Select a hashtag to narrow down your audience to those who have engaged with that tag
• Device – You can also filter by device type, while TikTok also has additional filters for device price, based on estimates

As per TikTok:

“Audience Insights can help you discover new audiences beyond those that you traditionally target. If any surprising or unexpected interest categories appear, you can try targeting these interest categories to see how they perform. For example, the data may show that the beauty advertiser’s audience is also interested in apparel and accessories, or in-app games. The advertiser may then consider targeting these interests to find new ways to scale.”

It’s a valuable addition, and even just messing around with the basic settings, you can find some interesting trends and notes, which could change your thinking on your TikTok approach. It’s worth having a look, and digging into the data, to see what you can find.

Audience Insights is now available globally within TikTok Ads Manager.

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