A Message from Our Founder:
I've worked in the Social Media Industry since 2008, and one thing has remained consistent: it's constantly changing. As an agency, we're committed to staying on the pulse of these updates-- and now we're bringing many of our findings to you directly.
Please share these updates with your team, business peers, and organizations. Utilize them to make smart, strategic decisions within your social media strategies, and enjoy the journey!
~Altimese Nichole
Social Media Platform News and Updates for September 2022
The new month brings new updates for all social media platforms that marketers can't live without and consumers can't get enough of daily. As you're working to meet your client deadlines or finalize that new marketing campaign, check out these social media updates that will help you stay in the know of the new features and releases for crucial platforms.
Social media updates for Clubhouse
Clubhouse enables users to create private hallways. Clubhouse is changing its graph structure, and now users can create their own private hallways for their specific communities.
These are private invite-only “Houses” where members can meet up regularly, talk, and hop from room to room. There will still be public rooms, and House membership will be public.
Bryan Hall, Logan Houston, and Julian Lewis are the fearless creators of The Address club and Clubhouse’s latest icons for the month of August 2022! Each week they host their room aptly titled, “Let’s Address Men’s Mental Health,” garnering over 1,300 listeners a room.
According to Google Play, Clubhouse achieved more than 18 million installs. Clubhouse currently has 503 thousand ratings with an average rating value of 4.5.
Social media updates for LinkedIn
LinkedIn users will soon have access to a new templates feature. These professionally designed, colorful templates will make it quicker and easier than ever to create visually engaging posts. On LinkedIn’s mobile app, you can now find a “Use a template” prompt after tapping the “Post” or “Share” box.
You can now add a clickable link to your posts. You can add any link to any image or video with text. If you start a post with a photo or video, you will see a chain link symbol when editing the media. Tap on the chain link and add a URL and display text. This will help the platform’s users drive engagement and generate traffic to websites, resources, job listings, and more.
LinkedIn has launched multi-media carousels. Carousels were built to empower creators to share knowledge in a more visual way to inform, inspire and connect with their followers on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is rolling out an update to allow you to pin a comment (from the 3 dots menu) within the post reply section.
Social media updates for Facebook
Previously, Creator Studio only allowed Instagram users to schedule feed posts and videos, not Stories or Reels. All users can now schedule both Facebook and Instagram Reels through Meta’s Creator Studio app (desktop only).
Instagram and Facebook users will now be able to use the “Add Yours” sticker on Reels, which was previously available for Stories only. The sticker allows Reels viewers to add their own video response to prompt engagement.
Facebook Reels users now have access to more detailed analytics, including reach, average watch time, and total view time. The new insights, now available in Creator Studio, are designed to help creators identify how their Reels perform on Facebook.
Facebook is shutting down its live shopping feature on October 1, 2022. You will still be able to live stream but won’t be able to tag products. Facebook says they will focus on Reels, and Live Shopping is still available on Instagram.
On August 31, 2022, Meta announced their new AI to decode speech from brain activity.
Social media updates for Instagram
Instagram is testing a new feature, IG Candid Challenges, a feature inspired by the BeReal app. You can add others' IG Candid to your story tray. And every day at a different time, get a notification to capture and share a Photo in 2 Minutes.
Instagram recently released pre-scheduling general posts and direct reels (and videos) within Content Creator (located in Meta Business Suite). This feature is not currently available to everyone, so stay tuned!
Users can now cross-post Reels from Instagram to Facebook. When you create a Reel on Instagram, a "Share your reels to Facebook to grow your audience" option will appear. You can choose to share all Reels automatically or turn the feature on or off for individual videos.
Instagram is expanding the ability to share digital collectibles (NFTs) to 100 countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East (but not Europe). There is no fee to do this, and they claim that Meta’s purchase of renewable energy helps reduce the emissions impact of the NFTs displayed on Instagram.
Meta Business Platform now has Vimeo integration for easy video creation that can be used for ads or shared on Instagram.
Instagram is also working on a silent mode. Users can set this to automatically mute push notifications at night, for example. With this, Instagram is probably promoting the "social media-life balance."
Social media updates for Pinterest
Pinterest has launched Shuffles, a tool for creating interactive collages and mood boards on iOS. Pinterest snuck Shuffles onto the App Store in early August 2022. Despite the lack of fanfare, the “new app designed for collective collaging” is already gaining popularity and has a long waitlist of eager users.
Pinterest is inching closer to a "one-click" purchase flow for consumers who buy products with Shopify merchants. Through their new "hosted checkout," when a user seeks to complete a purchase, they can make any necessary selections (size, color, etc.) as step 1 in-app and enter shipping and payment in step 2. This easier process is currently only available to US users and is limited to merchant's quality — they must be part of Pinterest's verified.
Now busy marketers on the go can access Pinterest analytics in real-time from their mobile devices. This update gives a more holistic view of how your pins perform, allowing the option to correct course in a few clicks while on a mobile device.
Social media updates for Twitter
Podcasts are coming to Twitter. Twitter Spaces, in which the podcast feature is integrated, will offer more personalized content for everyone. Hubs will group audio content by specific themes like News, Music, Sports, and more.
Twitter has launched live tests for users to ‘Set a Status’ – so you can show/tell your followers what you’re doing or how you feel while you tweet!
Twitter launched Branded Likes in selected countries, which allows Timeline Takeover advertisers to Twitter’s like button with a custom animation. Branded Likes will appear for up to 24 hours in the same geography brand's Timeline Takeover.
Twitter has changed its Communities tab from a merged timeline of content from all your Communities to a list of “My Communities.” While some people are fans of seeing all Community posts in a single stream, I think this makes it feel like a particular Twitter Community in its own space.
A security flaw at Twitter allowed people who submitted an email or phone number (presumably for account recovery or similar) to see the Twitter account that it is associated with. Twitter revealed that they recently learned someone had used this flaw to compile account data, which they were selling. They will be contacting potentially affected users and recommend everyone enable 2-factor authentication. They also recommend using a non-public email or phone number for your account, particularly if you Tweet under a pseudonym. And assuming you have 2-step verification enabled, switch to a physical security key or authenticator app instead of using your phone number.
Social media updates for TikTok
TikTok has confirmed that they're testing a new "Nearby" feed. Users who are part of the test will see the feed appear next to their "Following" and "For You" tabs.
TikTok is leveraging users' attention by experimenting with linked keywords within comments and video captions. These direct the user to broader clusters of content related to the keyword.
TikTok will soon allow users to share their TikTok Stories directly to other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Unlike TikTok videos, which give users several choices for downloading, sharing, and reposting content, TikTok Stories have much more limited sharing options.
TikTok's parent company, 'Bytedance' has officially filed a trademark for 'Tiktok Music' with the service allowing users to purchase, play, share, and download music. It also allows users to create, share, and recommend playlists, comment on music, and Livestream audio and video.
The TikTok Order Center is the next step toward an e-commerce platform. Mainly companies in the e-commerce industry benefit from this to increase their reach and to be more present for potential buyers on social networks. This feature makes it easier for buyers and potential buyers to place orders directly within an app.
Social media updates for Reddit
Comment search is now available in the iOS and Android Reddit app.
The Reddit administrator announced that the platform would airdrop free NFT avatars to users who have earned a considerable amount of karma points—a score representing their contributions to Reddit communities. The NFTs will be awarded on a user-by-user basis and are not limited to specific discussion communities, per the post.
Reddit’s working on a new developer platform that will allow users to build their extensions and bots for the platform easily.
Social media updates for Snapchat
Snapchat rolled out Snapchat+ paid subscription that unlocks exclusive and early access features.
Snapchat is rolling out a desktop version of the app (starting with Snapchat+ subscribers in selected regions).
Snapchat has officially launched the 'Sounds Creator Fund' to support and encourage unsigned artists to gain distribution and reach via audio uploads.
The ability to shoot dual-camera videos is now available on Snapchat! Like the new rising social media platform BeReal, this functionality allows users to take Snaps using the front and self-facing camera simultaneously. Multiple formats are also available, from horizontal to vertical to different types of cutout frames.
Snapchat has been developing a Family Center, which is now active and available to all users! The center offers many resources for parents, who can now keep an eye on who their children are interacting with and the friends they add. Importantly, details of their teen's conversations will be kept private — parents will only see account names. Parents must sign up for a Snapchat account before accessing the Family Center feature.
Social media updates for WhatsApp
It's now possible to exit a WhatsApp group privately without alerting everyone in the group. Instead, only the admins will be notified.
WhatsApp is currently working on making it possible for you to pick and choose who can and can't see when you are online.
WhatsApp will now enable screenshot blocking for View Once messages for an added layer of protection. This feature is currently undergoing testing. WhatsApp is yet to announce when it will go live.
For iOS users, the app will enable them to see profile photos of individuals and groups in WhatsApp notifications. While this feature is in the testing stage, it will soon be released to others.
WhatsApp is planning to redo the design of its interface that tells who you are sharing media with. It will allow users to choose new recipients before sending media files. You will also be able to share an image, a video, or a GIF on your status and chats.
A feature that might also get introduced this year across multiple devices would allow users to log out of their WhatsApp accounts, similar to Facebook or Instagram.
Social media updates for YouTube
YouTube is now introducing adding watermarks to shorts. As soon as a user downloads a YouTube Short video, for example, to publish it on other social media platforms, a watermark is automatically added to the video.
YouTube is now making it easier to create a Short directly from a longer YouTube video. Creators can select a portion of their video (up to 60 seconds) and create a Short from your selection. Additionally, Shorts created from videos will link back to the full video, potentially driving even more traffic to your channel.
The trimming tool in the Video Editor is improved. Users now have the option to use bold, italic, and strikethrough texts in video descriptions.
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