Social Media updates and what they mean for you – April 20th

If you’ve been dying for some Instagram news, you’re going to love this week’s social media updates you need to know.

TikTok
TikTok’s taking a strong stance against climate change misinformation by banning all content that “undermines well-established scientific consensus” as of April 21st. They’re achieving this by working with “independent fact-checking partners when applying this policy to help assess the accuracy of content.”

The video entertainment app has confirmed you can still upload 10-minute videos. You just can’t record them within the app itself, something they were experimenting with.

Another week, another step closer to an all-out ban in the US? Maaaayyyybbbbeeee… Montana has taken the step of passing legislation to outlaw the app entirely in the state. It’s not law yet, because it hasn’t been approved, but it does indicate a step towards a ban.

What does this mean for me?
Unless you’re disseminating climate change misinformation (stopit), this update will be good news.

You can still upload 10-minute videos that have been filmed and edited using other tools. Realistically the majority of your content still needs to be under 60 seconds with 10-minute videos scattered in to tell longer stories.

You might be thinking an outright ban is unlikely, but India did just that in 2020 so it’s not outside the realms of possibility. Unfortunately, while TikTok remains Chinese-owned, security fears will remain.

Instagram
You can now add up to 5 links to your bio *cheers*!

After 3 years of telling everyone to make Reels, Instagram has finally given us meaningful insights and tools for creating them. First up, an easy way to find trending audio and hashtags specific to Reels.

Next, they’ve merged their creative tools, such as video, stickers, text, and audio track editing, into the video composer screen.

You can now see insights for total and average watch time for Reels. About blummin’ time!

Instagram’s adding new notifications to tell you when someone follows your account based on your Reels content specifically.

And finally, Gifts are rolling out to more areas, including the UK. As part of this, you’ll now be able to see which fans have sent you gifts so you can better recognise your top supporters.

What does this mean for me?
To add multiple links to your IG profile, head to ‘Edit profile’ > ‘Links’ > ‘Add external link’. Next, drag and drop the links to reorder them.

Trending hashtags and audio isn’t available to everyone right now, but when it is head to your professional dashboard and under ‘Tips and Resources’ click ‘Reels Trends’. Easy!

Effectively it’s CapCut within IG. With this update, they’ve removed the need to keep flitting between apps to try and get the editing just right.

Seeing total and average watch time will make planning A LOT easier by giving you a better understanding of engagement or whether a stronger hook is needed to keep people watching.

Knowing which Reels give you the most followers will help you create more like them.

Getting gifts is a great way to increase revenue from the platform and recognising top supporters can help you increase engagement.

LinkedIn
Commitments are being added to job listings. LinkedIn says, “Company’s commitments – such as work-life balance, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), career growth and learning, social impact, and environmental sustainability – will now automatically show up in the Job Details when you post a job. We’re also introducing a new job search filter so job seekers can easily discover open roles at your organization based on these commitments.”

What does this mean for me?
If you’re hiring, adding commitments to the job listing could be an easy way to find people who are a good cultural fit. Prospective employees will also be able to register their interest in your company, sending you their LinkedIn profile

Facebook/Meta
In a bid to entice more users, Meta is opening Horizon Worlds up to 13-17 year olds in the US. Alongside this they’re rolling out a range of what they call robust safety features to stamp out accusations of sexual assault, even virtual rape, within the VR environment. Let’s hope the safety features are as good as what Meta is promising.

Speaking of the Metaverse, Meta is working on its updated DINO image recognition model, which is now able to better identify individual objects within image and video frames. It’s self-learning, which means no manual intervention. It’s all in a bid to build a better VR environment.

Reels monetisation for more creators via ads is coming over the next few months.

What does this mean for me?
In our opinion, we’d wait a bit before allowing teens to enter the Metaverse, as the company’s safeguarding track record leaves a lot to be desired. If you do decide to go ahead, familiarise yourself with the Family Centre for Worlds.

This image recognition model will be able to understand what an item looks like and where it should be placed in a model. It could help improve digital backgrounds in video chats or with tagging products in video content.

This is all aimed at increasing engagement on the platform.

Twitter
Twitter’s re-added keyword targeting for ads. Which was first added ten years ago but failed to get off the ground because social media users don’t use it in the same way they use search engines.

Reason number 357,891 to think Musk is a prick – he’s removing rules designed to protect trans users. Given he has a trans child he’s estranged from, this is no surprise. But it is troublesome. It’s just one more step toward the platform being a way for Musk to spread his own ideology to the masses.

In less distressing news, Twitter has shared tips on tapping into real-time discussions.

Twitter is allowing ‘more kinds of speech’ read – hate speech – onto the platform. They’re going to allow more Tweets to remain on the platform with visibility restrictions (usually called Shadowbanning).

The shift to encrypted DMs is nearing. When it rolls out you’ll be able to toggle encryption on and off and access the exact cryptographic key for that conversation. Plus you’ll get a notification telling you encryption is enabled.

Twitter Blue subscribers can now post Tweets of up to 10,000 characters and can fully utilise text formatting options, like bold and italics. Given the failed Notes roll out last year, we don’t see the benefit.

‘Super Follows’, Twitter’s version of subscriptions, is now open to accounts with 500 followers or more in the US. This will allow you to charge for certain Tweets and other content such as subscriber-only Spaces, special badges on their tweets to display their affiliation, and a Subscriber-only tweets tab on creator profiles.

What does this mean for me?
According to Twitter this ‘new’ functionality will help you reach more people but we’re unconvinced given Twitter 1.0 already tried it to no avail. The results from campaigns using this tool weren’t meaningful so you may not want to pivot your Twitter ads strategy just yet.

*sigh* We’re so sorry this wording to protect trans users has been removed from its Abuse and Harassment policy.

With sports fans representing 42% of Twitter’s users, it makes sense that brands that tap into real-time discussions have a good chance of increasing sales through the app.

Knowing what kinds of Tweets are being shadowbanned is useful to help you avoid them. But it doesn’t address the issue of hate speech remaining on the platform.

Encrypted DMs could be a useful step for privacy, but it does prove problematic for safeguarding, particularly for criminal investigations.

Why anyone would sign up to Twitter Blue for longer-form Tweets is beyond us. At 10,000 characters, that’s a blog and something that should live on your website, which you own, rather than Twitter which is very much at Elon Musk’s whim.

If you’re interested in using these monetisation features you’ll need to be based in the US for a start. If/when it filters through to other areas, we recommend taking a look at the other benefits to see whether it would be a good fit for your business.

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