Social Media updates and what they mean for you – March 16th

After a quiet one last week, it’s back to business as usual. Grab a cuppa and get settled because here are all the social media updates you need to know.

Twitter
They’re experimenting with a new option to help you understand why you’re seeing certain Tweets in your feed. Not a fan of the new ‘For You’ feed? You’re not alone, hence them looking at developing this new feature.

Does Musk have a strategy for Twitter or is he just throwing the proverbial at a wall? Well apparently there is a strategy and he shared it with us at a recent conference. Apparently the goal is to have Twitter as the best source of truth, which he’s aiming to achieve through:
1, Acting as the ‘town square’ (whatever that means) of the internet by promoting and protecting public conversation.
2, Using Community Notes to allow users to police themselves, what could possibly go wrong?!
3, 6 core principles – authentic, informative, entertaining, accurate (hmmm), brand safe, and democratic (sure).
4, Improving ad relevance to drive better performance.

What does this mean for me?
The new option is in official development yet, so right now it doesn’t mean a whole lot. We’ll keep you posted if this changes.

If Twitter plays a key role in your marketing strategy we highly recommend reading this article as it covers the main areas of Musk’s strategy. Generally, it seems as though he’s focusing on two things – relevance and revenue.

Facebook/Meta
Another week, another project in the bin. This time it’s the turn of audio channels in groups. Yep, by the end of March all remnants of social audio on Facebook will be gone.

Dun dun dun, another one bites the dust! Say goodbye to NFT-focused projects because they’re also being put in the bin.

Meta is developing a Twitter alternative, because why wouldn’t they be. The catch? It’s a decentralised social network which means you’ll need a fair amount of tech smarts to work it.

In more positive news, Meta’s trying to help AI researchers make tools and processes more inclusive by open-sourcing a huge dataset of video monologues.

What does this mean for me?
If you’re using this feature it’s time to come up with a new strategy for engagement in groups. Given the push for video content, we suggest moving to that format if you can.

Unless you’re in the NFT world, this won’t have much impact on you. And if you ARE in the NFT world, you probably won’t be surprised given the decrease in sales as of late.

If you’re familiar with the likes of Mastodon, you’ll probably be fine but for the rest of us, the likelihood of a steep learning curve is high. As we said, this is in development so there’s no need to get your learn on just yet.

The new dataset will help researchers address concerns about language barriers and physical diversity in AI.

LinkedIn
AI creeps into yet another aspect of our lives, this time in the form of AI-generated job listings and profile summaries. Given it’s a Microsoft-owned company, this is surprising to precisely no one since they’re integrating OpenAI’s GPT back-end into the majority of their apps and functions. First up is a new LinkedIn Premium feature giving you the option to generate a headline or ‘About’ summary for your profile using AI. Next up is the AI-powered job description tool. All you need to do is input key info and the robots do the rest.

One they tried to slip under the radar – free courses on AI until June 15th. Go go go!

Thinking of getting into podcasting? This one’s for you – the LinkedIn Podcast Academy. Launching March 20th, it aims to give you all the tools you need to launch a successful podcast. Colour us intrigued.

What does this mean for me?
If you struggle to know what to write in that Summary box, this will be a very welcome feature. We suggest using it as a starting point before putting your own spin on it otherwise you risk sounding very samey. Writing job descriptions is notoriously tricky so this new feature will make that tedious process just a little less awful.

Starting anything new involves a lot of learning, so hopefully the LinkedIn Podcast Academy helps you skip a few steps and launch the best podcast ever!

TikTok
In an effort to enhance the educational value of the platform, TikTok’s launching a STEM feed to US users later this month.

What does this mean for me?
If you’re based in the US, keep an eye out for the new feed. If you’re not, as per we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the guinea pigs before getting a version elsewhere. Driving more educational content is alright by us!

Instagram
Welcome back, IG, it’s been a while! In testing is a ‘Top 3’ Stories sticker which, you guessed it, aims to increase engagement.

What does this mean for me?
Right now, not much as there’s no official word on when/if this will roll out to everyone. We have a sneaking suspicion it will though and could be an excellent tool for learning more about your audiences likes and dislikes.

That’s it for this week folks! Remember to sign up for weekly updates direct to your inbox and follow us on LinkedIn for more tips. See you next week!