April comes and April goes, and as we’ve reached the end of another month it’s time for the next social media round-up! We’ve grabbed social media updates from all over the ‘net, so sit back, and enjoy some leftover Easter Egg. It’s time to find out what’s been going on this month!
Before we go into the updates, we had to mention the news that Elon Musk had his $44billion (£34.6billion) offer to buy Twitter, accepted! Elon has already made an influence on Twitter by his confirmation that they are working on an edit button. This is a feature that has been requested by users for a long time.
Now, back to our regular scheduled social media updates!
As we’ve just mentioned, the long-awaited, much-requested edit button feature – it’s not quite an edit button! Instead of editing the original tweet, the edit will create a new tweet which will be added in the original tweet’s place. While that’s somewhat confusing, it could mean that there is an edit history feature for tweets – allowing for more user transparency.
Professional accounts are now open to all users. Testing for this feature began in April last year and, assuming you meet the requirements, you’ll be able to convert your profile to professional status!
Twitter has also introduced an improvement to the DM search feature. Users will now be able to find specific conversations by searching for another user’s name or by entering in a specific keyword. This could prove handy, though how often do you find yourself using the DM feature on Twitter?!
Twitter is considering making TweetDeck a paid feature within the Twitter Blue subscription service.
TweetDeck is currently a free feature, used to help manage and post tweets. There’s no comment on behalf of Twitter on this potential change, so we’ll keep an eye out for any developments!
Twitter has been busy carrying out a number of tests this month, including:
Marketers will be a fan of this TikTok update as the video-sharing platform is currently beta-testing ads in the search results. It looks like these videos could be given high precedence on the results page. Not only that, but because it’s related to specific search terms, they could easily find users with more interest and intent to buy. This can only mean one thing… more people will join the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt group!
Ready to go back to school? TikTok certainly is! As it has launched a new Marketing Education Initiative, known as the Creative Agency Partnerships University.
CAPU aims to help agency partners, freelance creatives and marketers through the various aspects of content creation on TikTok. Attendees will be given more knowledge and statistics, as well as gaining a better understanding of how to ‘win’ with the platform!
Apparently, April is the month of advert updates for TikTok. Their last update comes in the form of ‘Interactive Add-ons.’ These interactive add-ons will be split into standard add-ons and premium add-ons:
Looks like TikTok isn’t the only platform entering the education scene. LinkedIn is looking to help people gain some essential skills to guide them towards getting jobs and professional opportunities. Through the Career Pathfinder feature, users will be taken on a learning pathway to help them reach their predetermined six-month goals.
LinkedIn’s new Showcase Link feature means that users will be able to add links to their profiles. This is a great update and way to promote specific URL’s like your newsletter, website or your new podcast! This could also be a great way to generate click-throughs and promotion, for free!!
The last social media update for LinkedIn relates to their Creator Mode, which has received new and improved tools. These include an improvement to analytics and an option for users to subscribe to notifications for accounts they already follow and are most interested in.
Instagram is going to add a new multitasking feature that will allow users to respond to DM’s straight from their feed. These quick replies will save users time and mean they won’t have to keep going to the inbox to check messages.
This isn’t the only messaging update from Instagram. They’ve introduced Silent Messages which lets you send a message without a notification alert. That could be pretty handy!
This next update for Instagram could be a conflict of interest for some users as they going to carry out a test that removes the ‘Recent’ tab on the hashtag search page. While this could be a means to make hashtags more valuable by only focussing on the top content. It could also relate to comments suggesting that Instagram are going to lower the hashtag’s reach capability. Reducing the reach of hashtags could prevent the spread of misinformation and harmful messages from ‘growth hackers.’
With that, Instagram has also announced that the Algorithm is being updated to put the focus on original content!
Now, we’ve all seen the Reels (and TikTok’s) where users lip-sync to popular sounds and make the video relatable! These are great, but original content is on the up. Instagram has recognised that and plans to give original content more credit!
Instagram has also launched a live test for pinning posts to your profile. This sounds just like the pinned post feature TikTok has had for a while but is a great way to highlight specific content to people visiting your profile.
While we’re on the subject of keeping up with TikTok, the test on 90 second Reels has been expanded to more users. At the moment, this is just in testing and Instagram doesn’t have an official plan to get them rolled out.
Reels have also received some updates which can be used to help bolster charitable awareness. Fundraising details can be added while creating a Reel, and the links will be available for 30 days!
This isn’t the only way Instagram is showing support for good causes as they have started adding a pop-up message to hashtag search pages.
The race to be the best short-form video platform continues as YouTube has introduced a ‘Shorts Shelf Display’ on the trending page. This new feature will highlight the top-performing Shorts by specific location, at any specific time.
YouTube are currently testing the ability to react to specific sections of video with timed reactions. Users will be able to react to any section of a video by adding an emoji. These reactions would then be visible to any other users who are watching the playback and could be used instead of posting a comment.
With Google just announcing that YouTube Shorts now receives up to 30 million views per day (all hail short-form video), this next update was predictable! You guessed it… ads are being tested to appear between Shorts clips! Shorts ads are going to provide another monetisation pathway, which seems sensible as the increase in views on Shorts could see a drop in views on standard YouTube videos.
And that’s our round-up of social media updates for April! We hope you found them useful and we’d love to hear whether you’re planning to put any of these into practice! Let us know over on Instagram!
If you’re wondering when the next round-up blog will be, in the words of Justin Timberlake – “It’s gonna be May!”
We’ll be sharing more updates over on TikTok and Reels – so why not give us a follow!
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