Happy New Year Internet! We’ve driven full speed past the Christmas holidays but don’t worry, we’ve made sure to find time to get the latest social media updates together for you! Now, which one should we unwrap first?
We’ll begin with TikTok as they’ve got a business-centric update in the form of a ‘Business Registration’ option. Registering your business will be to your benefit as TikTok will provide you with early access to some new features to boost your business’ visibility and influence.
TikTok is also making improvements to their monetisation tools by introducing ‘Creator Tipping.’ The idea of being able to tip creators isn’t new to TikTok, as the feature was originally used for live streams, but now creators will be able to receive tips on regular videos.
They are currently experimenting on giving users the ability to tag other users in their videos! This will work in tandem with the current ability to tag users in the captions. Simply put, users can utilise video for tagging and keep the captions free for hashtags and other information.
It’s been a busy one for TikTok, but our final update is that they have begun the testing process for a re-post option! This feature could allow users to share their old clips back into the ‘For You,’ and ‘Following’ pages.
This looks like it will be a beneficial tool for gaining engagement – especially if sharing a popular video.
Over to Facebook now, and they’re looking to provide help to creators through the new ‘Inspiration Hub’ tab. This feature allows Facebook to give its creators insights into what’s trending and potentially help spark some extra inspiration!
This isn’t the only update for creators, as Facebook is also providing new tools for live streams. These tools will include being able to share links during a live stream as well as letting you host polls on mobile devices. That gets a thumbs up from us!
Facebook has also provided an update to messenger! These updates come in the form of a variety of group effects… We think this is likely to try and win back their younger target audience from TikTok!
Messenger will also be experimenting with a bill-splitting feature, like a sort of social calculator. Practically speaking, we’re not sure how well this will be used by FB users.
The third update this month is the launch of professional profiles! Having a Professional Profile will provide creators with access to new monetisation tools as well as insights into audience, post, and profile growth – features that were formerly exclusive to Facebook pages. It’s worth noting that professional mode is only available to the US, but we can see this being distributed globally soon.
Instagram:
Instagram has officially announced that its users can now use Reels Replies. This means that users can respond to comments on their posts with a Reels-like video. Similar to how TikTok lets users respond to comments with videos.
Two other features that are being added are the playback feature and profile embedding.
The playback feature will allow users to reminisce on their social activity from 2021. Instagram will choose ten of your Stories, but you can alter which ones are included before sharing to your Instagram story.
The Profile embedding feature will allow you to insert a link to your Instagram profile anywhere, such as on your website. However, this is only available in the USA for the time beginning.
Finally, Adam Mosseri (the head of Instagram), has announced that the Chronological feed is going to be reintroduced onto the platform. This should be good news for users who have been protesting the current algorithm-based feed.
Let’s switch over to Pinterest for some social media updates now, which have forged an alliance with Vochi. While it is more of an acquisition, Pinterest has the video creation and editing app to further support Pinterest Creators with the creation of video content.
Pinterest has followed the steps of Instagram and TikTok with this next update, as they have introduced replying to comments with videos.
Pinterest was one of the last to provide stories through the introduction of Idea Pins (previously story pins) and pinners can respond to comments with Idea Pins!
It appears that they have launched an updated version of their post-discovery tab, Explore. This update makes ‘Explore’ look like TikTok’s ‘For You’ page, with tweets being displayed in a full-screen format.
This isn’t the only update for Twitter as they are testing an update to how they handle reported tweets. This test looks to be an overhaul in which it will look to obtain more detailed insights into why a tweet has been reported.
Twitter has another test going on, in the form of a new creative tweet option. But what does this mean? Apparently, Twitter is using aspects of the defunct Fleets to engage with other users’ tweets. This will be shown in the ‘Quote Tweet with reaction’ option.
That’s a wrap!
And that is the social media updates for December! We’ll be back at the end of the month with the low down on the updates in January. Until then, check out our other blogs and for more social media updates, why not check out our Instagram page!
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