This post is a part of our monthly social media updates and news series, where you can quickly scan through quick recaps of all the changes that took place in recent months.
This month social media trends are leaning towards social responsibility, sticking to what is right and pleasing its socially alert users. We believe this will be a trend for the upcoming period. Because ordinary users, NGOs and governments started to realise the increasing vital influence of social media and how it changes our brain, especially topped up with COVID-19 outcomes.
Following the footsteps of Facebook
You may call interaction between executives and users in social media “democracy in action”. As a result, executives feel more and more responsible towards their users. And, so during July, Facebook continued highlighting its positive social stance.
Creators, we found an investor for you!
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged its support to creators and will feed notable ones across Facebook and Instagram with seed funding of $1 billion through the year 2022.
Creators could receive revenues from ad streams, paid online events and fan activities. Additionally, creators may benefit from partnering with brands and using shopping tools. From now on, Facebook will reward eligible creators directly when hitting predefined milestones.
And there’s more to it:
Facebook not only gives money but also educates. Now, alongside with Social Media Marketing Certificate, one can get Marketing Analysis and Software Development Certificate. Upon completing the program created in partnership with Coursera, certificate owners will access Facebook Certification Careers Network.
All not quite on the Facebook front!
Although Facebook is getting more users oriented, criticism of this platform continues. For example, Germany’s data protection commissioner announced that Facebook doesn’t meet either German or European General Data Protection Regulation. What is more, the commissioner has called for all government bodies to delete their Facebook pages.
Now Facebook users can tag products in group posts. Group admins will be able to decide if they want to use this shopping feature in their groups.
Looking Forward to Future
Meanwhile, Facebook has announced its future focus areas, which are:
- Privacy-enhancing technologies
- Product and business discovery
- Commerce
- Business tools beyond marketing
Keeping up with Instagram
This month Instagram decided to break the conventional knowledge about itself.
You ready for it? There you go:
INSTAGRAM IS NO LONGER A PHOTO-SHARING APP.
Gee! What?
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said that following the success of Youtube and TikTok, they decided to move towards entertainment and videos.
Other updates from an ex-photo-sharing social media app
- Instagram users will be able to post collaborative updates both in Reel clips and main feed. The feature is in testing mode in UK and India;
- Now text in Stories can be automatically translated. All you need to do is to click on the “See Translation” option on the top left corner;
- Say “no” to third party apps for the Story drafts! Now Instagram users can save their soon to be Stories in drafts within the app. What a great feature!
- “Re-Share” sticker for the Instagram Stories might appear in the app, allowing users to re-share feed posts through a specially tailored sharing format;
- Responsible social media in action: Instagram will suggest accounts whose messages and comments you may want to limit!
Facebook, Google, Twitter and TikTok pledged to fight abuse of women online through revamping their moderation systems.
What do they talk about TikTok?
Are you reading us from the UK? Did you know, on average, you spend more time on TikTok compared to Facebook, Netflix and Youtube, around 26 hours per month? The situation is the same in the US.
TikTok knows what we want
The Wall Street Journal has figured out that TikTok needs to know how much time you spend over one content to define your desires;
TikTok says ads on its platform drive more emotional responses and are more memorable than those on TV and other platforms. And guess what, this feedback means more purchases;
TikTok does not stay still and launches a feature that lets brands sponsor relevant trending organic content;
As TikTok videos’ duration expands from one to three minutes, soon you’ll be able to rewind and fast forward them;
TikTok live-stream options got renewed, and you can schedule events, set live Q&A, and co-stream;
Amidst its popularity, TikTok also decided to go offline. TikTok opens a ‘For You House’ pop-up store in the UK as it continues beating its competitors. Here you can meet influencers who reached their popularity through the app;
TikTok might take the reins from LinkedIn too. Soon Gen Z will be able to apply to jobs through video resumes via the new “TikTok Resumes” tool.
Twitter social media updates
For Twitter, this month is all about testing. Below is what Twitter is currently working on:
- New Vocal Effects options in Twitter Spaces, where users can have for audio conversations;
- Upvote and Downvote reactions for tweets to complement traditional like, retweet and reply buttons;
- Revamping TweetDeck via advanced search option, new full tweet composer, column types and a new system of grouping them;
- A new image format that will get rid of rounded borders and take whole horizontal space of the feed;
- More attractive misinformation labels;
In the other news
Youtube launches a “Super Thanks” tool to tip creators and might soon allow shopping from Livestream.
Shareable, short audio clips is another trend in the social media realm. TikTok flames up competition between social media giants as it grows more and more successful. So now, many see potential in this type of short content. Facebook has even announced “Soundbites” earlier this year! “Soundbites” is seen as Clubhouse’s rival or its clone.
Alongside Facebook, Snapchat and Linkedin too will offer certifications to marketers. For example, Snapchat will assist social media marketers with a certificate to highlight their knowledge of Snap ads. Whereas LinkedIn has devised two programs, “Fundamentals Certification” and “Marketing Strategy Certification”.
A word of caution: A hacker under the name Tom Liner compiled a database of 700 million LinkedIn users worldwide. The issue is that Liner did not break into our accounts but constructed the list from the information we – users make available on our pages.
Photo retouching is not allowed under the new Norwegian Law unless you label them. However, we think it might roll out globally, so you can look into social media filter detox!
Stay tuned into our blog for more social media updates and trends!
