Kicking off June with another batch of updates in the world of social media. Here are the six top stories in social media from the last week:
Well, it’s happening. After announcing in March a new way of ordering posts in your Instagram feed, the platform made it official in a blog post this week that “You’ll likely see this new experience soon if you haven’t already.” We’ve discussed what the this means on the blog back in April, but a clue to Instagram’s new direction came in another announcement this week…
As we suspected when Instagram first announced that they’re nixing the chronological feed, it looks like Instagram is becoming increasingly pay-to-play, like Facebook. This week they also formally announced better in-app tools for businesses to use the platform, confirming what’s only been rumored so far: First, business profiles with a “Contact” button, category and location fields, second, insights that include account and post level metrics from impressions to engagement to best time of day to post, and third, in-app post boosting, so you no longer have to create duplicate post-ads through Facebook’s Ads Manager. Thank the Instagods, but we’ll still have to wait a few months for these changes to roll out.
In a move that should surprise no one, Snapchat is changing again. It’s kind of their thing. This month Snapchat revealed they’re redesigning their Discover section to resemble more of a newsstand, complete with a “subscription” feature so users can see stories they care more about at the top of their Stories feeds. According to Digiday, Live Stories will also probably be integrated into the redesign as well. We should know when they release the new look mid-June.
The past year has brought a number of innovative ad formats from nearly every social platform, but a big one has been the carousel. Facebook and Instagram both feature carousel ads and have very recently introduced video to carousel ads. According to Ad Age, Twitter is following suit with their own carousel ads that feature both user tweets and brand tweets. Promoted Tweet Carousels are flexible, featuring everything from text tweets to photos and videos and seem like a great way to tell a story through a combination of media and authentic user tweets. As of now, there’s no word on when this format will roll out to all accounts, but stay tuned.
72 new emojis are coming. Plan your tweets accordingly.
In other emoji news, it seems the “thing of the week” is celeb-specific emoji keyboards. As of writing this, the top five paid apps in the App Store include Justin Bieber’s emoji keyboard at #1, Steph Curry’s emoji keyboard at #2, and Kim K’s emoji keyboard at #5. Is this the beginning of a huge influx of individual celeb, brand and publisher emoji keyboards? How long will we have to wait for Nic Cage’s?
With 150 million active users, Snapchat has surpassed Twitter 140 million active users this month, reports Ad Age. It’s not surprising, as Snapchat maintains its status as the coolest app for younger users. Considering the amount of businesses that recognized Twitter as a tool for marketing and customer service as it grew, it’s a wonder more businesses aren’t trying Snapchat’s potential to reach an even bigger audience.
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Social Media, The State of Social