Find out the latest social media news, trends, and tips. There are several platform updates from the last month.
Instagram Story Likes
On Valentine’s Day, Instagram announced users would soon be able to send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a direct message.
One of the goals of this new feature is to help prevent your DMs from becoming cluttered. Instead, it will send the author a like, which will show up in the story’s viewer sheet.
The button, which will be in the shape of a heart, will be placed between the send message button and the paper airplane at the bottom right corner.
The Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, stated:
“Likes on stories are private and do not have counts. Rather, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet.”
The overall goal is to allow people to express more support for each other.
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TikTok Updates Community Guidelines
TikTok influencer marketing also wants to make their platform more uplifting and they are doing so by creating new community guidelines. These are aimed specifically to help protect minors and LGBTQ users.
The guidelines include:
- Implementing stricter rules to prevent suicide hoax content from spreading on the platform.
- Broadening their approach to eating disorder content. TikTok already removes the content that promotes eating disorders and will widen their umbrella of disordered eating content that will be removed.
- Adding clarity to hateful content such as misgendering, deadnaming, and misogyny.
Corman Keenan, the head of trust and safety at TikTok stated:
“Though these ideologies have long been prohibited on TikTok, we’ve heard from creators and civil society organizations that it’s important to be explicit in our Community Guidelines.”
They hope that a feature they recently added, which allows people to add their pronouns, will encourage respectful dialogue and interactions on the app.
TikTok Creator Marketing Leads Initiative to Credit the Originators
Not only is TikTok trying to make their community more uplifting through guidelines, but they are trying to help originators of trending and viral content feel supported.
The Tiktok creators’ Instagram profile stated:
“We’re helping to build a more unified creator community that supports and celebrates the hard work and originality of one another.
Help start a ripple effect by attributing originators and helping create a culture of credit on TikTok today!”
Their post, which includes a series of videos, encourages users to tag the originator in the caption, duet or stitch the original video, mention the creator verbally, or tag the originator in the comment section.
TikTok recognized that sometimes it might be hard to pinpoint the originator. In order to try and identify them, they offered tips such as checking the sound page, checking the hashtag page, or to watch for who other video creators are crediting. They even recommended politely pointing out who the originator is in the comment sections of uncredited videos.
This all contributes to their overall goal of building a healthy and supportive community.
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Twitter’s Downvote
It was just announced that the downvote feature on Twitter will be rolling out for all users, not only certain iOS users. However, this new feature is not a dislike feature, it is a private reply which will help users give feedback on the type of content that will appear on their feed.
A tweet from TwitterSupport stated:
“We learned a lot about the types of replies you don’t find relevant and we’re expanding this test –– more of you on web and soon iOS and Android will have the option to use reply downvoting.
Downvotes aren’t public, but they’ll help inform us of the content people want to see.”
The most common downvoted content were tweets that users found to be offensive or just plain unrelatable.
The downvote feature won’t display a number next to the likes; instead, only the author can see the number of downvotes their post has. Downvotes will also not affect the order in which tweets appear in someone’s feed.
Twitter’s Safety Mode
Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) is also introducing safety mode. Aim to help “limit unwelcome interactions”
Remember when we began testing a new feature called Safety Mode? After months of feedback from beta users, we’re excited to expand this to some of you in several new English-speaking markets to gain more feedback and insights. https://t.co/8TM7S5Zfuj pic.twitter.com/AqVOUwyNQv
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) February 15, 2022
Tweet Takes
Platforms continue to pivot to video. Twitter, for example, is looking to incorporate more and more videos on their platform. In January, @TwitterSupport announced that reaction videos, or Tweet Takes, are currently being tested for iOS users. These videos can be used as responses to tweets.
Not only this, but they are testing out having more options for video playback speeds.
Twitter Super Followers
Creators on Twitter have had the ability to have super followers, who subscribe to their content. This was made available last year. Now, there’s a tab for easier viewing of interactions and notifications from their super followers.
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YouTube’s New Updates
YouTube is looking to make significant changes to their platform this year. On their YouTube social commerce blog, Chief Product Officer Neil Mohan discussed a long list of new innovations YouTube is going to begin to explore, plan, and execute.
This list includes new video effects, super thanks, replying to comments with “shorts,” and including collaborative live streams.
YouTube also plans to launch YouTube TV, which will allow people to interact with the content they watch on their television. They also plan to lean into more incorporation of NFTs and the metaverse.
A big goal of YouTube’s in 2022 is to cater more towards helping creators monetize their content. They are planning to do this with features such as shoppable videos and live shopping. They are also looking to introduce YouTube Insights to help creators analyze what tactics to use when producing content.
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Trends to Look Forward To
March is here, so you don’t want to miss out on some of the big days and celebrations coming up. It’s good to begin planning ahead of the holidays’ arrivals. Big ones in March to look out for include:
- Mardi Gras – Tuesday, March 1
- Women’s Day – Tuesday, March 8 (March is Women’s History Month)
- St. Patrick’s Day – Thursday, March 17
- The first day of spring – Sunday, March 20
Starting conversations around these days can give you the ability to begin connecting with your audience and start buzz about your campaign.
You can bet on hashtags like #StPatricksDay and #WomensDay trending in March.
Open Influence is a global influencer agency that is full of social media gurus who constantly stay up to date on the latest trends.
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