Category: In The News

• Twitter has rolled out View Count, which indicates the number of times a tweet’s been seen. This may serve as evidence that more people read content than publically engage with it.
• LinkedIn is adding more functionality to creator analytics to offer deeper audience insight.
• TikTok is testing horizontal full-screen mode, further inching into YouTube’s territory. This follows TikTok’s move to support long-form content. However, the platform popularised the vertical video scrolling format, and some users may not be thrilled about the new development.

2023 trend prediction: Customer service via social media

According to Mediatoolkit, Hootsuite, and Convince & Convert, more businesses will incorporate a customer service component into their social media strategies in 2023. This entails using social media as a direct line of communication with customers to respond to questions, complaints, and requests as quickly as possible. It can also include responding proactively to customers who mention your brand.

Why social media management should include a customer service component:

• It makes your customers’ lives easier. Because most of your customers are already on social media, simply providing support through these platforms is an excellent way to improve your customer service.
• Some social media platforms offer readily available functionalities to help you manage customer service and improve response times. Facebook, for example, provides features like a shared inbox, automated responses, and chatbots.
• It helps to expand your brand. Public responses demonstrate brands’ accountability, which fosters trust and transparency. Ignoring customer inquiries on social media can be detrimental to your brand.
You can already incorporate customer service into your social media strategy by taking the following steps:
• Your social media managers should be educated on your customer service procedures.
• Allow visitors to submit questions and complaints through your social media DMs easily.
• Provide public customer service. When done correctly, this is excellent for public relations.

WhatsApp has introduced polls in chats for Android and iOS users. The polls option is not yet available for WhatsApp Web. Individual and group chats can create polls with up to 12 options. In addition, if you type in the same option twice, WhatsApp will warn you. Participants in a group or chat can tap on the poll answers and select their preferred choice. In addition, there is an option to view the votes at the bottom of the poll, and WhatsApp displays the number of votes cast next to a response. Given how much people rely on WhatsApp groups, the new polls feature will likely appeal to many administrators. It may make it easier to reach group consensus on some difficult issues, such as scheduling a meeting.

• Facebook Groups has a new feature – “introduction prompts”. These prompts are shown to new group members to encourage them to post. Admins can select from suggested prompts or create their own custom prompts, which can then be adjusted in group settings. Once enabled by the admin, new members can use the introduction prompts to post.
TikTok has launched Audience Insights globally within TikTok Ads Manager. Explore TikTok user interests, behaviours, and demographics to maximise advertising results and find new ways to scale with Audience Insights. In addition, you can discover aggregate audience information using simple filter settings before creating a campaign. And to bring your audience persona to life, supplement your audience planning workflow with quantitative and qualitative data.

Instagram now allows users to add music to photos in their Instagram Feed, giving creators more tools to bring their content to life and express themselves. Music is a big part of how people express themselves on Instagram, and now you can add a soundtrack to your favourite photo moments to bring them to life, regardless of which format works best for telling your story. This feature is currently being rolled out.

In a field experiment conducted for Discover Vitality, researchers discovered that when customers follow a company’s social media page, in this case, their Facebook page, and regularly come across its content, they use the company’s products more frequently. These are the steps the researchers took and the results:

o First, customers were invited to like the Facebook page.
o They paid to boost posts and targeted them to people who liked the page after experimenting with organic content only, which had no effect.
o During a two-month period, customers who liked the page earned 8% more points via the Vitality programme.
o What makes it work? Existing customers who are kept up to date on company news are more likely to use the company’s products and services. Furthermore, boosting posts allows content to reach a much larger audience than organic posts alone.

1. TikTok has introduced various improved creation and editing tools to broaden the scope of what’s possible with content. These editing tools enable people to have more creative freedom, share richer stories, and bring their content ideas to life across formats. In addition, the improved editing tools allow users to easily adjust clips, sounds, images, and text in a new editing environment, all while remaining within TikTok’s creation flow. The tools include:
   – Clip editing through stacking, trimming, and splitting video clips.
   – Cutting, trimming, and adjusting the duration for sounds.
   – Editing and positioning text and its set duration.
   – Overlays for picture-in-picture (or video-in-video) stacking.
   – Adjusting video clip speeds.
   – Rotating or zooming in and out of individual clips’ frames.
   – Including sound effects.
   – Photo Mode is a new carousel format available on mobile for photo content, ideal for sharing high quality images on TikTok, for when users want to express themselves in formats other than video. Photo Mode allows users to share carousel posts of still images that appear one after the other. In addition, they can use music to accompany the images, which viewers can scroll through at their leisure. Furthermore, Photo Mode allow users to create with longer descriptions of up to 2 200 characters per post.
2. Research has shown that heavy tweeters have been in decline since the start of the pandemic. While these heavy tweeters (people who log in to the platform six or seven days a week and tweets three to four times a week) account for less than 10% of the platform’s overall monthly users, they generate 90% of all tweets and about half of global revenue. The study also discovered a shift in interests among Twitter’s most active English-speaking users over the last two years, which could make the platform less appealing to advertisers. Furthermore, the most popular topics of interest among English-speaking heavy users are cryptocurrency and “not safe for work” (NSFW) content, which includes nudity and pornography. At the same time, users’ interest in news, sports, and entertainment is dwindling. Tweets about those topics, which have helped Twitter establish itself as the world’s “digital town square,” are also the most appealing to advertisers. In addition, Twitter is losing a devastating number of heavy users interested in fashion or celebrities like the Kardashians. According to a Twitter researcher, these users are likely migrating to rival platforms such like Instagram and TikTok.
3. YouTube has introducing handles as a new way for people to find and interact with creators and each other on YouTube. Every channel will have its own handle, making it easier for fans to discover new content and interact with their favourite creators. Handles will appear on channel pages and Shorts, making them easily and consistently identifiable. This will make it easier and faster for creators to mention one another in comments, community posts, video descriptions, and other places. Unlike channel names, handles are truly unique to each channel, allowing creators to further establish their distinct presence and brand on YouTube. There is no need to update links if a channel already has a personalised URL. They will be automatically redirected to the new, handle-based URL to create a better, more unified presence for creators on YouTube.
4. In an effort to be more inclusive, LinkedIn has introduced auto captions and high contrast for improved video accessibility. As people share insights and collaborate to solve problems on LinkedIn, it’s critical that all members have access to these conversations in order to do their jobs, run their businesses, and stay informed. The platform is rolling out auto captions to make video content on LinkedIn more accessible to those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or prefer to watch videos with the sound turned off. Captions will be generated automatically when users upload a video to LinkedIn (English-only for now). They can be added as soon as they’re ready, or users can review them before publishing to ensure accuracy for their audience. In addition, when watching videos on the LinkedIn app, viewers can enable high contrast, which adjusts the colours to improve accessibility for those with low vision or visual disabilities.
5. Instagram has launched a live test of native scheduling in the app. It’s built-in post-scheduling feature will be added to the advanced options in the post composer flow, along with a new element that allows you to set a date and time for the post to go live. This, it appears, will allow you to schedule both regular posts and Reels.
6. Meta is launching new ad placements and formats on Instagram to help businesses tell their story and reach new customers. Advertisers can use these features to connect with people on Instagram:
   Ads in Explore home and profile feed: Businesses can now place advertisements in Explore home, the grid that appears when people first visit the Explore tab. Meta is also starting to test ads in the profile feed, which is the feed experience that people can access after visiting another account’s profile and tapping on a post. As part of this test, they will experiment with a monetisation opportunity that will allow eligible creators to earn extra money from ads displayed in their profile feeds, starting with a small group of US creators.
   AI-powered multi-advertiser ads: When someone interacts with an ad, Meta will deliver ads beneath what they think may be of interest, using machine learning. They have discovered that adding multi-advertiser contextual ads to existing Instagram feed ads campaigns outperformed running campaigns for the Purchase outcome when compared to those that did not.
7. People aren’t just watching Reels; they’re actively engaging with them and having conversations about them. Meta reported an increase of more than 30% in the time people spent engaging with reels across Facebook and Instagram. Audio is another important hook for increasing Reels engagement. Therefore, Meta is releasing free, high-quality songs from the Meta Sound Collection that can be added to Carousel Ads on Reels to make it easier for businesses to create Reels ads. Businesses can choose a song from the library or let the app choose the best music for an ad based on its content. Furthermore, the company is launching a test of post-loop ads, which are 4 to 10-second skippable and standalone video ads that play after a reel has ended. This is to help businesses connect with customers through Reels on Facebook. When the advertisement concludes, the original reel resumes and loops again. In addition, they are testing image carousel ads for Reels. These horizontally scrollable ads, which will appear at the bottom of Facebook Reels content, can include up to ten image ads.

TikTok has added more than a half-dozen mini-games to its UK and US apps. This initiative includes nine games that can be added to a video before uploading it by using the “Add link” option and selecting “MiniGame.” While watching a video, viewers can play a linked game by tapping the link that appears beneath the account’s username. When playing a game, you have the option of recording gameplay and uploading it to TikTok.

In addition to TikTok being a threat to YouTube, Google has observed that younger users frequently use Instagram and TikTok for discovery purposes rather than Google Search or Maps. These users do not search for keywords, but rather seek to discover new content in novel, immersive ways.
TikTok has launched Shopping Ads, a simpler, smarter, and more advanced ad solution that assists brands in meeting shoppers wherever they are in the purchase journey, sparking demand and increasing sales. It’s a three-in-one solution that introduces and combines new formats: Video Shopping Ads, Catalog Listing Ads, and LIVE Shopping Ads. The feature is being rolled out gradually.

Meta has introduced B2B targeting audience segments globally. B2B marketers can now reach key decision-makers in small, medium, and enterprise businesses by combining Meta’s scale with the power of their targeting segments. Meta is uniquely positioned to support B2B marketers seeking to forge meaningful connections between people and businesses in today’s world, with a mission to give people the power to build community. To help drive meaningful outcomes, you can use the following targeting options:

Decision-makers in IT: A B2B audience segment that targets ads to people who are IT decision makers based on their job titles.

Titles and interests of business decision-makers: A B2B audience segment that targets ads to people who are business decision-makers based on their job titles and interests.
Business decision-makers: A B2B audience segment that targets ads to people who, based on their job titles, are business decision-makers in engineering/IT, operations, HR, strategy, or marketing.

New active business: Administrators of engaged businesses that have been active in the last 6, 12, or 24 months. (Note: This represents three segments, one for each timeframe.)
Instagram users can now use QR codes to share posts, Reels, tags, and locations on its searchable Map experience. Simply click the three-dot menu on any Reel, post, or location, then click “QR code” on the top right to save it to your camera roll. To generate a QR code, add “/qr” to the URL of a post in a browser. Instagram’s parent company, Meta, said the decision was made to “make it easier for people and businesses to share specific content.”

LinkedIn announced that they’re rolling out the ability to add a clickable link to posts. The aim is to convert audiences more easily by including a clickable link when sharing resources, job listings, or driving sales or sign-ups.

• Instagram has announced that business accounts can now boost their reels, turn them into ads, reach more customers, and increase engagement. Boosted reels can appear in stories, feed, reels, and explore page. Reels must be less than 60 seconds and be a full vertical 9:16 aspect ratio. However, if it contains copyrighted music, GIFs, interactive stickers, and camera effects and is shared to Facebook, the reel will not be eligible for boosting.

• Twitter now allows you to leave a conversation with “unmentioning”. It will enable you to leave a thread and prevent others from tagging you in that conversation. Your handle will appear as text instead of a link to your profile. This is part of Twitter’s steps against abuse and harassment. The feature is available under the drop-down menu as “leave this conversation”.

• LinkedIn is rolling out carousels to share a series of swipeable videos and photos on your profile. This feature is still being rolled out and allows people to share more personal content.

• TikTok introduced translations for captions, video descriptions, and text stickers. Supported languages include English, Portuguese, German, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and Turkish.

• Facebook has updated its home feed format to look more like Tiktok. In addition, the new Feeds tab allows users to view content from pages, groups, and friends in chronological order.

• YouTube tips shared by the platform’s top US earner include: focus on short-form video, connect to your community with live video, optimise your content for the big screen, update your video’s thumbnails, and prioritise your audience and storytelling.

• Using alt text with your images can improve accessibility and increase reach.

How do you add alt text to images for social media?

• When you upload an image to Twitter, you will be given the option to “Add a description.” However, as part of its broader efforts to improve platform accessibility, it is now testing a pop-up reminder.

• Facebook: The alt text option can be found under the three dots or “Edit” options that appear when you upload an image.

• Instagram: The alt text field is a little more hidden on Instagram; you’ll find it on the final screen before sharing your photo under “Advanced settings.”

• LinkedIn: When you upload an image, you have the option to add alt text, which is located right next to the “Edit” and “Tag” buttons.

• According to research by Duke University, brands that use clever and witty humor on social media have increased brand attitude and engagement. Your jokes must be clever and, ideally, relevant to your audience’s interests, your product, or competitors’ products. It shows that your brand is smart enough to make these amusing mental connections and approachable, which positively influences attitudes and sales. https://tips.ariyh.com/p/clever-humor-boost?s=r

• For your Stories link stickers, Instagram currently offers four different default designs for Instagram stories. Try these tricks to customise the look and text of your Stories links. Add a link sticker to your Story as usual. Then, use the text feature to cover it with your personalized call to action. Users can tap to access the link hidden behind your text box. You can do the same by designing custom stickers with your brand’s colours, fonts, etc. and save it to your phone. Insert it as an image on your Story over the Instagram link sticker.

• A recent study shows an increasing number of TikTok accounts belong to users aged 60 and older with millions of followers. These TikTok creators frequently use their accounts to defy ageist stereotypes, racking up a massive number of views and even decent earnings in the process. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/may/18/older-people-using-tiktok-to-defy-ageist-stereotypes-research-finds

• YouTube has introduced a feature that will help users identify the most popular parts of a video they’re watching. They’re adding a graph that people can use to easily locate and watch the most replayed parts of a video, which is especially useful for longer videos or those that haven’t broken down their various sections using timestamps or video chapters.

• Meta has introduced recurring notifications on their Messenger platform to enable businesses to send automated messages to people who have opted in to receiving them, once their purchases are complete. Companies can now provide important updates, driving re-engagement and keeping the conversation going, right in the thread.

• Twitter has announced that it is working on an edit option (finally!) and the functionality will allow users to check what changes were made to ensure transparency. Victims of autocorrect, rejoice!

• LinkedIn now allows users to showcase a link on their personal profile. However, this feature can only be managed on desktop. You can display up to three URLs on your profile’s introduction section.

• BeReal is a trending photo sharing app designed to let users share an unfiltered, authentic glimpse of their lives with their friends. You have two minutes every day to upload an unedited photo. The app was launched in France in 2019, and 65% of its lifetime downloads have been in 2022.

• Social media use has increased in every generation, making it a vital marketing tool. Catch them where they’re active! Boomers and Gen X are mostly active on YouTube and Facebook while Millennials and Gen Z prefer TikTok and Instagram.

• Want to know the best and worst days to post on social media? SprouttSocial released an updated report based on data from their thousands of customers.

o Best days
 Meta (Facebook): Tuesday to Friday
 Instagram and Twitter: Tuesday and Wednesday
 LinkedIn: Wednesday and Thursday

o Worst days
 Meta (Facebook): Saturday
 Instagram and Twitter: Sunday
 LinkedIn: Saturday and Sunday

• TikTok is beginning to allow users to upload videos up to 10 minutes in length. The existing limit is three minutes. The platform launched with a 15-second limit, which it increased to 60 seconds. In July 2021 TikTok extended this limit further, to three minutes. Following months of testing, they confirmed that the new change is an effort to bring value to their community in new ways to enrich the TikTok experience. The expanded video length should give creators greater time and flexibility to film demos, tutorials, and more.

• Instagram is rolling out the ability for all users (not just approved creators) to tag products and brands with a direct link in their feeds post. This is part of the platform’s continued focus to expand its eCommerce listings. The roll-out will start in the US. Users can now tag the products they’ve bought from their favourite small businesses so their friends and followers can explore these brands. It is set to offer a great boost from brands for free while building Instagram’s eCommerce focus. Brands will be notified when someone tags a product and can view all tagged content on their profile.

• Instagram feed videos will have auto-generated captions as a default for creators to make the platform more accessible for hearing-impaired users. Viewers will be able to turn captions off or on. To start, captions will be available in 17 languages, with more planned.

• Twitter now allows users to pin the “Latest Tweets” timeline to their “Home” tab for easy access. Mobile users can tap on the icon in the top right-hand corner to pin or unpin the “Latest” timeline to their “Home” tab. The platform said they are always looking to give users more flexibility and control over what they see in their timeline.

• Instagram introduces “Favourites” and “Following” as ways for users to catch up on recent posts from a list of their favourite users or the people they follow in chronological order. This allows users to quickly catch up on recent posts. The feed options are available on both iOS and Android globally, but not on the web version of Instagram. Users now have three options for viewing their Instagram feed. The main feed is the algorithmic Home feed, the chronological feed shows the latest post of everyone a user follows, and the new favourites feed can be customised by the user selecting which accounts they want to add to this list. You can have up to 50 accounts set as favourites.

• Twitter announces keyword search functionality for DMs to ensure users can easily track down past conversations for people, products, and links shared. The option allows users to filter queries into four segments: all (all results including key term and usernames), people (relevant usernames based on the search term), groups (group chats that use the search term), and messages (any keyword matches in specific DMs).

• Meta announced new voice message features for WhatsApp, including listening to messages outside of the chat, pausing and resuming recording, and draft preview. Out-of-chat playback allows users to listen to the message while they multitask, read, or respond to other messages. Pause/resume recording allows the user to pause a recording if they’re interrupted or need to gather their thoughts before resuming the voice note. Draft preview enables users to listen to the voice note before sending it.