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Welcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news.
To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What's New This Week
Snapchat Introduces Memories Feature: “Memories is a new way to save Snaps and Stories on Snapchat.” This new feature creates “a personal collection of your favorite moments that lives below the Camera screen. Just swipe up from the Camera to open Memories!” This new feature provides a default camera roll for snaps, searchability by captions or recognizable objects, and a way to keep sensitive content private. Memories also allows users to access previously shot photos and videos saved in Memories “to create new Stories… or even combine different Stories into a longer narrative.” Snapchat is “rolling out Memories selectively over the next month or so.” It will eventually be available globally on iOS and Android.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1RfWn0tQ8
Instagram Adds Comment Moderation to Business Accounts: Last month, Instagram unveiled its new business profiles and tools and has been rolling them out gradually throughout the world. This week, Instagram added a new Comment Moderation option to its business profiles. TechCrunch reports that this new feature automatically “blocks comments with words or phrases often reported as offensive from appearing on your posts.” Instagram confirms that “the feature rolled out [this week] and can be found in the settings of accounts that have turned on the Business Page option.”
Facebook Messenger Rolls Out Account Switching on iOS: “Account switching is finally rolling out” on Facebook Messenger for iOS. This option makes it possible to “add multiple accounts to switch between” and is “great news for social media managers, small business owners, public personas or family members who share a single device.” According to the Next Web, this option has been available on Android since February and “makes the entire Facebook app family (FB, Messenger, Instagram) all capable of switching between multiple accounts without constantly signing in and out.”
Our Take on Top News This Week
In this week's show from Friday, July 8, 2016, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include major changes coming to Snapchat (04:20), updates to Twitter (26:18), and comment moderation on Instagram business profiles (42:01). Subscribe to future shows here.
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More News to Note
Facebook Announces New Bot Creation Features and Tools: Facebook is rolling out “new features and tools for people building bots” for Messenger. These updates provide more functionality like the ability to use GIFs, quick replies, account linking, and a persistent menu option. According to Facebook, “over 11,000 bots have launched on Messenger and over 23,000 developers have signed up for Wit.ai's Bot Engine” since the launch of the Messenger platform. Facebook plans to continue supporting this growth with a new Messenger blog, a “great resource for businesses and developers” offering “tips, case studies and a special Q&A series with some of the businesses and brands who have already built bots for Messenger.”
Facebook Enables Live From MSQRD App: Facebook “enabled the ability to go live on Facebook from MSQRD, an app that lets you try out different masks and effects.” This product update was previewed on TechCrunch along with the ability to “do two-person remote broadcasts, pre-schedule your streams and create a virtual waiting room for viewers” on Facebook Live. As of this past week, Facebook users can “get creative while talking live with [their] friends and fans on Facebook — turn into a zombie, give yourself cat ears, or even go deep-sea diving” with MSQRD.
Twitter Launches First Sports Livestream: Twitter launched its first sports livestream broadcast at this year's Wimbledon. The Next Web reports that “the screen looks a lot like what you might expect from most livestreaming services with commentary on the side (i.e. YouTube, Twitch). Tweets with the associated hashtag – in this case, #wimbledon – will appear along the side and you can tweet directly along the stream without opening another window.” Viewers currently can't filter the feed to only see tweets from those they follow, but are able to pause or mute the feed.
Twitter launches livestream sports broadcast with Wimbledon https://t.co/LnUQUdeoxX pic.twitter.com/cRgJKXrG1U
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Instagram Shares Best Practices for Dynamic Ads: Since the launch of Dynamic Ads on Instagram, “many retailers and eCommerce businesses have used them to increase conversions and lower cost per acquisition across every device.” On the Instagram for Business blog, Instagram offers real-world examples of how businesses are using dynamic ads to “promote relevant products to shoppers who browse items on their website or mobile app” and tips on how to get started running dynamic ads.
Upcoming Social Media News Worth Following
Twitter Tests Two New Customer Service Features for Brands: The Next Web reports that “Twitter appears to be testing [new features] that should help users get faster customer support from brands and businesses they follow on the platform.” These new features are only available to select profiles and include a badge that indicates the time of day “when those accounts are most responsive” and “a new ‘Featured Tweets' tab that seems to display tweets curated by the account owner.”
Messenger Starts Testing End-to-End Encryption With Secret Conversations: Facebook announced that it's “starting to test the ability to create one-to-one secret conversations in Messenger that will be end-to-end encrypted and which can only be read on one device of the person you're communicating with.”
Facebook Tests Video Downloads for Offline Viewing: After receiving feedback from markets like India, where “mobile data and internet connectivity is limited and many people struggle with poor video experiences,” Facebook is exploring the “option to download videos to Facebook while online on good internet connections, to view the video at any time, online or offline, without using extra mobile data.” Facebook will begin testing this video viewing option with “a small percentage of users in India.”
Some Interesting Studies to Note:
Snapchat Smartphone App Penetration by Age: A recent comScore study on social network audiences shows that Snapchat's user base among older Millennials (ages 25-34) and those 35 years and older is soaring. Three years ago, Snapchat was only being used by 5% of smartphone users ages 25-34 and 2% of users ages 35 and over. Today, its usage among these two age demographics is ranked at 38% and 14%, respectively.
Instagram Report: How to Post Like the Fortune 500: According to new research from TrackMaven, half (50%) of Fortune 500 brands are now on Instagram, which is double the number that were on the platform just three years ago (24.6%). The report also offers insights on the best times to post, trends in hashtag and filter usage, and more, based on an analysis of the Instagram content shared by these top brands from over an entire year. The researchers examined 41,071 unique Instagram posts in total.
Reuters Digital News Report: This new report from Reuters tracking media and news consumption trends across 26 countries shows that the international journalism community is moving towards an increasingly digital and multi-platform future. Across the entire study sample, half (51%) say they use social media as a source of news each week and nearly one in ten (12%) say it's their main source for news. The findings suggest that Facebook is by far the most important network for finding, reading, watching, and sharing news across all countries and across all social media channels, with 44% of respondents saying that they use the site as a news source. YouTube ranked second with 19% and Twitter in third with 10%, remaining important social networks for news among journalists, politicians, and heavy news users in particular.
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What do you think of the new Snapchat Memories feature? Have you used the new Comment Moderation feature on your Instagram business profile? Please share your comments below.
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