Social Media UpdatesSocial-media-updates-social-media-marketing-york

2018 has seen some big changes to our favourite social media platforms already, and month by month, the updates keep on coming! Keeping up to date with these updates helps to ensure our strategy remains agile, relevant and competitive. More easily said than done, right?

Here’s a roundup of the key social media updates from August 2018…

 

INSTAGRAM

Instagram Stories Music Sticker

This feature is not yet available worldwide but it is currently being rolled out meaning you will be able to add music and tag it into your post. It will also allow you to share a song that you are listening to on Spotify!

Instagram_Stories_Music_Stickers

 

Engagement is key

Posting regularly is very important, but even more so is engaging your audience on Instagram and they have announced that they now reward users who reply to people’s Stories. So make sure you are regularly posting onto your story and engaging with other users to get rewarded with more reach and engagement yourself!

 

Meaningful time

A new initiative being rolled out by both Facebook and Instagram is the “meaningful time” notification. A new feature will be coming soon which will allow users to set a specific amount of time in the App to alert them when they have passed it.

Meaningful_Time_Instagram_and_Facebook

 

Limit your Stories audience by location

Instagram is working on a feature that will allow users to select specific countries to show their Stories to. This has a lot of potential for brands that want to show location-specific Stories to the right audience (and boost engagement rates in the process).

 

FACEBOOK

Dynamic Ads

If you run Facebook Ads for your business, this update is for you!

Facebook have created a new option when running ads: the dynamic creative. This pulls different aspects of a users environment on the platform and serves them content based on those pieces of information. Welcome to real-time personalised content!

Facebook has also added a tab onto business pages for everyone to see if their page is running ads on the platform or not to add to their new transparency policy!

Facebook_Dynamic_Ads_August_2018

 

Reviews and recommendations.

You may have noticed “Recommendations” start to slide into your notifications, well, it’s time to say goodbye to star reviews and hello to 1–10 Scale Reviews!

Now, instead of your page ratings going down from a 1 star review, Facebook’s algorithm is the one in charge of your page score.

Facebook has taken into account that many businesses depend on reviews and has decided to make the process more transparent and easy for page owners. The score of a page is more likely to be influenced by what the review says and how many recommendations you have got, especially new ones.

 

Cross-posting on Instagram.

Facebook has finally introduced the option to cross-post from the platform onto Instagram with posts using a single image. We would stress that if you choose to do this, remember hashtags are not needed on Facebook but important on Instagram, so you may need to edit your Instagram posts once they are on your page to add the hashtags in!

 

Business Page Updates

If you run a Business Page you may have noticed a notification telling you that your page template will automatically update soon. Facebook has redesigned various Business Page templates to focus on your key CTA’s to ensure you are achieving the results you want from your Page.

Since the significant drop in organic reach that started back in 2016, many businesses have been struggling with their social presence. The new redesign will emphasize page utilities like “make an appointment” or “call”, connect users with new job opportunities, and share information on nearby businesses and events with the Local bookmark.

 

LINKEDIN 

Now connecting 575 million people

While Twitter has removed millions of accounts in bot purges lately, LinkedIn has recently reached a significant milestone: 575 million users worldwide (both active and inactive). The social network has also shared the usage breakdown by country…have a look at it here.

 

TWITTER

Related hashtags for trending topics

Twitter recently announced that when users browse their trending topics section, they will also see hashtags related to those topics. This could help marketers find relevant trends and extra hashtags to jump on when planning their tweets.

Twitter_Updates_August_2018

 

If you need help with your social media or keeping up to date with these never-ending updates, get in touch with the team on 01904 863511