Although last month was the shortest in our yearly calendar – the world of social media has not fallen short! There’s been a whole lot of new updates and trends to keep marketers on their toes for a little while.
Within the space of 28 days, we’ve seen some major social media updates, witnessed Facebook and the Australian media wage the worlds shortest war and our channels were also graced with the gross combination that was Heinz baked beans on Weetabix – and of course the wildly hilarious responses that brands fired back with.
Here are five of February’s most notable social media updates!
Twitter announces two huge new updates – ‘Super Follow’ and ‘Communities’
Twitter is launching a ‘Super Follow’ feature that will allows users to charge followers for exclusive additional content. Information surrounding the fee is still yet to be confirmed. The additional content users could be expected to gain access too from a Super Follow could take the form of extra tweets, joining a community group, receiving a newsletter or having a badge indicating your support for an account.
The feature will launch later this year and Twitter believes it’s a way to allow creators and publishers to get paid directly by their fans. This subscription-based model has been introduced following its success on other platforms such as Substack, OnlyFans and Patreon – as well as the increasing importance ‘direct payment’ tools has for digital creators.
Another update the platform has announced, is a new feature called ‘Communities’ which is similar to Facebook Groups. With this, users will soon be able to create and join groups based on specific interests, allowing more relevant tweets, surrounding the topics they’ve expressed interest in, to appear on their timeline.
Facebook expand Shops to businesses in the UK
The platform’s growing eCommerce push is due to expand massively as Facebook Shops have been made available to businesses in the UK – horary!
Users within the UK will now have a new ‘Shop bookmark’ both on the menu bar and in the mobile app. Facebook explained, ‘The shop will include curated collections, products and recent posts from businesses of all sizes’.
Since Covid-19 caused such a huge change in consumer purchasing habits, increasing the rise of eCommerce, social media channels will unsurprisingly continue to develop more ways to allow businesses to thrive, despite the pandemic.
Instagram launches four person live-streaming
Some great news from Instagram last month as they announced a new live stream update. The new feature is called ‘Live Rooms’, which will allow up to four people on a live stream, as an improvement on the current Instagram live. Most aspects are the same as the original, such as all followers being notified when a session begins and all followers having the ability to catch up on a session if they missed the event.
Having rolled out the trial for this in December, exclusively to India, allowing three users on a live stream, it seemed popular enough to be rolled out globally.
However, the new update will provide more opportunities to expand reach and engagement whilst also increasing user dwell time – which will play a huge factor for the current Instagram algorithm. Users can only access this feature by downloading the latest version of Instagram.
Facebook and Twitter reportedly work on Clubhouse copycat
Both platforms have reportedly set their sights on creating a copycat version of the social audio start up, Clubhouse – the cool, invite-only, audio and virtual reality app. The product is said to be in ‘early stages of development’ so there’s been no indication of when this will launch.
Twitter just recently acquired the social podcasting company, Breaker, which is rumoured to have been done for their social audio expertise.
With an increasing amount of people in tech seeming to believe that this will be an important way to communicate in the future, we’ll keep you updated on if and when these new copy-cat apps launch!
LinkedIn develops new program to support content creators
LinkedIn have launched the first stages of their new plan to develop a support framework for users on the platform. The feature will ultimately lead to new advertising and promotional opportunities through the app’s most influential users.
Previously, LinkedIn advertising has been very focussed on companies. However, this new program will focus on facilitating further growth for content creators and their personal brand. This development is only in its initial stages for now though.
Facebook temporarily banned news sharing in Australia
Just days after Facebook waging a war by blocking news content from appearing on Australian user’s feeds, the platform announced it was backtracking. Facebook initiated the ban in response to a long-running dispute over a proposed law forcing tech giants, including itself and Google, to pay news publishers for content.
However, Facebook and the Australian government have since reached a compromise. Australian authorities are set to introduce new amendments to the law, including one that means the government may not apply this rule to Facebook if they can demonstrate a ‘significant contribution’ to journalism in Australia. If anything changes, we’ll keep you updated!
At Prohibition, we work with a range of brands across all sectors to create engaging social media marketing strategies that allow brands to stay up to date with the latest trends and updates. Get in touch today to find out how we could help you: hello@prohibitionpr.co.uk.
