As a marketer, it’s important to stay up to date with new digital trends, especially when social media platforms adapt their features and introduce new tools so regularly.
To keep you up to date, here’s a rundown of the changes that the most popular social media channels have made over the last few months:
Live video broadcasting – According to Facebook’s most recent earnings report, its users spend over 100 million hours a day watching videos on the platform. As a result, Facebook now offers a live video feed for all of its members to use and stream directly onto the timeline, similar to Periscope. This makes it easier for marketers to communicate effectively with large audiences.
The new ‘Like’ button – Facebook has upgraded its ‘Like’ button so you can now do more than just ‘Like’ something. You can share several emotions on a post including, love, sadness and anger. This will help brands gather more realistic feedback but you should also consider that you may also receive some negative reactions from customers and be ready to address this.
Advertising – If you use Instagram frequently, you will have noticed that more and more sponsored adverts have been appearing on your timeline since Facebook bought Instagram in 2012. You can now set up Instagram ads through Facebook’s Ad Manager.
Video views – On Instagram, you can now see how many people have viewed your video post. Instagram have also begun allowing advertisers to post 60 second videos – an extension of the 30 second limit previously in place. This gives you an opportunity to get more detailed messages across to your audiences. Instagram have also stated plans to launch this across the whole platform, for all users.
Multiple accounts – You can now add up to five accounts on Instagram so that you don’t have to log in and out of each page, making it easier for you if you manage more than one page.
Longer tweets – Although nothing has been confirmed, there are rumours that Twitter may scrap the 140 character limit which could help you to spread your brand message within slightly fewer constraints.
To find out more about how to grow your brand with social media marketing, read our blog post here.