Social media platform changes you may have missed in August

August vacation? Don’t worry: here’s a roundup of everything you might have missed while your “out of office” was on in August. (Don’t miss #7.)

  1. Facebook debuted a new video section called “Watch.” The section will feature original content from publishers, news organizations and media companies such as National Geographic, Mashable and A&E. Shows will be featured based on the user’s interests, engagement and activities.
  2. Google develops a new project called “Stamp,” that features vertical, fast-loading collections of AMP mobile webpages.
  3. Facebook and Instagram debut redesigns to improve clickability and commenting. Among other changes, Facebook turned comments into bubbles (Messenger-style), makes it clearer where threads start and end in comments, and Instagram now allows comments to be threaded.
  4. Facebook Stories is being tested on desktop. Currently Stories are accessed only through the Facebook mobile app.
  5. YouTube expands a new feature worldwide, one that lets users message each other and send video links while watching video.
  6. You can now share your Facebook Story publicly, instead of it being visible only to your family and friends.
  7. Reddit launches a video-upload option that enables native uploading of videos, images, text and GIFs.
  8. Facebook hires more fact-checkers and invests in more advanced machine learning to identify false and misleading stories for these fact checkers.
  9. Pinterest adds “Lens” and search for visual discovery to its home feed, and allows ads to be surfaced via searches from the home feed.
  10. The Instagram API opens to allow Business Profiles to access metrics and insights, as well as comment moderation options such as the ability to hide or turn off comments.
  11. Facebook changes its famous algorithm to show more stories that load quickly on mobile — and fewer stories that are slow to load.
  12. Facebook rolls out a “related articles” feature that appears before a user reads a story, and emphasizes content that provides a different point of view than the article puts forward, or a note from Facebook’s fact-checkers on the topic the article addresses.
  13. YouTube introduces gestures for video controls, including a swipe-next option for video viewing in the same way you swipe to view Snapchat and Instagram Story content.
  14. Twitter tests a $99/month subscription option that boosts your visibility in others’ timelines, in effect another option for “promoted accounts.”
  15. Snapchat partners with college newspapers to create campus “editions” of Stories for Discover.
  16. Amazon launches a new social network called Spark, a social media shopping network that is intended to compete with Pinterest’s rising prominence in “social commerce.”
  17. Amazon is rumored to be working on a social media platform called Anytime, a messaging app that will compete with others such as WeChat or Facebook Messenger.
  18. Giphy experiments with “sponsored GIFs,” allowing media makers and advertisers to place GIFs in search results.
  19. Instagram adds a “Live With” option to live broadcasts; tap “add” to bring in another friend into a live video.
  20. Facebook is rumored to be developing hardware that is a video chat “device,” featuring a wide-angle camera lens that automatically scans for people and movement. Facebook is also working on a smart speaker to compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home.
  21. As SnappyTV transitions into Twitter Media Studio, publishers retain the ability to share clips to non-Twitter platforms such as Facebook and YouTube — for now. SnappyTV allows users to create video, images and GIFs from an original video stream.
  22. LinkedIn publishing grows more robust, now with the ability to upload multiple images in a single post, native video upload, and a draft sharing option among different LinkedIn users.
  23. Facebook allows a new type of Custom Audience for advertising — people who responded to a Facebook event.
  24. LinkedIn rolls out promoted video posts for brands, as well as pre- and mid-roll advertising.
  25. Snapchat rolls out an advanced advertising portal (“Advanced Mode”), allowing users to automate ad campaigns with hundreds of different targeting and creative options.
  26. Facebook kills its Groups app, which had let users access all Facebook Groups from a single point; as well as its Lifestage app meant for a younger audience.
  27. Facebook says it will not charge advertisers for accidental ad clicks (if a user bounces back within 2 seconds). Previously advertisers had been charged for any type of click.
  28. Facebook rolls out a Trending News section on the mobile app, including a story’s headline, photo, name of the media outlet that’s reporting it, and how many other sources are available on the topic.
  29. On Facebook, influencers can now tag a brand they’re working with, turning the post into a sponsored post; this allows the advertiser or brand to boost this influencer’s post directly from that person’s feed.
  30. Similar to TV, advertisers on Facebook can now run ads in the stream of another publisher’s videos.
  31. In an effort to add transparency and brand awareness for news outlets, Facebook adds publisher logos next to articles in both Trending and Search.
  32. Both Facebook and Twitter add college football to its live video programming.
  33. YouTube introduces a “Breaking News” category, as the platform becomes an increasingly important news source for Generation Z.

 

 

 

 

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Article by: Tory Starr

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