July social media roundup: Platform changes, new features and policy rollouts

Controversies over misinformation on social media, Facebook policy decisions, and volatile investor expectations dominated July’s social media headlines. Among the chaos, here are the new features, beta tests, and policy changes you may have missed.

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

WhatsApp

YouTube

LinkedIn

Snapchat

  • Snapchat is developing a visual product search that will allow users to take a photo of an item and search Amazon for more information on the image.
  • Snapchat launches a news partnership initiative with the goal of helping journalists and news organizations better mine the billions of public videos and photos shared daily on Snapchat for news and information.
  • Snap announces it will discontinue Snapcash, a peer-to-peer money transfer service.
  • Snapchat Discover opens its doors to nonexclusive video shows that have been created or published elsewhere. For these deals, publishers are not paid licensing fees; the deals are based on shared ad revenue.
  • Snapchat launched a program called “Storytellers” that connects brands with top creators to make ad campaigns on Snapchat. The program includes the release of creator-made stickers.

Twitch

Social Advertising

  • Facebook no longer allows marketers to target based on demographic factors such as sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity.
  • Facebook updates its Ads Manager app with new features for better mobile ad-creation agility. Tools such as color filters, stickers, text overlays and logos, image cropping and text length checks are now available from mobile.
  • Facebook’s new augmented reality ads let people try on virtual renditions of products. The first example to roll out were AR ads for Michael Kors sunglasses, where users can “try on” different sunglasses through the Facebook camera.
  • Instagram rolls out a Collection feature where users can browse multiple products in the same ad; they also plan to add a Shopping Bag icon in Stories.
  • Facebook rolls out new requirements for custom audience targeting. Now, those running Facebook ads to custom audiences will need to specify the origin of the audience’s information, as well as agree to the terms of sharing audiences through an audience-sharing relationship in Business Manager. Facebook is also now displaying a way to reach an advertiser through either phone or email, for all ads.
  • Twitter trials Promoted Trend Spotlight ads, which appear as visual images or GIF banners at the top of Explore.
  • Snapchat and Nielsen are now offering marketers the ability to make targeted ad buys based on offline data, in similar fashion to other popular social media platforms.
  • Snapchat unveils a self-serve private marketplace that allows advertisers to buy ad space on Discover channels and shows.
  • LinkedIn’s new Campaign Manager creates a better experience for those managing multiple campaigns with multiple accounts.

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Article by: Tory Starr

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