5 Social Media News Updates as of Oct 2020

Here are 5 of the top social media news stories from this week that you don’t want to miss.

Latest update: October 1st

1. TikTok announces bans on ads for weight loss related products.

Given the young demographic audience that TikTok has, it’s important to take the necessary steps to make sure users are protected from harmful content. That’s why TikTok announced the ban on ads that promote fasting apps and weight loss supplements. As explained by TikTok, “As a society, weight stigma and body shaming pose both individual and cultural challenges, and we know that the internet, if left unchecked, has the risk of exacerbating such issues. That’s why we’re focused on working to safeguard our community from harmful content and behavior while supporting an inclusive – and body-positive – environment.”

2. Say hello to Story Pins.

Stories on Pinterest are nothing like the ones you find on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. To begin with, Pin Stories don’t even disappear after the 24hr window. As explained by Pinterest, “Story Pins can be saved to boards for later and will be discoverable over time. They’ll also be distributed across home feed, search results and places like the Today tab, and benefit from the visual discovery engine that matches new ideas to people with relevant interests and tastes.” Using the Pinterest camera, creators with access to Story pins can record videos, add multiple images as well as text with custom fonts. It’s also important to note that these Stories are contained within a pin and not on a separate Stories feed. Since the feature is still in the beta version, only a small number of creators have access to Story Pins yet.

3. Watch out for these new Reels updates on Instagram.

Looks like Instagram is already making updates to their new functionality Reels to allow longer videos and improved editing options. Previously, users had the option to record videos for only 15 seconds, but now Instagram has added the ability to record videos for 30 seconds. In addition to this, the company has extended the timer option to 10 seconds when users record their clips and also improved the trimming and deleting options to make editing a lot easier. Good to know that Instagram is listening to people’s feedback and making changes to the feature this early on since the initial launch.

4. Facebook announces the launch of a management tool for Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook announced the launch of their management tool, Facebook Business Suite, for a faster and easier way to manage business on Facebook and Instagram. Considering the dwindle in customers walking into stores due to the ongoing pandemic, small businesses are left to find new ways to sell and reach new customers. To help businesses save time and manage their pages and profiles across their apps, Facebook launched this all-in-one tool to help businesses post to Facebook and Instagram at the same time, and manage and receive messages, notifications, and alerts in one place. You also get Facebook and Instagram insights within the same tool to help you understand what’s working and what isn’t. While this is a pretty neat tool that covers the basic functions, you’ll probably need an even more comprehensive social media management platform if you really want to succeed with social… Okay, I’m done with the product plug, for now, have a nice day :)

5. Twitter shares insights on prompts that gets users to read content before retweeting.

It’s been a little over three months since Twitter launched a prompt that asked users to read the content in the article before retweeting it. Last week, Twitter shared insights into the effectiveness of the prompt and how it has changed user behaviors in the last three months. Turns out, people open articles 40% more often after seeing the prompt, and people opening articles before retweeting increased by 33%. Even better, some people didn’t end up retweeting after opening the article.