Issue #33 - TikTok Discontinues BeReal-Like Feature
Hello and welcome to this week's newsletter! Sadly an edition was missed last week due to me wanting to take some of my annual leave because even the best of us need a break... and I wanted a 4-day weekend. Priorities. However, the working week has passed us and we're here now for edition #33! Let's dive straight in.
We're catching up with Instagram from the previous week and their top story is 'Reel' worthy of a mention. I'm guessing you can get where this going and yes I will stop with the cringe jokes. I'm too well rested evidently. Anyway, back to it. So, Instagram has announced you will now be able to download Reels! But don't get too excited, this is just in the US so far, but I can't see why this won't go ahead elsewhere. This update evidently comes from TikTok which, if you're not a TikTok user - yes, they're out there - you'll know that you have the ability to save videos that you find in your feed because favouriting or saving them just isn't enough. Personally, I quite like this feature. I know some people out there will have endless amounts of meme videos saved in their camera roll for future reference, myself included. If you're a private account user and post Reels, you don'tr need to worry. Obviously, you're private for a reason and Instagram have taken this into account. Only public accounts will have the ability for users to download their Reels. Our favourite Instagram worker Adam Mosseri stated:
“In the US, we’re rolling out the ability to download reels shared by public accounts to your camera roll. Just tap the ‘Share’ icon on a reel you love and selected ‘Download’.”
Of course there will be an option for even public accounts to turn this off so don't panic!
To read more have a look at these articles:
TikTok
So, our headline story. TikTok is getting rid of it's BeReal-like feature. Now I've been doing these newsletters and following social media long enough to say "I remember when this was announced!" but considering we're only at edition 33, in the grand scheme of things it hasn't been that long. In fact, according to a TikTok press release, it was September 2022 that the platform announced it would be releasing this BeReal clone only to scrap it not even a year later. Personally I think BeReal has it's USP that apps such as Instagram and TikTok just aren't meant to be. To some extent authenticity is becoming a key part of Instagram and TikTok but... it's not at the same level as BeReal. TikTok tried and failed. Instagram I haven't heard much on the contrary to 'Dual' and the other social apps haven't tried to join on the BeReal chain.
To read more have a look at these articles:
The second story I bring you from TikTok is something similar to what Instagram have previously brought out. Another hint is that a platform called OnlyFans has a very similar feature as well. Any guesses? TikTok is rolling out a new feature and a new way for creators to earn money! Introducing subscriber-only content. According to Social Media Today, TikTok will be introducing this next feature and "will be built into the LIVE Subscriptions package that?TikTok launched last year , which?enables live-streamers to generate recurring revenue from their efforts, by sharing regular exclusive streams with their paying audience." TikTok's blog regarding the new update goes on further to showcase some of the creators that this new feature would update. Play on the heart strings. As usual the standard age for creators to be apart of the programme is 18 and have to have 1,000 followers. Puts my 119 followers to shame. Furthermore, you must be 18 and over "to purchase a subscription and to send or receive Coins and Gifts."
To read more have a look at these articles:
Facebook / Meta
One aspect we all critise about social media is how influential and impactful it is on younger kids. Every couple of weeks we always hear how damaging platforms are to a teen's mental health or how children on social media grow up to be a certain way etc. But who do we blame? Do we blame parents or do we blame the platform giants? Well in a step to make the parents more in charge (or in the platforms eyes, more to blame when things go wrong) Meta have introduced more ways to allow parents to manage their children's time spent on the apps. So, what have they introduced? Well the first feature is bringing parental supervision to Messenger. This will mean that parents can see who teens are talking to and how long they spend on the app. I will admit though, at 13/14/15 I wasn't really the biggest fan of Messeenger and I don't think I used it religiously. Apps such as Instagram and Snapchat on the other hand; they were more my go to for communication but like I say with most feature updates like this, it's a step in the right direction. This feature is available in the US, Canada and The United Kingdom. Meta states that it will be released in other countries over the coming months. Within the press release Meta go onto to state:
"Over the next year, we’ll add more features to Parental Supervision on Messenger so parents can help their teens better manage their time and interactions, while still balancing their privacy as these tools function in both unencrypted and end-to-end encrypted chats."
Another feature which has been used on Instagram is the ability to have safety notices pop up "when adults who have shown potentially suspicious behavior message teens, and we restrict people over 19 years old?from sending private messages ?to teens who don’t follow them." Meta are planning on to continue developing this feature and are in fact "?testing additional features to limit how people can interact with and message others who don’t follow them." This includes the following screenshotted below.
The press release continues to discuss more feature they have introduced for teens, especially on Instagram. If you're interested in reading more, please read the first article listed!
领英推荐
To read more have a look at these articles:
Talking of taking more control, that brings us to Twitter. When undertaking my social research, it seems Twitter have been busy sending out all sorts of new updates. No complaints here. When writing a newsletter, it does help when there is a bit of noise. The first story we do have for you Twitter lovers. (I don't know if there are any of them out there) is the new feature that will allow users to decide who dm's them. Shown in the image below, you can see that users are faced with a multiple selection choice. I don't know anyone that likes receiving spam messages so this is a great way to get into the good books of Twitter users. This seems to just be something that Twitter is currently working on but we can take a guess this will be a new feature only for Twitter Blue users. No surprise there. But who knows?
From previous editions we've learnt, especially from Instagram, that more and more social media users are turning to private messaging rather than sharing content on a public place such as Stories, hence the recent developments in features such as Broadcast Channels. This recent feature for Twitter, could be a step in that direction?
To read more have a look at these articles:
Another key feature that has been released for Twitter Blue only personnel is the fact that they can now write tweets with 25,000 characters. For Twitter Blue fans, they have been privileged with the ability to have their character limit continuously raised. From 4,000 to 10,000 and now the new limit 25,000. I do wonder what possibly people can spend 25,000 characters writing about? That's enough for a short novel isn't it? Granted it does give more people the opportunity to rant or praise or criticise more but should it be that necessarily high? As Social Media Today states, its a lot of scrolling. Maybe even too much. Giving too much power to the people of Twitter! (Joke intended there) Who knows if this will go up again but it wouldn't surprise me if it did. Why not round it to 100,000? Jeez, just think of all the scrolling you'd have to do for each tweet. Knowing Twitter and their updates they probably are working on this right now.
Other news:
Now I am a big fan of the carousel feature that Instagram has. Being able to post more than one photo at a time, genius. However, LinkedIn doesn't exactly think so. LinkedIn has decided to scrap the carousel feature! To be honest, I don't see why as I think it's a great feature. Last week I read the news whilst on my annual leave and decided that this would be the headline cover for next week however as someone who loves BeReal and someone who loves the fact other platforms have *tried* to copy it onto their socials I just had to have TikTok's story as the headline. Maybe LinkedIn should make their own business related BeReal? Now that will make my cover story any day! Back to the carousel story. The carousels are not the only thing that will be going. Various news articles state that Profile Videos and In-Image Links will also go. Bad news for any LinkedIn lovers. LinkedIn quoted:
“Thanks to your invaluable feedback, we’ve learned that some of our creation tools aren’t facilitating your ability to share all of your amazing experiences and expertize with your community. This includes carousels, profile video, and the ability to embed clickable links within the image or video of your posts. So, starting June 26th, we’ll be removing these tools, though your current posts will still be viewable.”
To read more have a look at these articles:
Opinion of the week
'The Barbie Movie will be the best film this year.'
As someone who loves marketing, hence chosing the career path, I can say that the Barbie movie has had some of the best marketing this year. This billboard alone is worth a pat on the back or two.
After reading some of the comments, some people didn't quite get the billboard but as I grew up with Barbie, like many of us, I'm sure the brand colour and font makes some resemblance for you! Not only that but back in March /April time, the Barbie movie released a selection of movie posters that sparked a mass amount of reactive content marketing from everyone around the world. People, including myself, were creating their own equivalent Barbie movie posters. Of course mine was 'Emily is ice hockey lover Barbie.'.... obviously.