This Month In Social | March 2023 Edition

March has always been one of my favorite months. I love that it's #womenshistorymonth, #marchmadness and that I get to launch the third edition of This Month in Social today, on my birthday! You gotta enjoy the wins.

For my new readers, welcome! For those that have been with me since I launched at the beginning of the year, welcome back.

This month Twitter continued to drop platform changes daily, sending many brands scrambling to figure out their verification process with all non subscriber check mark verifications said to be removed starting April 1st (could this be a April Fools joke?)

Let's Get Into It!

>> The Latest From Instagram | Facebook | Meta >>

Meta Launches a New Verification Program in the US - Social Media Today

For $11.99/month on web, or $14.99 in-app, your verified Instagram or Facebook account will include:

• A verification checkmark
• Proactive account protection from impersonation +dedicated account support from Meta’s team
• Exclusive stickers for Facebook and Instagram Stories and Facebook Reels
• 100 Stars a month to allocate to other creators on Facebook

Meta's Testing a "Top 3" Sticker Option For Stories

• App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi is testing "Top 3" and gave a first look on Twitter.
• The sticker would let you highlight your top 3 favorite things from different categories. Think of the possibilities, songs, restaurants, vacation spots, Madden NFL game covers, Jordan releases, etc . ?
• Instagram technically hasn't shared if they plan to release the sticker or if it's currently just being tested as an internal prototype at this stage. I'm sure we will hear more in the future.

Instagram's Testing Full Length Reels Replays in IG Stories - As shared by '@hammodoh1' on Twitter

• How does it work? Instead of seeing just the first 15 seconds in IG Stories, then tapping through to view the whole Reel, the goal is to be able to watch the entire thing within Stories.
• While not available to all, some users are now seeing full-length Reels playing within the Stories stream.
• This could meet Instagram's goal to keep people on the app longer and will be interesting to see all the ways Meta’s looking to merge its different functionalities.

>> The Latest From Twitter >>

Twitter's Getting Closer to Launching New Text Formats - As shared by App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi on Twitter\

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• In January, Elon Musk shared news that tweets would soon have bold, italic and underline options within the tweet composer window
• The main intention of the update is to provide more ways for users to share longer messages in the app.
• It's yet to be seen if this will be generally accessible or a Twitter Blue exclusive like so many other features.

Everyone Can Now See Total Number of Times a Tweet's Been Bookmarked - Twitter

Bookmarks on posts are often seen as a premium engagement metric because the reader liked it so much, they saved it to reference it again in the future.

• In addition to total views (dropped in January), total retweets, total quote tweets and total likes, you will now be able to view total bookmarks in the display of metrics at the bottom of each tweet.
• Possible rational for adding an even more cluttered data line in tweets... Elon seems convinced that sharing more on how people interact with tweets, will make them want to share more on Twitter.

Beginning Tomorrow, Twitter To Remove Legacy Checkmarks - Twitter

If you knew someone at Twitter back in the day that hooked you up with the blue checkmark, that comes to an end tomorrow as Twitter will only be allowing those who pay for Twitter Blue to have the verified checkmark.

>> The Latest From YouTube >>

YouTube’s Rolling Out New Options For Podcasters - YouTube Creator Insider Channel

Among the multiple updates YouTube is rolling out, Podcasters will be excited to hear they can:

• Create a new podcast direct in YouTube Studio & designate an existing playlist as a podcast, helping to improve a podcast upload and the management of creating it.
• Make it easier to focus on podcasts in the app, with dedicated tools to help separate a podcast uploads from other video clips on the channel.
• Adding Podcast analytics. Yes, more numbers please.

>> The Latest From TikTok >>

TikTok Launches More Parental Controls + Usage Limits for Teens - TikTok Blog

• Users under age 18 will now have a 60-minute daily screen time limit... kind of.
• Teens over 13 will be able to opt out by entering a passcode to continue watching but when they reach 100 minutes on the app, they’ll get another prompt alerting them to their usage.
• Users under 13, won't be able to opt out of the 1 hour time limit + a parent/guardian will need to control the watch time beyond this period
• TikTok will also send young users a weekly recap of their total screen time. How many hours do you spend on TikTok?

TikTok Launches 'Series' to Encourage Influencers/Creators to Create On Their Platform - TikTok Blog

• ?Series lets influencers create a paywall to monetize their content putting money in both their pockets and TikTok's.
• One Series can include up to 80 videos (each up to 20 minutes long).
• This allows for a new, longer format to watch your favorite influencers content.

TikTok Announces New Community and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Content Guidelines - TikTok Community Guidelines

• AI creations depicting realistic scenes must be labeled as such.
• Because AI can make it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, synthetic or manipulated media showing realistic scenes must be clearly disclosed.
• AI depictions of private citizens are not allowed but depictions of public figures are allowed as long as they're not endorsing products or anything that violates the platform’s policies.

Why We're All Wondering What the Future Holds For TikTok After Their CEO’s Appearance Before Congress? - Social Media Today

Here's the details on TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew’s appearance before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce this month and what it could mean for TikTok and those who use the app.

>> The Latest From LinkedIn >>

LinkedIn Offers AI Generated Profile Summaries and Job Listings - LinkedIn Blog

• LinkedIn’s introducing a new GPT-powered tool to increase?personalized writing suggestions for LinkedIn Premium profiles.
• Microsoft is looking to integrate OpenAI’s conversational GPT back-end into all of its apps and functions and guess who owns LinkedIn?? Microsoft
• There will be an option to generate a headline or ‘About’ summary in your LinkedIn profile.
• The goal is to make it easier to create a good representation of your skills and experience, minus the stress of coming up with a creative way to stand out.

>> The Latest From Other Social Platforms >>

Snapchat Will Now Let You Restore Snap Streaks, First One's Free - Snapchat Newsroom

Reddit Cancels Reddit Talk - Their Social Audio Arm of the Business -Reddit Newsroom

Reddit Announces a New 'Watch Feed" Within The App - Reddit Blog

Kings Hawaiian Leverages TikTok Creators to Establish New Traditions

• The deliciously popular bread brand, King's Hawaiian secured 16 TikTok creators + TikTok creative partner Mavrck to create innovative slider recipes that appeared as in-feed ads and reached the #foodtok and #mealinspo communities.
• According to TikTok - A brand lift study and an NCS sales lift study confirmed the impact—the creator-led strategy increased ad recall by 41% and awareness by 18.4%.

Major League Soccer Joins TikTok With a Multi-Year Partnership

• The deal includes 29 clubs across the U.S. & Canada, in-app programming, exclusive content and in-stadium activations.
• TikTok will kickoff a Club Creator Network to pair content creators with various teams.
• The app will be integrated into every game during the season, be a co-sponsor of the eMLS Cup (the league’s?#esports?tournament)
• TikTok building a closer association to MLS comes as the app is again threatened by an outright ban in the U.S.??

Snapchat Launched an AR Activation to Highlight Celebs & Achievements of Female Figures For #internationalwomensday

Snapchat's AR Studio in Paris honored 8 key women, on March 8, from 8 major French cities with a unique augmented reality experience

日产 Leverages TikTok's BeReal Copycat Tool to Engage Audiences During #marchmadness

• As an official sponsor of the NCAA March Madness, Nissan was pushing their all-electric vehicle (EV), the official EV of the tournament.
• In addition to TV ads, there was a first-of-its-kind collaboration with TikTok's BeReal copycat tool encouraging fans to share videos with their live viewing experience.
• Those who also shared on Instagram were entered to win four tickets to the 2024 Men’s Final Four game.

Quote Tweet (also called a Quote Retweet): The Quote Tweet feature allows you to Tweet another person's Tweet with your own comment added.

How to Quote Tweet

Meet Richard van der Blom . He gives great insight on LinkedIn social strategy, social and virtual selling techniques and sales.

You can follow him on social on Twitter and LinkedIn

• Learn How TikTok Determines if a Video Is For You - TikTok Newsroom
• Managing Risk and Building Trust on Social Media - Hootsuite Blog
• Everything You Need To Know About Meta Verification - Hootsuite Blog
• How AI Transforms Social Media - Forbes

You read all the way through. You're my kind of people!

As a thank you, here's something I am excited about sharing.... I was excited to join Tracy Sandler of Fan Girl Sports for her Get My Job podcast. We talked about my career pre and post social media, companies I have enjoyed working with and other great stuff worth a listen. Listen on any audio app and on Spotify HERE. I would love to know what you think!

If you learned something new and enjoyed this edition of?This Month in Social Media, I would greatly appreciate you sharing with your network on any of your social channels.

Want to see what you missed last month, check out the?February Edition

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Can’t wait a full month? You can follow me on?LinkedIn?&?Twitter?for more frequent updates on Social Media with examples of great brands using them.