October Social Media Trends and New Features Monthly Report

Looking to stay ahead of the latest social media trends? Welcome to the Monthly Empowered Social Media Trends Report! We’re here to help you choose the trends that will be most impactful for your business. We actively analyze social media data and deliver a report at the end of each month, so you can stay ahead of the curve.

Facebook:

New Features to Facebook Groups

Did you know most people on Facebook are members of at least 15 active groups, and there are more than 100 million group joins every day?

Meta added new features to Facebook Groups including Reels in Facebook Groups and updates to your Group profile.

• Reels in Groups let you express your voice in your communities through innovative and immersive videos. With Reels now in Groups, community members can share information, tell stories, and connect on a deeper level. Group admins and members can also add creative elements such as audio, text overlay, and filters on top of their videos before sharing to bring their stories to life.
• The ability to share a public Facebook event for your community to your Instagram story. Whether you’re a group admin hosting a meet-up to celebrate a community milestone, or a group member sharing your passion with friends, this feature can help you showcase your community more broadly.
• Customize the information in your About Me section to highlight the information you want to share with your community. This can help admins and members learn more about one another and create content that best reflects the group’s interests.
• Add an indicator to your profile if you’re open to messaging. This can help other like-minded members know that you’re willing to connect over shared interests.

To help admins build a culture in their groups, they’re also testing a new way to highlight top contributing members and adding a new daily summary of actions in Admin Assist. Badges for top contributors, daily digests, and new treatments for false information could be coming soon.

New Page Experience Available To All Small and Midsized Businesses

Facebook was first seen launching its new pages experience way back in January of 2021. Now, the feature is going to be available to all small and medium-sized businesses as well

?Here are some of the new features the new pages have, according to Meta.

• A redesigned Page layout that’s cleaner and more intuitive
• Easy switching and navigation between a public-facing Page and an individual profile. Manage your Page and profile separately.
• Seamless interactions with other public figures, brands, and people via access to Feed: Follow other public figures, brands, and partners to create a Feed with topics that matter to you. Stay up to date and connect with people and content on your new Page Feed.
• Your new Page Feed will be separate from your profile. You can follow different Pages and profiles to curate a unique experience for your Feed on the new Page. Anyone with full control will see this Feed.
• Actionable insights and more relevant notifications
• Updated Page Management tools: You can give others Facebook access or task access to manage the Page.
• About Facebook Access
• About Task Access

YouTube:

Add Narration & Original Sounds to your Shorts

You can now add narration and original sounds to your YouTube Shorts on iOS devices. Add another layer of creative expression to your Shorts by narrating what happens in your content (think: instructions, explanations, reactions, funny comments, or even adding your own new sounds and beyond).

To add voiceover to your Shorts after recording content:

• Tap the checkmark button in the bottom right of the camera screen
• Tap the voiceover button?
• Move the playhead (vertical white line on the video filmstrip) to the spot you want to start your voiceover
• Hit the red record button to start recording and tap it again to stop recording (you can also hold down the record button while recording and lift up to stop recording)
• Tap the undo button if you want to delete your last voiceover recording, or tap the redo button to add it back again
• Use the volume panel to adjust audio levels across music, your original video’s audio, and voiceover

YouTube Adds @handles For Channels

YouTube’s moving more in line with other social networks with the addition of @handles for channels, which will make it easier to drive traffic to your profile, and promote your channel in the app.

Your handle will also function as a unique channel URL, providing another branding opportunity. Up till now, custom channel URLs have only been available to creators with 100 subscriptions, but now, YouTube’s making the option available to all users in the app.

You can check if your channel has the feature yet here: https://youtube.com/handle.?

TikTok:

Go LIVE on TikTok

TikTok has published a new overview of the brand opportunities of TikTok Live. TikTok is still working through its live-stream commerce integration. This could open up a range of new opportunities for many brands and could fast become a key consideration for your strategy. Check out the insights above.

New Partnership Between TikTok and Linktree

TikTok has announced a new partnership with Linktree which will provide TikTok creators with more referral link options, directly integrated into their TikTok profile, helping to drive more referral traffic from the app. This newly integrated Linktree offering will provide more options, including the capacity to login to your TikTok accounts via Linktree, and display up to six videos in your Linktree display.

TikTok Adds Photo Mode for Still Images

You’ve probably noticed that Instagram and TikTok tend to copy one another when it comes to new features and photo mode is the latest. Copying Instagram’s carousel feature, you can now create a slideshow of still images as a TikTok and they even sync up with the beat of the music if you add a sound.

Keep an eye out for new trends utilizing this feature! Plus, it’s a pretty easy way to create content.

New Holiday Marketing Guide From TikTok

As a small business, you're probably eager for the busiest shopping season of the year to kick off. But the lucrative holiday sales magic isn’t based on luck — you need to plan ahead and strategize things like what your creative messaging will be, where you'll promote your ads, how you'll engage your target audiences, and more.

TikTok understands the value and need to plan ahead. Download their comprehensive guide today to understand how you can tap into the power and growth potential of TikTok and close out 2022 on a high note.

'TikTok Academy’ Marketing Education Platform Is Here

TikTok has launched a new education program for marketers called ‘TikTok Academy’, which provided free video courses on how to make the best use of TikTok for marketing, along with research data and other information to expand your understanding of the app. Visit https://my.academywithtiktok.com/learn/signin to get started.

LinkedIn:

New Types of Link Stickers Added To LinkedIn

LinkedIn has now added ‘Person’ and ‘Page’ variations, providing even more ways to drive more traffic with your LinkedIn posts.

Now, in addition to the original link sticker, which let you paste a URL of your choosing on top of the frame, you can now also link to internal profiles, which could help to generate more in-app engagement.

You can see the way it works in the above example screens, posted by social media expert Matt Navarra.

New Accessibility Features For LinkedIn

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and to mark the event, LinkedIn announced a range of new updates to improve accessibility for LinkedIn users.

They added auto-captions for video content, providing another way to maximize inclusion with LinkedIn content.

As you can see in this sequence, now, when you upload a video clip, you’ll have the option to activate automated captions. Auto-captions can be added as soon as they’re available, or you’ll be able to review them before they’re published.

In addition to this, LinkedIn users will now also be able to turn on high contrast when watching videos on the LinkedIn app, which will adjust the colors to improve accessibility for those with low vision or visual disabilities.

See all of the new accessibility features in LinkedIn’s announcement.

Instagram:

How to Use the Instagram Add Yours Sticker in Marketing

Want to drive more engagement with Instagram Reels? Wonder how the Instagram Add Yours sticker works?

In this article from Social Media Examiner, you’ll learn how to place the Instagram Add Yours sticker in reels and find six ideas for using it to engage your audience, improve brand visibility, start trends, and more.

Engagement Plan For Instagram

Are you struggling to dedicate the time required to maximize your Instagram engagement? Want to learn how to achieve social media success in just 45 minutes per day?

The team from The Social Momma shared their Instagram engagement strategy in the above infographic.

They break things down as follows:

• Reply to DMs
• Story content
• Big accounts
• Smaller accounts
• Hashtags
• Comments

Is Instagram The New Myspace?

Instagram is testing a new option that would enable you to add a song to your profile.

No official word from IG on live testing or if the song will autoplay when you visit a profile, or if it will ever even roll out in the live environment.

Multiple Links in Instagram User Bios

It’s been in testing for a while, but Instagram has expanded access to a new option that enables some creators to add multiple links to their IG bio, as a means to help expand their business-building potential in the app.

As you can see in this example, via hairstylist Sarah Page, the new multiple-link option is currently being tested with selected creators in the app.

It’s not clear, at this stage, how many links users will officially be able to add, but the idea is seemingly to negate the value of third-party tools like Linktree, which many IG users now utilize to add extra links to their bio in the app.

Pinterest:

Pinterest Provides New Music Options for Idea Pins

Pinterest is looking to help creators make more engaging Idea Pins, with the addition of new music options for their Pin creations, including tracks from some of the world’s biggest recording artists and stars.

As you can see in these images, similar to Reels and TikTok, you’ll be able to choose from a range of popular tracks to add as an accompaniment to your content.

Happy creating!