Simply Social Newsletter

You can now add music to your Instagram posts 

Instagram now allows users to add music to their still images on their feed. Before this update, music could only be added to Instagram reels and stories.

You can add between five and 90 seconds of music to your post in the post creation flow when editing captions, tagging people and adding a location.

What does this mean for my brand?

With this update, Instagram is moving closer to a sound always-on experience. 

Since short-form video content is increasing in popularity and reels now dominate the feed and engagement, Instagram may have introduced this feature to increase engagement on feed posts. It could have also been introduced to maintain a steady flow of audio when scrolling.

It’s also a great opportunity for brands to influence and jump on music trends and audio memes. However, brands will be limited to use licensed tracks from Meta’s Sound Collection. 

TikTok’s new shopping tool lets your users make purchases in the app

After a small trial, TikTok recently launched its ecommerce tool TikTok Shop in the US, which lets users buy products in the app after only being available in the UK and seven southeast Asian countries.

Merchant Shops live on TikTok profiles in a separate tab. Users can look through product catalogs, look at pricing and product info, and make purchases through the app.

Shops are compatible with ecommerce platforms Shopify, BigCommerce, Square Online, and Ecwid. TikTok Shop’s US branch however will only support US-based merchants.

What does this mean for my brand?

The goal is that livestream shopping will take off in the US, as it has done for TikTok’s Chinese equivalent Douyin.

It will absolutely generate interest, especially because it is being launched in the busiest period of the year.

Plus, with more young users using Tiktok to discover new restaurants or new outfits, TikTok Shops make it that much easier to buy without leaving the app.

You now have more control over your LinkedIn Ads with their latest brand tool

LinkedIn’s new Brand Safety hub will allow advertisers to manage and evaluate their Audience Network ads for brand safety.

The tool works with ad safety platforms DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science and Pixalate to filter out high-risk inventory before the bid is placed for all campaigns.

Using the hub, advertisers can review Audience Network publishers, create custom allow and block lists, among other features. The Hub is accessible via LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager.

What does this mean for my brand?

Achieving a Feed brand safety score of over 99% between October 2021 and June 2022, LinkedIn is considered a trustworthy platform for brand safety.

The Brand Safety hub gives you more hawk-eye control over your media investment, letting you choose where your ads should and shouldn’t appear.

Targeting professionals in a context that aligns with your brand will make your ads more impactful and reach intended audiences but don’t add too many restrictions as this can hinder campaign performance.

Pinterest's Shuffle app lets you make moodboards that are shoppable

Pinterest is coming out with Shuffles, its owned collage creation app, to more markets following a limited launch a few months back.

Shuffles allows users to create collages in the style of moodboards (or Shuffles) from their own media or images found on Pinterest. There are creative tools that users can use such as music, text, animations and remixing. The app supports sharing via private messages or public posting, both on and off-platform.

Shuffles is available to download for iOS users in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

What does this mean for my brand?

Shuffles has become popular with the younger demographic, and became the top lifestyle app in the US after its initial launch. It has dropped in popularity since but a wider launch could reverse that. 

Gen Z creatives are using Shuffles as outfit inspiration, aesthetic TikTok thumbnails, and more. 

Play around with the app and create moodboards for your own product collections. The collages are fully interactive so make them shoppable by adding links to product pins.

You’ll still benefit even if you don’t create collages yourself. When creators use your product images, viewers can tap through to the original source on Pinterest. This in turn, will give your discoverability a boost.