Social Media Platform Updates – November 2023

Welcome to the November Social Media Round-Up! Your go-to source for the latest updates from the dynamic world of social media. Join us as we run through the exciting social media platform updates that have shaped the landscape this month.

X:

We’re kicking off another round-up blog with X (formally Twitter). Thankfully, this month there haven’t been too many updates to report… The biggest news is more around the number of organisations and users who are leaving the platform.

Over the past 12 months, X / Twitter has lost a whopping 3 million British users! While we could say that this all down to Elon Musk’s takeover. It’s more likely down to the rise in popularity of short-form video which is something X is a bit behind on!

X is taking on LinkedIn…again! The Job Search tool is now available to web users. ?So far, this update is a little on the basic side, with the search tool being rolled out to Android and iOS users ‘soon’.

This next update sees Elon bringing back a Twitter feature to X. Web link previews are back!! This feature was removed because Elon didn’t ‘like how they looked’ in the feed. And surprisingly it’s taken just a month for this feature to be reinstated! So what’s behind the return? A faux par by Mr Musk himself! Having shared a post about OpenAi along with the caption “Extremely concerning” the post seemed a little random because it didn’t include context from the link preview!

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LinkedIn:

It’s over to LinkedIn now and we’re starting by announcing their newest milestone! LinkedIn now has 1 billion users with 80% of the newest members joining from countries outside of the United States.

With a new Ad feature, organisations will have access to ‘document ads’. This new ad feature will allow articles, infographics and even white papers to be retargeted to users who have previously interacted with doc ads. But LinkedIn isn’t stopping there…

New metrics are also being introduced which will allow promoters to view web clicks and conversions from document ads. This is a great metric to keep an eye on, especially for organisations that struggle to see the value of social media in their marketing.

LinkedIn & AI:

With the power of AI, LinkedIn are also helping users with content consumption! With the click of a button, the new AI-Powered feature can summarise long posts into a handful of bullet points. It doesn’t stop there though; this feature will be tailored to individual users…but will be behind a paywall.

In this next social media platform update, LinkedIn subscribers will have access to a new AI-powered career coach! This feature will allow users to see whether a vacancy is a good match for them and advise how to position themselves for the role and how to prepare for the interview.

User experience is also being supported by AI. LinkedIn has rolled out a ‘new content moderation framework’. What does this mean? Essentially, AI should reduce the amount of time content is in a queue once it’s been reported meaning quicker removal of posts that breach guidelines.

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TikTok:

We’re kicking off our TikTok section with a pretty big update. And that’s an announcement of a partnership with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This partnership will allow advertisers to transfer leads from TikTok directly to Salesforce and give users TikTok insights directly in their CRM!

We’re already aware of the rise of SEO on short-form video platforms, and that TikTok is another platform users are turning to for search. But it’s recently been revealed that more users, aged between 18 and 29 are turning to the platform for news! Which we think’s pretty interesting!

Our next social media platform update sees TikTok focusing on engagement. Creative cards are being rolled out which will provide small businesses with ‘data-backed prompts’. With 5 categories of cards, users will be able to see how to optimise their content for the most exposure and to drive engagement.

Facebook:

This first update announces that the Ad-free subscriptions are available to users within Europe. Costing 9.99 euros per month, this subscription allows Meta to meet EU regulations with regard to data collection.

It’s more AI news next, and users will soon be able to tell Facebook (and Instagram) how they want their videos and images to be edited. Emu Edit and Emu Video will be able to use text instructions to upgrade your images and/or video. There isn’t a date for the release of these new features but there isn’t a doubt they could make the lives of content creators slightly easier!

This next update is pretty exciting! Facebook creators will soon be able to A/B test their Reels content by creating up to 4 different thumbnails and captions for a single video! The exciting part of this update is that all 4 versions will be shown to different groups of creators for 30 minutes. The best-performing version will then be shared to the creator’s profile!

Onto paid advertising next, and Meta has expanded their lead generation ad tools! These new tools are aiming to help advertisers see increased performance but also save time… which is something we all want, right?!

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Another worrying update:

Last month, we shared a worrying update from X. Well, this month it’s Meta’s turn.

With the ever-increasing rise of AI in the social media world, Meta breaking up its Responsible AI Team is concerning. If you’re not sure what the Responsible AI Team do (or did), their work was dedicated to regulating the safety of AI ventures.

So why the worry? Well, without teams overseeing the use of AI, it could become harder for users to differentiate between content that has been AI generated and content that isn’t – that refers to written content, photos and video! This is something we’ll be keeping an eye on.

Lastly for Facebook:

A New API is being introduced for stories, allowing users to create story content from their 3rd party schedulers. Though this feature is already available in Meta Business Suite (like it or hate it), we’ll be sticking with that option for now!

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Instagram:

Let’s start by talking about Reels. Adam Mosseri recently revealed that Instagram was now allowing users to download Reels content from the app. Just like the downloads from TikTok, Reels content will include a watermark and the account name.

Sticking with Reels, and this update is exciting!! An undo and redo button will be coming soon to in-app video editing! This is such a great update and should remove some editing frustrations!

When it comes to creating Reels content, it can sometimes be bothersome to find trending content in the app. Well, Instagram is looking to fix that as they trial new ways to access an audio browser to show you what’s hot and what’s on the way up!

We’ve been talking about the close friends features over the past few months, and we have another update. Feed content can now be shared to selective groups (think Twitter Circles). This is another cool update, especially with accounts previously needing to be either public or private in order to control who sees your content!

And finally, for Instagram, Stories has another social media platform update! IG has rolled out an option to allow users to feature comments in stories (think, replying to comments in TikTok or YouTube)! We’re giving this update a thumbs up as it should be a great way to increase engagement!

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Threads:

The last social media platform updates are coming from Threads… and after saying it would happen Meta has followed through on their account deletion promise! Users will now be able to delete their Threads account without deleting their Instagram account as well. While it might not be needed, given the exodus from X, it’s nice to know you can delete the account if you want to!

The good news keeps coming, as Threads have also expanded the availability of Key Word Searching! The search results will include hashtagged and topic-tagged content. It won’t be long before we see more on this as tags are being tested in Australia!

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That’s a wrap:

As we bid farewell to November and begin to gear up for the festivities, stay tuned for more social media insights in 2024!

Our December update will be live in the new year, so in the meantime don’t miss a beat! Follow us on Instagram for all things social!

Wishing you all a ?joyful holiday season and a social media-savvy New Year!