Social Media News Round-Up: 14/01/22
THIS WEEK’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING NEWS AT A GLANCE:
Scroll down to read the full news stories
📆 Twitter publishes major events calendar for 2022 and tests search prompts and podcast-like features
📺 Instagram tests two new features and turns on live badges by default for eligible creators
📊 TikTok shares marketing insights and tests two new features
📌On Pinterest, a ‘Profiles’ tab can now be seen under search results, highlighting Pin creators
🔗 Facebook launches a new Privacy Centre
Twitter publishes major events calendar for 2022 and tests search prompts and podcast-like features
An invaluable tool for social media marketers is Twitter's newly released 2022 events calendar, released this week to aid in strategy-planning for the year ahead. Unlike previous years and in line with the uncertainty created by the pandemic, Twitter has made this year’s calendar an editable online listing. It lays out all the key events and their dates for each month. Alongside this main events calendar, the platform has also created regional calendars for countries, including the UK.
In other news this week for the app, Twitter has been seen testing a search bar feature on the home pages on iOS users.
Image Source: Social Media Today
The app is also working on updates so that keywords you’ve muted and accounts you’ve blocked on the app don’t appear under related Events in user’s Explore tabs, ‘what’s happening’ sidebars, emails or Events-based notifications.
And has rolled out a special animated like-feature for the release of the new Scream movie:
Instagram tests two new features and turns on live badges by default for eligible creators
This week Instagram started testing a new ‘Edit Grid’ option, which would allow users to arrange their profile grid however they liked, regardless of the chronological order of their posts. As seen in this post by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi.
The app also recently tested private likes on stories, where only the user who posted the story would be able to see the total number of likes. These tests come as the app experiments with a move away from the current static-feed focus of the platform, and more towards videos, reels and greater interaction.
IG live-stream Badges are now enabled by default for all streams in regions where the feature is available. Badges allow viewers to make donations to creators and were rolled out to eligible creators over the past year. Now they’re enabled automatically, creators can monetise more seamlessly on the platform.
TikTok shares marketing insights and tests two new features
TikTok released a report this week which noted the greater success of ads created for the app in partnership with TikTok creators. TikTok-specific branded content in collaboration with creators had the highest recall, view and engagement rates. As summed up in this infographic from the report:
The app also tested a new feature allowing users to invite their connections in other apps to view their TikToks and follow their profile in one click. When invited users tap on the link to view the shared TikTok they’ll automatically follow the account.
It’s the second of two features tested already this year, the first being a trial of a ‘Repost’ button similar to Twitter’s retweet. But unlike a retweet, a reposted TikTok doesn’t show up in a user’s own TikTok profile and is simply promoted on their friends’ For You feeds.
On Pinterest, a ‘Profiles’ tab can now be seen under search results, highlighting Pin creators
Aiming to boost creator discovery, the platform has added a new ‘Profiles’ tab under search results which allows Pinners to find the top creators related to their search. This change comes as Pinterest works to retain top performing creators on the app, encourage them to post often and maximise user interest through schemes like the Creator Rewards program.
Image Source: Social Media Today
Facebook launches a new Privacy Center
The update to the existing Privacy Center comes as Meta faces a $68M fine for breaching France privacy laws and works to facilitate advancing requirements surrounding privacy in different regions.
The new Privacy Center is being made available initially to Facebook desktop users in the US, outlining data permissions under Security, Sharing, Collection, Use and Ads.
These permissions are currently available to edit on Facebook under ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ under ‘Settings’ but the introduction of a more accessible Privacy Center aims to meet calls for more transparency on the app.
