Social Media News Round-Up: 01/04/21

Twitter is developing new ‘community’ tools to share tweets with selected audiences

Twitter is developing new ‘community’ tools that will allow users to select a specific audience for each tweet, rather than simply tweeting to all of your followers. This could enable users to engage with specific groups in their audience without being concerned about sending out tweets to followers who may not be interested or see relevance in certain topics. The platform is also allegedly developing a new Communities creation page that would be joinable, with only members of a community able to share tweets within it. These new community-focused features appear to be Twitter’s own take on groups, which have seen huge success and popularity on platforms like Facebook.

TikTok launches new ‘Playlists’ feature to group videos of the same theme together

TikTok has begun rolling out its new ‘Playlists’ feature with particular creators. The feature allows users to group their TikTok videos into dedicated themed collections, which you can then name as you wish and display on your profile. Playlists should eventually be made available on all Creator and Business accounts and could be a great way to increase engagement and create longer-style content.

Twitter Spaces set to expand to desktop

Twitter has continued to expand Spaces at a rapid pace and is now set to expand the feature to desktop users. Spaces being available on the web opens up more opportunities for broadcasters and creators looking to add more of a professional touch to their rooms, allowing them to use the high-end microphones and sound recording equipment attached to their desktop setup. It’s also yet another benefit of using Twitter Spaces over its biggest rival Clubhouse, which still hasn’t been made available to Android users.

LinkedIn is working on a Clubhouse competitor

LinkedIn is the latest platform to confirm that it’s working on developing its own audio rooms feature, following on from the success of both Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. LinkedIn believes its Clubhouse-like feature will have a unique selling point in that it will be connected to users’ professional profiles and identities, and follows on from the platform’s efforts to expand its opportunities for creators. After the limited success of its Stories feature, which it replicated after the success of more real-time content features on other social media platforms, it will be interesting to see how its audio rooms will land with its users.

Paypal introduces new feature which allows US users to check out using cryptocurrency

Paypal has announced the launch of its new ‘Checkout with Crypto’ feature, which will allow users to check out at millions of online businesses using cryptocurrency. The feature is currently only available for US users, but the company says it plans to expand the service to reach all of its 29 million global online businesses in the coming months. The recent explosion of crypto has been a hot topic of conversation, particularly as new crypto social network BitClout relaunched last week, capitalising on the NFT hype which has taken the creator space by storm. Keep your eyes peeled for an article by SocialDay next week with more information on BitClout.

YouTube tests hiding dislike counts on videos

YouTube is beginning its testing of hiding dislike counts on videos from public view. The platform says the goal is not to remove the ability for users to signal they dislike a video, as creators will still have access to their videos’ like and dislike counts from YouTube Studio - at least for now. The test could however signal a significant shift in how the video platform operates, as up until now the like and dislike buttons and like-to-dislike ratio have been key metrics as to the success and popularity of its videos.

Instagram expands IGTV ads to the UK

Instagram has announced the expansion of its IGTV ads to select creators in the UK and Australia, following on from its initial test with US creators in the last year. Content creators with access to IGTV ads will now be able to make more money from IGTV content, and the new addition encourages them to embrace longer form content on the platform. The video ads will initially appear when people click to watch IGTV videos from previews in their feed and will be built for mobile, lasting 15 seconds or less in length.