Social Media News Round-Up: 09/04/21
LinkedIn introduces new tools including video Cover Story feature and creator mode
LinkedIn have launched several new features to help people “express themselves more easily” on the platform. The first is a new video Cover Story feature, which allows members to personalise their first introduction to others. When a Cover Story has been added to a user’s profile, an orange ring appears around their profile picture which will preview silently until being clicked. The feature will allow users to showcase their personality to recruiters or their audience and may be particularly useful for freelancers, who will be able to use their Cover Story to talk about their services and attract new clients.
Other features introduced by LinkedIn include its new creator mode, which will allow content creators to add hashtags to best define the topics they post about the most, move the Featured and Activity sections to the top of the profile and change the Connect button to Follow, allowing them to engage their community and build a following.
Instagram launches Remix feature for Reels
After testing the feature with a selection of its Reels users, Instagram has officially launched its TikTok Duets-style feature Remix. The feature lets users collaborate and create Reels alongside other users’ videos, capturing reactions, responding to content and getting more creative. Users will be able to see their remixes within the Reels tab of their profiles and see who remixes their content through the Activity tab. After seeing the success of TikTok’s Duets feature, Snapchat is now also allegedly working on a similar collaborative feature for Spotlight.
TikTok introduces auto captions
TikTok is finally launching auto captions to its videos in an effort to increase the accessibility and inclusivity of the app. Auto captions are already a popular and widely used feature on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube and work by automatically generating subtitles while users view content. Creators on TikTok will now be able to choose to apply auto captions in the editing page after recording or uploading a video, and will also be able to edit their caption text once it’s been generated.
Facebook tests Hotline, its new Clubhouse-come-Instagram Live feature
Facebook is officially testing its new feature Hotline, a mashup of Clubhouse and Instagram Live. Hotline allows creators to speak to an audience who can then ask questions through text or audio in a Q&A-style format. Unlike on Clubhouse, the feature won’t be audio only and will allow creators to turn their cameras on for events. Hotline’s interface will, however, look very similar to that of Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces when it’s viewed on a mobile, with a speaker section at the top, where the event host is featured in a round profile icon or live video stream, and the event’s listeners below. And great news for businesses looking to reuse content: unlike Clubhouse, Hotline events will be able to be recorded.
Facebook tests new QR codes for person-to-person payments in the US
Facebook has confirmed it is testing a new QR code feature which will allow US users to send or request money from each other via Facebook Pay. The QR code will allow users to scan a friend’s code with their smartphone camera to send or request money, while a sharable payment link will also let users publish their payment address outside of Facebook itself. Facebook says the new feature aims to make payments on Messenger (a feature currently only available to US users) even easier.
Pinterest launches new ad campaign and updated ad account management tools
Pinterest has launched its first ever B2B ad campaign which aims to encourage businesses onto the platform and highlight opportunities for marketers. The ‘Be Their Next’ campaign focuses on how Pinterest differs from other social media apps and encourages brands to utilise Pinterest to engage and connect with their audiences. Pinterest has seen a huge boom in users (it’s currently home to 459 million monthly active users) and has continued to develop its ecommerce features for brands and marketers. The platform has also added a mini-site to support the campaign, which details usage stats and links to relevant resources to help marketers. It has also launched a new Business Access ad account management process, which will give brands more options in managing their ad accounts and assigning permissions to other employees.
TikTok introduces new features including video editor for native video ads in the US and new ‘Wellness Hub’ as it remains the most downloaded app in Q1 of 2021
TikTok has introduced a new video editor which makes it easier for advertisers (currently in the US) to effortlessly create native TikTok video ads. The tool will give brands a range of in-app shooting and editing tools, including popular music, fonts, colours, custom subtitles, cropping and the ability to shoot scenes exactly how they want frame by frame. Rather than businesses having to create expensive, branded videos, this new feature offers a more cost-effective and creative solution to getting results with their ads in a way that feels authentic and more native to TikTok users.
The platform has also launched its new ‘Wellness Hub’ this week: a collection of tips and resources to help users connect with relevant creators and learn more about a range of wellness topics, including Food and Nutrition, Fitness, Life Advice and Mindfulness.
These new features come just as the latest stats from App Annie show that TikTok has remained the most downloaded app in Q1 of 2021, holding its growth momentum over the past 2 years. Though download stats aren’t necessarily indicative of usage (monthly usage stats show that Facebook is still dominant there), this does demonstrate TikTok’s continued popularity, resonance and influence among a growing number of users (not just young people!) and thus businesses too.
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