Social Media News Round-Up: 16/04/21

Apr 16

Reddit is reportedly developing its own Clubhouse-like audio rooms feature

Reddit is allegedly working on its own Clubhouse-like audio rooms feature that will be its own take on the audio social trend. Reddit has been working on more options to boost real-time engagement and interaction on its platform over the past few years, introducing features such as live-streaming and in-app messaging, so audio rooms could be the logical next step for the platform. It also adds Reddit to the list of platforms now competitors of Clubhouse, which is now lagging behind the likes of Twitter Spaces.

Pinterest launches its first-ever creator fund

Pinterest has announced a new $500,000 creator fund to help support creators from underrepresented communities. The initiative is a first for Pinterest and will initially be rolled out in the US. Pinterest will use its creator fund to partner with creators from various backgrounds to train them, provide them with creative strategy consulting and allocate them a budget to use on content creation and ads.

TikTok introduces interactive music effects

TikTok has begun rolling out new 6 interactive music effects for its creators, offering them more ways to take advantage of music and sounds on the platform. The effects are powered by real-time music processing that will allow creators to sync their visuals to the beat of songs and get more creative with their content. The first of the 6 effects to launch is its new Music Visualiser, which will track beats in real-time and animate a landscape that will move with the beat of the song. You can read more about the other upcoming effects in TikTok’s announcement here.

Instagram tests ability to choose to show or hide the number of likes on posts

Following on from Instagram’s global test in 2019 of hiding like counts for some of its users, the platform has now announced that it is testing the ability for users to choose whether they show or hide the number of likes on posts. Of its 2019 test, Instagram has said that “some people found this beneficial, but some still wanted to see like counts so they could track what’s popular.” The new feature tries to deliver the best of both worlds for its users.

Facebook adds scheduling for Stories and new ad and business discovery options

This week, Facebook announced the addition of some new features for businesses using its platform. Using the planning area of its Business Suite, users will now be able to create, plan and schedule Stories to Facebook and Instagram. This is the first time that Facebook has offered scheduling tools for Stories and it’s likely to be very well-received by social media managers and the like. Native scheduling (as opposed to third-party work-arounds) is a significant process upgrade and will enable brands to better map out their full social media content strategy using a single calendar tool.