Social Media News Round-Up: 28/05/21
Instagram and Facebook allow users to hide public like counts on others’ and their own posts
In a recent blog post, Instagram has announced that everyone on its platform and Facebook now has the option to hide their public like counts. The feature, which the social media site has been testing for some time, is designed to help “depressurise people’s experience” and give users more control over how they use the platforms. Users will be able to both hide like counts on others’ posts in their feed (by visiting the new Posts section in Settings and toggling ‘Hide Like and View Counts’ on) as well as hide like counts on their own posts so others can’t see how many likes your posts get.
Instagram adds new ‘Drops’ feature to help boost e-commerce activity
As part of the platform’s continuing push into e-commerce, Instagram has announced the launch of its new feature ‘Drops’, which will highlight to users the latest product launches from brands they’ve engaged with or may be interested in. Drops will appear at the top of the Shop tab in the Instagram app, making it easy for shoppers to stay up to date and for brands to build hype around new product launches and more.
Snapchat introduces public profiles for businesses
Following the launch of public profiles for creators, shows and users, Snapchat has announced that it’s now launching new public profiles for businesses, too. The profiles will help give brands the ability to place their organic Snapchat content in one “discoverable place” and connect with their customers more easily. Users can also subscribe to business profiles to stay up to date with new content, product launches and more.
Instagram introduces new insights tools for Reels and Live
In more Instagram-related news, the platform has rolled out new insights for its Reels and Live features in order to help creators and SMBs learn more about the performance of their content. For Reels, creator and business accounts will now be able to see metrics including Plays, Accounts Reached, Likes, Comments, Saves and Shares, while for Instagram Live content they’ll be able to see Accounts Reached, Peak Concurrent Viewers, Comments and Shares.
Instagram tests new ‘Audio’ tab in Explore to improve music discovery
Instagram is testing a new tab that would allow users to search for specific tracks and discover music more easily in the app. The feature appears to be another TikTok-inspired addition, showing all of the Reels clips that have used particular songs or sounds, as well as allowing users to save and use audios in their own posts.
Twitter prepares to launch new ‘ticketed Spaces’ feature and brings Spaces to Twitter.com on desktop and mobile
Twitter is officially bringing its popular audio feature Spaces to Twitter.com, making it available on desktop and mobile. This will make Spaces more accessible for its many users and, perhaps most significantly, gives the platform yet another one-up over its biggest rival Clubhouse, who only recently launched on Android.
In a bid to help creators monetise the feature, Twitter is also preparing to launch a new Ticketed Spaces feature in the next few weeks. The feature will be rolled out to US users enrolled in a test group first, and will allow users 18 and above who have at least 1000 followers and have hosted at least 3 Spaces in the last month to add tickets to their Spaces. Creators will earn up to 80% of the revenue generated from ticket sales and payments will be handled by Stripe. More details to come!
TikTok adds new bulk comment deletion and reporting tools
TikTok has introduced a new option that allows users to bulk delete comments on their clips in an effort to give them more control over their experience on the app. The ability to delete multiple comments at once or report them for potentially violating Community Guidelines, TikTok says, will help creators “feel more empowered” and able to “put their hearts and souls into creating and entertaining” without feeling discouraged by unkind comments.
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