Great to see you made it through last week and back here for this Monday’s edition of Spark Bites by Spark Growth! Twitter had the only major social media update this week, but there’s still plenty of social media news to go around!
Snapchat:
- No new Snapchat updates for the public this week, but Snapchat app engineers have recently added the PayPal Software Development kit (SDK) to both their iOS and Android apps. It is unknown what they plan to do with this payment processing SDK, but it seems as though payments made over Snapchat will become more convenient at some point in the future.
Twitter:
- In wake of President Drumpf’s recent covfefe incident on Twitter, Democratic Representative Mike Quigley has proposed a COVFEFE Act (Yes, that is the actual name of the act…this is the world now) which would require the president’s tweets to be preserved as presidential records. The president should take heed; if this act becomes law, his tweets will be preserved. Forever.
- Twitter has gotten a makeover! Square profile pictures are now circles, the bottom toolbar has only four simple icons, the reply button has been changed to a speech bubble, and there is considerably less of Twitter’s trademark blue seen throughout the layout. Instead, the design is much more monochromatic, making it look similar to Instagram, to be honest.
Instagram:
- Instagram is great for uploading selfies, as we all know well…
But it’s also a great platform for social media marketing, especially influencer marketing. However, Instagram is creating a new format that will make it explicitly clear when brands are paying celebrities and other Instagram influencers to promote their products. This will make it much easier for users to discern which posts by their favorite influencers are paid advertisements.
Facebook:
- Following the recent London highrise fire, Facebook has updated their Safety Check feature with several updates:
- People in the US can now start a fundraiser using Safety Check. This feature will help users feel more empowered to help during a crisis situation.
- Community Check, which was previously available only on iOS and Android, is now available on desktop.
- After marking yourself as safe, you can now add a personal note to elaborate or provide more context.
- No need to rely on social media news anymore: Facebook will also be providing more information surrounding a crisis when it happens. Safety Check will release confirmed details about a crisis as it occurs.
- Last Tuesday, Facebook and Deloitte Digital announced they are forming an alliance to help companies mature digitally. They also released a study that evaluates the maturity of the digital marketing industry, which includes social media marketing. This shows that many marketing organizations have a long way to go before being able to operate as digital businesses.
That’s all for this week’s social media news. We’ll see you back here next Monday for another edition of Spark Bites! Hope you have a better week than this little guy:
