Welcome back to Spark Social Report by Spark Growth, your weekly source for social media updates! This week, TikTok launches its own AR development platform “Effect House,” Twitter acquires OpenBack for push notification enhancements, and more! Continue reading for more updates across social media from the past week.
Digital Marketing Trends
TikTok’s advertising revenue is projected to triple in 2022 to more than $11 billion, surpassing that of Twitter and Snapchat combined. The platform has effectively become an advertising juggernaut as its user base has exploded to over 1 billion active users.
What do digital marketers need to know about advertising on TikTok? Search Engine Journal has gathered some eye-opening statistics about users’ perceptions of brands on the platform that should help marketers get the most out of their campaigns.
Here are some highlights from the article:
- 78% of users agree that the best brands on TikTok share their ideas and work together with users.
- 73% of global users feel a deeper connection to brands they interact with on TikTok as opposed to other platforms.
- 67% of users say they have been inspired to shop after browsing TikTok, even when they weren’t planning to do so.
- 44% of users want branded content to be fun and entertaining.
Want to learn more? Check out Search Engine Journal’s full article here.
Twitter Acquires OpenBack for Push Notifications Enhancements
Twitter has acquired the Dublin-based mobile engagement platform OpenBack.
OpenBack was founded in 2015 and specialized in device-side control of mobile app push notifications, allowing for on-device data to be processed without a third-party server like conventional push notifications.
Jay Sullivan, Head of Consumer Product at Twitter, said in a tweet that the acquisition of OpenBack will help Twitter improve its ability to deliver timely, relevant, and engaging notifications at the optimal time while putting privacy first.
We’re so excited about this; @christian_ryder, @theapprocks and I set out 6 years ago to try and make push notifications truly user first for billions of people in a new way, and this opportunity to work with @Twitter fulfils that in so many ways more than we ever imagined. https://t.co/VyKkA97939
— David Shackleton (@dshackleton) April 12, 2022
Twitter Experiments With “Unmentioning”
While Twitter first announced working on the feature back in June 2021, it has now launched a live test of a new “unmention” option which will allow users to remove themselves from conversations.
When a user opts to unmention themselves from a thread, their username will be untagged from the original tweet and all replies, will not be able to be mentioned again in the same reply chain, and will no longer receive notifications from the thread.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1512137703067996166
Content of Deleted Embedded Tweets Wiped Then Restored
Last week, tweets that had been deleted from the platform but were already embedded in webpages had their content removed from webpages. Previously, even if a tweet had been deleted, its embedded content remained. However, last week the text had seemingly disappeared, leaving behind just a blank box.
This week, the text was once again restored. Eleanor Harding, senior product manager at Twitter, said of the initial decision in a tweet that Twitter had chosen to remove the text of deleted tweets to respect users’ decisions.
A spokesperson for Twitter has now said in a statement to TechCrunch that after hearing feedback about the change, it has now been rolled back, and the text in embedded tweets has been restored while other options are explored by the platform.
TikTok
TikTok Launches “Effect House” AR Development Platform
TikTok has launched its own augmented reality (AR) development platform called “Effect House” which allows users to build their own AR effects that can then be used and shared in TikTok videos.
[Source]
Effect House has already been accessible to 450 creators through a closed beta launched last fall, and the AR effects developed by these creators have since been used in 1.5 billion videos. Beta access is now available to all users in an effort to encourage further development of the platform and effects.
While creating AR effects with Effect House’s building tools requires a certain extent of technical knowledge, TikTok has provided extensive documentation on the Effect House webpage that teaches users how to make effects. These lessons include topics such as Segmentation, Face Masks, Head Trackers, Face Stretching, and 3D Faces.
AR Effects created by users will be reviewed by TikTok’s Trust and Safety team before they are released to the public in order to ensure that they follow the company’s policies.
Now anyone can create vibrant effects for TikTok. Welcome to Effect House #EffectHouse pic.twitter.com/nHzxC3T5Cu
— TikTok US (@tiktok_us) April 12, 2022
Snapchat
New “Dynamic Stories” Feature on Snapchat
Snapchat has launched a new feature called “Dynamic Stories” which allows Snapchat’s partner publishers to link their RSS feeds directly to the app. By integrating their RSS feeds, partner publishers’ latest updates can be posted as Stories on the Discover feed in real-time.
Snapchat states that this new feature is now the “fastest way to publish premium content” and will allow Snapchatters to receive breaking news from credible sources as events happen.
Several partners received early access to the feature, which resulted in great success. For example, The Washington Post’s coverage during the first week of the Russia-Ukraine conflict reached over 1.1 million users. Early partners of Dynamic Stories include global sources such as CNN, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, PinkNews, Le Figaro, Times Now, and GQ India, among many more.
[Source]
LinkedIn Tests Captions for its Audio Events
LinkedIn is working to ensure that all users can access audio events as it tests captioning features for Audio Events.
Video captions will be available to all attendees of an Audio Event and can be activated by navigating to the upper-right corner of the Audi Event window, selecting “More…” and then selecting “Turn on captions.” Real-time automatically generated captions will then be visible at the bottom of the Audio Event window.
LinkedIn has been working on the feature internally for several months and is now launching captions exclusively with beta participants.
[Source]
New Insights and Data in Linkedin’s “Who Viewed Your Profile”
Matt Navarra, social media consultant and industry analyst, shared in a tweet that LinkedIn’s “Who Viewed Your Profile” feature now has new insights and data filters.
As seen in his tweet, the additions to the feature include the ability to filter who viewed your profile by company, industry, and location. A new “Details” section can also be filtered by similar metrics, showing the percentage of incoming traffic to your profile based on the chosen filter.
Linkedin's 'Who Viewed Your Profile' feature has new insights and data filters pic.twitter.com/dct9YcJgaZ
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) April 12, 2022
WhatsApp Works on a New Dedicated “Community” Tab
According to WABetaInfo, a website that independently announces and uncovers news about WhatsApp, it appears the app is working on a new “Community” tab for both iOS and Android devices. This new tab will allow users to easily access and keep track of communities and groups that they have joined and create new communities. The current release date of this feature is unknown.
📝 WhatsApp beta for Android 2.22.9.10: what's new?
WhatsApp is working on a communities tab to introduce in a future update of the app.https://t.co/lSzYFyxfvW
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) April 12, 2022
WhatsApp Works on a Quicker Way to Share Your Profile
Also uncovered by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp may also be working on providing users with easier ways to share links to their profiles. The current processes to share a profile link are quite complicated, but this update may change that.
The prospective update plans to replace the current QR code button with a new “Share” icon, which will allow users to share the link to their profile within WhatsApp or copy it for external sharing.
The release date of this feature is currently unknown, but it is planned to be released at a later date in a future update to the app.
📝 WhatsApp beta for Android 2.22.9.8: what's new?
WhatsApp is working on a new share profile interface, for a future update!https://t.co/LUyhzjXtSl
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) April 11, 2022
“Community Drawer” Feature Improvements on Reddit
Last month, Reddit launched “Discover Tab” which allows users to discover new subreddits within the mobile app. The Discover Tab changed the “Community Drawer” feature’s functionality, which Reddit is now working on improving.
The “Create a community” button has returned to the profile menu and has also moved to the top of the community list within the community drawer. A “Recently Visited” section will display the last three subreddits that a user has visited, with the option to view all of their recently visited subreddits through a “see all” button. The “Favorites” section has been revamped, enabling users to favorite communities they moderate, users they follow, and custom feeds.
Reddit also continues to work on future updates for the community drawer, such as adding the ability to search through subscriptions, quickly scroll with alphabetical navigation, and increased accessibility of custom feeds.
[Source]
Pinterest Announces New Partnership With WooCommerce
A new extension on Pinterest will allow WooCommerce merchants to turn their product catalogs into shoppable Product Pins.
WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress which allows merchants to add products to their site along with secure payments, configurable shipping options, and more for free.
The new extension aims to make selling on Pinterest easier and brings Pinterest closer to its goal of becoming the “most inspiring shopping destination” on the internet. Pinterest has been focusing on pushing out new shopping features over the past few weeks with recent updates such as Your Shop, AR Try-on, and Shopping Lenses.
With the new WooCommerce integration alongside the Shopify integration launched last April, Pinterest has now made listing products on their platform simple and accessible for an extensive variety of online retailers.
[Source]
That wraps up the latest social media update for this week! Be sure to check us out on Facebook for more digital marketing trends and news.
Interested in learning more about how social media marketing can grow your brand? Click the button below to connect with our team. Let’s discuss how we can help you reach your business objectives!
href="#" data-color-override="false" data-hover-color-override="false" data-hover-text-color-override="#fff">Book a 30-minute consultation today!