Welcome back to Spark Social Report by Spark Growth, your weekly source for social media updates! This week, TikTok has announced a new “Branded Mission” ad product for creators, Instagram is hiding Stories, and LinkedIn is trying to be “funny.” Continue reading for more updates across social media from this week!
Digital Marketing Insights
LinkedIn released a guide on how to build a full-funnel approach across digital marketing and employer branding.
What employees look for in a company and how they find a reliable workplace is evolving. Remote work and increased flexibility have become some of the top criteria that employees look for in a new job. This guide displays a thorough strategy to grow your digital marketing skills that attract the best talent to your company.
Here are some key tips from the guide:
- Develop a common strategy for digital marketing that converts sales and attracts new talent.
- Have a blended content journey on LinkedIn that delivers valuable content to multiple audiences.
If you’re looking to implement a blended digital marketing strategy on LinkedIn to convert customers and attract the best talent, read the full guide here.
Three Frame Maximum for Instagram Stories
Instagram is testing a new Stories presentation that will hide Stories after three frames. Any Stories beyond three frames will be hidden behind a small “Show All” button under the user’s name. For brands and creators, this could result in lower engagement as users will be less likely to see all of their Story content.
Instagram Reels is Testing the “Following” Tab
Instagram Is Rolling Out Following Tab For Reels In India @MattNavarra @SydneyKBradley @adhutchinson @Kevin_Raposo @socialmedia2day @KnowTechie @alex193a @WFBrother @TechnicalMJTV @legion_mj @Gadgets360 @TrakinTech pic.twitter.com/GGzQUNwvdC
— salman_memon7 (@salman_memon_7) May 13, 2022
Another week, another copy of TikTok’s display. This week, Instagram started testing an addition to the Reels tab where users can choose between Reels for them or Reels by people they follow. This is similar to the current main feed format on TikTok with two tab options, Following and For You. Currently, users can see Reels from people they follow on the main home feed along with other photo content. This feature will increase the options for users to choose the Reel content they are watching.
Private Chat Feature on Instagram Live
Discovered by web developer Alessandro Paluzzi, Instagram is testing a private chat feature for users watching a Live video. Currently, people watching a Live video can make comments that the creators can see. It appears that with this new feature both the creators and viewers can have multiple private chats while watching. There’s no release date yet so stay tuned!
TikTok
New “Branded Mission” Ad Product on TikTok
TikTok announced a new ad product called “Branded Mission” that will allow companies to crowdsource videos they want to turn into ads. Brands will be able to post a “Mission” for TikTok creators over 18 years old with over 1,000 followers. They can include details and requirements for a video ad, such as what to do in the video, what sound to use and hashtags to include. Creators can submit up to 3 videos and TikTok will recommend the submissions to brands for them to boost as sponsored content. Creators will now have additional chances to make money from videos and brands have an easier way to find content for influencer marketing.
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TikTok Announces Video Crediting Tools
Time to give credit where credit is due! TikTok has added a feature for creators to credit the video where they received an idea or trend. There is an ongoing conversation on TikTok about larger creators not giving proper credit for ideas that were taken from users with smaller audiences. TikTok expressed that they want to inspire creativity and help with creator recognition by developing new features such as this one.
TikTok Interactive Mini Games
TikTok is working on interactive mini games that would be available during live streaming. This feature’s goal is to enhance the experience on LIVE for both creators and viewers. The games will encourage interaction and could include screen sharing.
Twitter is Testing “Liked by Author” Badge
Twitter's new "liked by author" label 👀 pic.twitter.com/YtGi8z9mBR
— Alvin (@sondesix) May 16, 2022
Twitter is testing a new “Liked by Author” feature for Tweets. Twitter confirmed to TechCrunch that they are testing labels to help give users better context around the Tweets they see on the app. The feature is similar to the “Liked by Creator” label on TikTok that’s found in the comment section. This will help Twitter creators highlight certain replies without needing to share a message in response.
Twitter Spaces Launches Super Follows
Twitter has announced that it is bringing its subscriber-only service to Spaces. Super Follows is a subscription service on Twitter allowing creators to monetize their content. With this new feature, creators can have live-audio events on Twitter Spaces that are open for subscribers only. This will increase the value of a Super Follow subscription and create more opportunities for exclusive content.
LinkedIn is Testing the “Funny” Reaction
#LinkedIn is working on a new reaction called “Funny”!
“Introducing a new reaction to express humor and fun on LinkedIn.” pic.twitter.com/ISRizNb651
— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) May 14, 2022
The professional networking platform may be adding a new “Funny” reaction in the future. According to LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Timer Cohen, the laughing emoji has been highly requested by users. Content on the platform is generally more buttoned-up compared to other apps like TikTok, so the use of this new reaction will be interesting to see. It may open up the ability for businesses and professionals to market themselves in a new way.
Facebook is Removing Some Location Tracking Tools
Facebook is removing some of its location tracking tools from the app due to “low usage.” From Tweets shared by Matt Navarra, Facebook has announced the removal of Nearby Friends, weather alerts, location history, and background location. These will no longer be available for users after May 31st, 2022. According to Meta, this is because the features are not being highly used within the app and users can already choose to turn these off.
YouTube
New Live Shopping Features on YouTube
Looking for a new advertising strategy on YouTube? According to the company, its new features will help creators and advertisers make “meaningful connections.” YouTube has announced that creators will now be able to co-host a live shopping stream that will appear on both channels. Multiple creators and brands will be able to collaborate for these events and optimize their consumer reach. Additionally, creators can redirect a shopping live stream to the brand’s channel so that viewers will need to engage with the brand to finish the stream. Both of these features have been announced but the official release date is unknown at this time.
New Features for YouTube’s Video Player
YouTube is launching new features for its video player. The first of these features is a new graph that will show the most popular part of a video based on how many times it was replayed. This can help viewers find the most useful part of the video or segments that are interesting. Creators currently use chapters to break a video apart with subheadings and this new feature will provide more ways for users to interact with content. Single Loop is another feature being added. Users will be able to put one video on repeat instead of automatically playing a recommended video.
That wraps up the latest social media updates for this week! Be sure to check us out on LinkedIn for more digital marketing trends and news.
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