Welcome back to Spark Social Report by Spark Growth, your weekly source for social media updates! This week, YouTube announced a range of new features to support creators, TikTok added a new feature for #BookTok, and Facebook Reels now has API capabilities. Continue reading for more updates across social media from this week!
Digital Marketing Insights
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- A majority of LinkedIn users use the platform on their mobile devices.
- 50% of adults in the U.S. with a college degree are on LinkedIn.
- LinkedIn is a popular platform for B2B companies, coming second to Facebook.
Check out the full infographic for more LinkedIn statistics!
Refocusing the NPE Team
Meta is scaling back its New Product Experimentation (NPE) team. This team was funded to find the biggest social media trends by launching apps in hopes that they go viral. They had launched 14 apps in two years but all have been shut down since launch. Since this effort doesn’t seem to be working for Meta, it’s now using the team to focus on short-form video trends. Meta is working hard to make Reels popular on its apps, even though users aren’t completely satisfied with video content on Instagram.
Nudity Protection
https://twitter.com/alex193a/status/1571924946183397377
Instagram is working on a way to protect users from content containing nudity that may be sent through DMs. Nudity detection was released on iOS last year and now Instagram is using the software on its platform to scan messages for potential nudes. Instagram will blur the image and give users the option to view the image or video. They’ll also be able to choose whether to keep this feature on. This feature has been found in testing and has not yet been officially announced.
YouTube
New Features for Creators
[Source]
YouTube has been busy this week with lots of new features. First, the company announced new elements to support creators. Now, creators on Shorts with over 1,000 subscribers and 10 million views over 90 days will be eligible to make money. Monetizing short-form videos is difficult because you can’t realistically put an ad before a Short and maintain a high level of positive engagement. YouTube is managing this by running ads on the feed and putting the revenue into a fund that will be allocated among Shorts creators.
Additionally, YouTube also announced new ways for creators to use music in their videos within YouTube Studio. Creators can buy music licenses across a wide variety of genres and still monetize their videos. Don’t want to buy a license? Creators can choose the revenue share option to receive the music for free but share their video revenue with the artist.
Reply to Comments with Shorts
YouTube has officially announced its new feature for creators, allowing them to reply to comments with a Shorts video. By selecting the button to create a Short with the comment, the reply will turn into a sticker in a new Short draft. This feature is fairly popular on Shorts’ direct competitor, TikTok, so it doesn’t come as a surprise for YouTube to add this offering.
New Categories on Channel Feed
The last update from YouTube this week is an edit to the main channel tabs. The company is working on separate tabs for “Videos,” “Shorts,” and “Live.” This way, users can view creators’ content based on their favorite category and YouTube will automatically show each category to users based on their viewing activity.
TikTok
Tagging Feature for BookTok
@kimmybookss a new booktok feature is on the horizon!! #foryou #fyp #booktok #bookish #reading #bookclub #bookishthoughts #tbr #reader #greenscreenvideo
Who loves #BookTok? BookTok is one of the most popular communities on TikTok and now it’s getting its very own feature. In partnership with Penguin Random House, creators can directly tag books in their videos. While posting a TikTok, creators can search for a book in the link section and connect it to the video. When clicking the link, users can find more information and other TikToks about the same book.
Ban on Political Fundraising
TikTok is banning all political fundraising on the app. All advertising and monetization such as gifting will be turned off for politicians and political parties. TikTok is also planning to remove anything that directs users to a donation page. Politicians and political parties will also have to get their accounts verified. The company said that the goal of these changes is to protect and maintain the creative and entertaining atmosphere that users want.
Focused Inbox
We reported back in June that LinkedIn was working on a divided inbox for messages. The company has officially announced the testing of this feature. The message inbox will now include two sections, Focused and Other. Users can move messages between these sections to better organize their connections. Some messages on LinkedIn come from sponsored mail or spam, so this feature will help users manage their inboxes more effectively.
Facebook Reels API
Meta is launching Facebook Reels API (application programming interface) for third-party video posting and management. Meta released the same capabilities for Reels on Instagram back in June and is expanding to Facebook to encourage more posting across the two platforms. With this update, users can use a “Share to Reels” function on other apps and post on social media management platforms such as Sprout Social, Wix, and Jellysmack.
New Features for Creators
https://twitter.com/MetaforCreators/status/1572284855601496067
Facebook has announced new elements to support creators. The first feature is Creator Endorsement, where creators can recommend other creators through direct notification. Second is Rising Creator alerts that share new creators to users based on their interests. Lastly, creators can use posts or Stories to automatically shout out their top fans.
New Collaborative Ads
Meta has launched new Collaborative Ads for brands to promote products that direct users to purchase directly from a local delivery site or retail store. For example, an ad for Oreos would direct users to purchase from a local grocery store. These Collaborative Ads are intended to promote more direct action from ads.
That wraps up the latest social media updates for this week! Be sure to check us out on Twitter for more digital marketing trends and news.
Having a multi-platform marketing approach is an effective way to reach many audiences. If your brand is looking to develop a new social media marketing strategy, we can help! Click the link below to learn more about our services!
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