Welcome to another edition of Spark Bites, your weekly dose of all the latest social media news and updates! This week, some social media platforms slowed down on the updates, but Facebook proved to be the exception with lots of news and updates to share, such as their decision to restart (some) of the app reviews that they are now so, so behind on.
So strap yourselves in and get excited!
Here are this week’s top picks for social media news:
- Social media giant Facebook is testing a new video format called Facebook Premieres, which allows creators to post pre-recorded videos to Facebook Live. This will supposedly make users feel like they are experiencing a new video together with others, hence the name of the feature being a reference to movie premieres. Which is understandable. “Facebook’s Cable Television” or “Facebook’s Version of Twitch” don’t roll off the tongue quite as easily.
- Facebook had recently paused their app review process in order to improve it in wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. (If you’re somehow out of touch with what’s been happening with Facebook, check out our past blog posts right here!) Now, Facebook is reopening app reviews for the Instant Games platform and Messenger apps with a limited number of Page connections. App review for Messenger Platform third-party developers and other Facebook APIs have not been reopened yet but are expected to come in the following weeks.
- In response to new privacy laws that are soon coming to Europe, Facebook will roll out some changes and consent flow globally over the next few weeks and months. Here are a few of the most important updates:
- Facial recognition will be coming back to Europe and Canada on an opt-in basis (it was banned in the EU back in 2012)
- Users will be prompted to review information they’ve shared on their profile, like their relationship status or religion.
- Users under the age of 15 will need parental permission to keep personal information on their page and to be targeted with ads based on data from Facebook’s partners.
- Their terms of service and data use policy have also been rewritten to be more explicit and easy to read.
- Although few features have actually changed in this update, Facebook’s goal is to make users less confused about their rights and options. Hopefully this clears things up for at least some users.
- In the next few weeks, Facebook will be rolling out Boomerang GIFs and a 3D drawing feature to their camera! Boomerang is nothing new, as we’ve seen it already on Instagram, but it looks like Facebook was saving the awesome augmented reality doodling for themselves. Although it really says something about Facebook Stories when they add the coolest tools ever and we’re STILL not sure if this will get people to actually use Facebook Stories.
YouTube
- Due to the company’s recent move to set a higher bar to join its Partner Program, YouTube promises to roll out different means for creators to make money from videos. One of the new tools that has been in testing for a while now is a sponsorship feature, where viewers in the YouTube Gaming community could choose to support their favorite creators with monthly subscriptions.
Snapchat
- Snapchat is improving their sell-fie game with this new update for businesses. This week, Snapchat is rolling out a new feature that will let advertisers sell their products directly within their sponsored lenses. Sponsored Lenses have let advertisers create branded filters for selfies since 2015, but now a simple button can be added to the Lens that users can tap on to visit the brand’s website.
- Pinterest is redesigning the profile pages of businesses, making it much easier for them to customize. The redesign will include more customization options such as a dynamic cover page and a monthly viewer count to show how many users have viewed the company’s pins in the past month.
And those are all the social media updates we’ve got for you guys this week! Tune in to our blog again next Friday for more social media news. See you then!