In today’s fast-moving social media world, you need to be on your toes constantly.
But don’t worry if you got behind on all the news this week, we’ve got you covered. Facebook’s gotta go fast and more fresh social media updates in this week’s issue of Spark Bites by Spark Growth:
Google:
- Google recently updated Gboard for iOS—a keyboard app that supports GIFs, emoji search and Glide Typing—with the ability to easily send Google Maps links and YouTube videos. So not only can you show your friends which dog meme video you’re watching, you can also let them know you’re watching it from your couch at home! OK, or maybe you would use the feature for something cooler. Up to you.
Pinterest:
- Pinterest REALLY wants us to know that it’s a search tool. The company recently added its search and visual discovery tool Lens to its home feed. By putting these features front and center, Pinterest hopes to increase interest in the searching aspect of the app.
Facebook:
- Here on the internet, slow and steady does not in fact win the race. Facebook will be updating the News Feed algorithm so that faster-loading web pages will rank higher. It’s a clever way of tempting publishers to use Facebook’s Instant Articles format—which, as you might guess, is a feature that lets publishers create faster-loading articles. Nice move, Facebook.
- Facebook’s Messenger bots got an update that will mostly be helping businesses. The app will more easily register important information before passing it onto a business’s bots. It’ll also be easier for consumers to get the help they need when talking to bots, which will be relieving news for some. The way we hear it, it seems the Facebook AI had a lot to improve on before coming close to reaching Terminator-like intelligence.
- We’re all used to the headlines about Facebook and Instagram copying Snapchat with the “Stories” feature. However, Facebook is actually treading into some new territory with the latest update to Stories. The social network is testing its Stories feature on Facebook’s desktop site. Previously, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat Stories could only be viewed on their respective mobile apps.
Twitter:
- Twitter is a busy place, and sometimes it’s just too hard to get to the social media updates that you actually want to see. To help with this, Twitter recently added a new feature to the Notifications tab. This feature will deliver notifications that aim to let you know what the people you’re following are doing, such as which accounts they started following, or which trending hashtag they just tweeted. Now we can all keep being nosy with even less effort!
And now that you’ve all been brought up to speed on this week’s social media updates, we’ll be seeing you in a couple weeks for the next issue of Spark Bites, so start getting hyped for that!
Have a great week!