Welcome back to Spark Social Report by Spark Growth, your weekly source for social media updates! This week, TikTok’s new Series feature helps creators earn more money while Instagram is actually taking a break from creator monetization on Reels, and Twitter plans to encrypt your DMs. Continue reading for more updates across social media from this week!
Digital Marketing Insights
Did you know that messaging is becoming a popular new social feed? More users are choosing to share updates within a smaller circle like DMs rather than posting to their main accounts. This could have a big impact on the way that people interact across social media and how marketers can reach audiences.
Platforms are leaning into this trend with features like Instagram Channels or Instagram Notes. Learn more about how to navigate this trend as a marketer by clicking here!
Meta Puts The Brakes On Reels’ Creator Fund Program
Instagram and Facebook are taking a break from their Reels Play bonus program in the U.S. The program had paid creators on a monthly basis for their accumulated Reel views. Meta stated that by pulling back, it will invest in monetization that helps creators earn a secure income. Click here to learn more about this update!
Meta Takes A Pass On NFT Projects
Some product news: across the company, we're looking closely at what we prioritize to increase our focus. We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses. 🧵[1/5]
— Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023
It looks like the NFT (non-fungible tokes) hype has finally come to an end. Meta has announced that it’s ending its NFT display projects on both Instagram and Facebook. The company wants to focus on finding better ways to support NFT creators, businesses, and users on the platforms. Are you still interested in NFTs?
Longer Facebook Reels and More with the Latest Update
Meta has announced new features for Facebook Reels and some of these features you may be familiar with because they have been available on Instagram for quite some time. Facebook Reels can now be up to 90 seconds long, users can share their Memories as a Reel in one step with a new prompt, and templates are also coming to Facebook to easily replicate trends. Lastly, the new Grooves features use visual beat technology to sync your photos to the beat of any sound added.
Facebook Shuts Down Audio Rooms
Facebook is saying goodbye to its audio rooms in Groups. This feature was released during the height of Clubhouse’s popularity but it looks like it hasn’t worked out for Facebook. Users of Groups won’t be able to create new audio channels after March 15 and it will no longer be available after April 1. But, don’t worry — Meta is still exploring other social audio features like audio-only rooms and “Soundbites.”
Twitter Plans to Encrypt Your DMs
Aiming to roll out ability to reply to individual DMs, use any reaction emoji & encryption later this month
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2023
Moving on, Twitter has announced it will roll out full messaging encryption this month so your private messages will be even more secure. The encrypted DMs would provide increased privacy to users. Along with encryption, Twitter is also introducing the ability to reply to individual DMs in a chain and react with any emoji, instead of the seven presets. Twitter is also considering enabling users to personalize their default reaction set.
Twitter Removes Live Stream Archives
Twitter’s cleaning up its closet and removing the Twitter Live and Periscope video archives. So, if you have any of your old recordings stored on Twitter, you better download them soon or risk losing them forever. The move is part of Twitter’s ongoing efforts to reduce costs. There’s no mention yet of audio recordings of live Spaces, but they might be at risk as well. Check back for updates!
Twitter’s API Access is Getting Pricey
Next, Twitter’s new pricing for API access has put the squeeze on third-party Twitter apps, developers, and researchers. Up until recently, Twitter provided free access to its basic API, but now the cheapest API package is $42,000 USD per month. To put that in perspective, the previous highest tier was only $2,899 USD per month. This price hike has forced many third-party Twitter apps and tools to shut down, so keep an eye out for those changes.
TikTok
TikTok is Helping Creators Earn More Cash
@tiktoknewsroom Introducing TikTok Series 🥁 Our new premium feature enables creators to post Collections of up to 80 videos, each up to 20 minutes long 🙌
TikTok is trying to help its top creators earn some cash by introducing a new feature called Series, which allows eligible creators to post premium content collections behind a paywall. Creators can post up to 80 videos (each up to 20 minutes long), and charge viewers to access them. As an important side note: TikTok has warned that all Series content must abide by its community guidelines, which prohibit nudity and/or sexual activity.
New Segmentation Options for Company Engagement Reports
LinkedIn has introduced new features to its Company Engagement Report! Available within the Matched Audience element of Campaign Manager, the report shows the number of people from each company engaging with your content. The new capabilities include Company Segmentation, enabling marketers to filter the report to create company list segments that can be used in outreach campaigns. The added features will lead to better targeting for advertisers and brands!
AI Automated Profile Summaries and Job Listings
Next, the ChatGPT craze continues! LinkedIn is bringing AI features to the platform by integrating ChatGPT into some of its functions. This includes offering AI-generated job descriptions, personalized writing suggestions for profiles, and new educational courses on AI tech through LinkedIn Learning. Check out this article to learn more!
YouTube
YouTube’s Profanity Policy Gets a Little More Chill
YouTube is easing its rules on profanity in video uploads after receiving feedback from creators. Now, creators can breathe a sigh of relief as the new policy will allow for more use of moderate profanity at any time in a video, and stronger profanity after the first 7 seconds. Check out this video for more specifics on the new policy!
Watch Multiple Streams with Multiview for TV Subscribers
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YouTube TV subscribers will soon be able to watch four streams at once on a single screen with a new Multiview feature. YouTube says sports fans will be the primary target for this feature as they can watch multiple games or events simultaneously. Subscribers can choose up to four pre-selected streams at once and switch between them as they wish. The feature will be rolled out gradually to gather feedback and officially introduce multiview to the main YouTube TV app later this year.
Reddit Drops Reddit Talks but Gains a New Video Feed
Reddit has announced that it will be shutting down its social audio feature, Reddit Talk, on March 21. The third-party audio vendor that Reddit used for Talk shut down its service, leading to the company’s decision to say goodbye to the feature.
But its removal has left room for new trending features! Reddit is launching a dedicated “Watch” feed within its app, allowing users to scroll through a stream of vertical video content. Sound familiar? This move is in line with the trend towards video content like on TikTok and although Reddit already has some of this functionality, the feature will create more dedication to video content.
Features in Testing to Look Out For
Instagram’s New Top 3 Story Sticker
Instagram is testing a new “Top 3” sticker option for Stories, which would allow users to highlight their top three favorite accounts, songs, places, restaurants, and so on. Instagram has yet to comment if this is an official test or just an internal prototype.
Facebook reunites with Messaging
Facebook plans to reintegrate messaging into its main app in response to the shift towards private messaging. It’s testing the ability to add Messenger back to the Facebook app after having it as a separate app for seven years. Would you welcome this change?
Long Tweets, Long Thoughts: Twitter Plans for 10K Characters
Twitter has expanded tweets to 4,000 characters for Twitter Blue subscribers, but now Musk has tweeted that the character count will be extended to 10,000 characters soon. Could Tweets go from snippets to articles to novels soon?
Twitter Tests “Why Am I Seeing This”
Twitter is working on a new option that allows users to better understand why they’re seeing certain Tweets. The new feature will enable users to tap on a Tweet’s three dots menu to see why it’s being displayed, with reasons including mutual follows and related interests.
Pinterest Steps Up Its Ad Game with Spotlight Ads
Last but not least, Pinterest is testing a new ad unit called “Premiere Spotlight” that will enable brands to reserve premium placement on the app’s search screen. The new ad option is a 24-hour prime placement featuring engaging video promotions activated in-stream.
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.
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