4 Social Media Updates You Should Know About

Keeping up with the latest trends and updates in the social media space is harder than keeping up with the crazy Kardashian family. It seems like every week we hear about Instagram copying another Snapchat feature in the on-going battle between the two platforms. Here are four social media updates you should know about.

Update #1: Facebook’s latest test is terrifying publishers

Facebook announced that it is testing a newsfeed that would remove content from publishers and businesses out of the main newsfeed. Those posts will exist in a separate newsfeed that Facebook recently launched for discovering new content, called the “Explore Feed”. This newsfeed will not be easy to find and will make it harder for people to see publisher’s stories unless the publishers are willing to pay to promote their content to get it back on the main newsfeed. Facebook explains that the point of this is to give people two different feeds: one for friends and family, and the other for businesses and publishers.

So what can publishers and businesses expect? Organic reach and interactions will take a hit when their content is no longer on the main newsfeed. When Facebook rolled out this test, a popular Slovak media Facebook page saw their interactions drop significantly. This test is currently running in Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia. They have no plans to roll this out globally…for now.

Update #2: Twitter doubles the character limit of a tweet to 280

You probably heard about Twitter testing the 280-character tweets with a select group of Twitter users. It has officially been rolled out to the masses. When 9% of all tweets were exactly 140 characters (before the change in character limit), it suggested that Twitter users were having to edit their initial thoughts to keep them under the character limit. Twitter hopes to ease this burden for what it calls “languages impacted by cramming”, which includes all languages except Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

But not everybody is on board with this change. According to The Verge, only 5% of the tweets sent during the test period exceeded 140 characters. Even the beloved brand, MoonPie, wasn’t too keen on the double character limit. It will be interesting to see whether the change in character limit improves the reading experience of the app.

Update #3: Snapchat announces a big redesign

In the ongoing fight between Instagram and Snapchat, CEO Evan Spiegel announced that Snapchat is working on an app overhaul. He says that after years of hearing that the app is hard to understand and hard to use, they’re working on a redesign that will give the users an easier-to-use Snapchat. His full statement:

One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback. As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use. There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application. We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial longterm benefits to our business.

Update #4: LinkedIn now offers video uploads to all

Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, continue to push video content because of its ability to drive more engagement, more traffic and it is also a place for premium advertising. LinkedIn is now joining the party by allowing users to upload videos to the site via the mobile LinkedIn app. This will allow users to create videos that highlight their professional work.

Announcing the launch of user-generated video isn’t much of a surprise. LinkedIn has always been slow to add new features to their platform. But what can we expect next? After quietly hiring a product manager from Facebook Live earlier this year, it seems that LinkedIn is working on developing live video on its platform. Don’t expect it anytime soon though.

Which social media updates are you most excited about? Did I miss anything? Keep the conversation going by commenting below or tweeting @WTWH_Aly.