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Another week in lockdown has brought even more social media network updates and rumours of new features. This week money seems to be on the mind; TikTok is just one of many platforms testing the monetisation waters, dipping their toe by launching a free gifting feature and adding a donation sticker to the app. The number of users are surging across social platforms too, so make sure your business is posting regularly to engage your followers!
Take a look at last week’s This Week In Social here, and keep an eye on our social profiles for daily social media updates!
Artists using Facebook to livestream will soon be able to charge viewers. The world has been turned upside-down by the coronavirus pandemic, with more and more social media users looking for entertainment as they stay home. As such, live concerts have become a social media trend (we’ve all been alerted so-and-so is “going live”), and soon music artists using Facebook Live will be able to charge viewers for watching them perform in their living room. However, a date of release has not been set and no commission details have been discussed. It is thought that a large number of more popular artists will donate any money they make to charities, but it is no secret that the music industry has suffered since the outbreak. Will you be paying to view living room gigs?
Your favourite professional networking site is experimenting with new link preview options. One variation being tested is overlaid text from your link header image, whereas the other variation uses adaptive colouring in the background of headers and will highlight the dominant colour from the link preview image. Visuals you post alongside the link will be affected in both cases, and even your branding is as risk of being compromised. Keep an eye out for any changes (through it is thought updates to link previews could be a few months off).
As if dance crazes littering your feed isn’t enough, TikTok are also warming up to take your money. This week TikTok launched Small Gestures, a feature which allows users to send one another free, virtual gifts through the app. Free gifts users can send include subscriptions to Adobe Premiere Rush and Pandora. This is a step in the direction of creating revenue, but short form video is notoriously difficult to monetise. So, TikTok is testing Small Gestures in hopes they can invest in e-commerce, similar to Douyin, another Chinese app. TikTok have also created a Donate sticker, perhaps in a bid to see how effective the site will be at actually taking money alongside their goal to raise funds for charities during this trying time. The app will match the first $10 million made through donations.
A new “DM Me” sticker is being tested by Instagram to prompt messaging interactions from Stories. The number of DM’s sent over Instagram has increased over the past few years, and it is thought this number has spiked even further recently due to the pandemic (with Facebook confirming a 50% increase in message volumes in March alone). The new sticker will be tested on both personal and business profiles, opening a direct line to direct conversation between your company and it’s followers. The sticker is only in it’s testing phase as of now, but if rolled out fully it would open opportunities for businesses small and large. There is no denying that the sticker would be very useful, particularly in a time where companies are unable to communicate with their customers face-to-face.
WhatsApp has reported a decline in the spread of viral messages due to forwarding limits. Yes, recently WhatsApp put a cap on forwarding messages which might contain misinformation to prevent the public accessing wrong or harmful content during the pandemic. This week WhatsApp revealed that the number of forwarded messaged as dropped by 70% since they applied the limits, but there is no way of knowing if the messages contained misinformation or not. Users still have the option to manually forward messages to multiple people or groups, so you should still be able to send your favourite memes.
