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NOT ONLY IS APRIL THE MONTH THAT ELON MUSK STRUCK A DEAL TO BUY TWITTER BUT, IT ALSO SEEMS TO BE THE MONTH OF SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIMENTS ACROSS PLATFORMS! WITH LOTS OF NEW FEATURES SAID TO BE IN THE TESTING STAGES IT LOOKS LIKE WE’LL BE SEEING A LOT OF UPDATES IN THE COMING MONTHS.
So, we’ve rounded up a mix of some new and some ‘work-in-progress’ features across the world of social media to keep your eyes peeled for.
The first ‘work-in-progress’ feature is an update that Instagram is currently working on. Alessandro Paluzzi shared a tweet that includes a preview of what this update would look like and it seems like they’ve taken some inspiration from TikTok’s ‘For You Page’. The update is said to include a full-screen main feed layout with all content, including stories, feed posts and reels in one single stream, displaying a single piece of content at a time.
Instagram has also made changes to shine a spotlight on original creators and away from aggregator accounts. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, shared a list of new features and algorithm changes to credit creators. Including making product tags available for everyone and introducing enhanced tags which allow people to add a category to their profile to show up when tagged, for example, if someone shares a photographer’s work the tag will include their name and account, followed by ‘Photographer’. Ranking changes have also been made to credit original creators rather than those that reshare however we are yet to see how effective these changes will actually be.
Twitter has had a particularly busy month, from the Elon Musk takeover to a range of updates and ongoing experiments. The first of these was initially shared on April Fool’s Day leaving Twitter users unconvinced of its legitimacy until it was later confirmed via their @TwitterComms account. They are officially working on an edit button and have been for some time. Testing will apparently begin sometime in the coming months “to learn what works, what doesn’t, and what’s possible”. Despite this being a frequent request for years it appears to have a mixed response. What do you think of the addition of an ‘edit’ feature?
They are also testing a new ‘Unmentioning’ feature, which gives users the option to untag themselves from a tweet or thread. In @TwitterSafety’s announcement tweet they describe this as “a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations”. Twitter does have a bit of a reputation for its unfiltered comments so this could be a step in the right direction for the platform.
They have also made Professional Accounts available to all brands, creators, businesses and publishers, offering a variety of features that are not available for regular accounts, which could be another step toward making their platform more e-commerce friendly. There are of course some requirements for these accounts which can be found here.
TIKTOK
TikTok is testing a new feature that users have been wishing for since the app was launched – a ‘watch history’ section! While there is no indication of when we might see this feature ourselves, this will mean we can finally track down those funny videos we want to show our friends much more quickly. App researcher Hammod Oh shared this.
On their live streams, TikTok has also added a new ‘background player’ option which allows users to continue watching or listening to a stream while using their device. This can either be done in the form of picture-in-picture which will appear as a small rectangle on top of your regular display or you can simply ignore the visuals entirely and opt for the audio-only option. Matt Navarra shows how in this tweet.
Finally, LinkedIn has introduced a range of useful new tools for creators on their platform. Including updates to analytics for creator profiles pages and individual posts, with greater detail than was previously available. For example, access to demographic data. Other new features include profile videos, feature your newsletter and new content alerts. Read the full details in their article.
