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If you’re anything like us, your time on social media this week has been spent getting used to Reels showing in your Discovery tab on Instagram. We’ve also been keeping an eye on new features and updates from the other social networks so you don’t have to!
We post daily updates on our Ventura social media profiles, so follow us and like our profiles to receive updates on your timeline. We post a This Week In Social round-up of news from the past 7 days every week, check out previous This Week In Social’s here.
Snapchat adds voter registration tools for the 2020 US Election to prepare young voters. New tools are coming to Snapchat to prepare it’s young user base to vote in November’s US election; Voter Registration Mini allows users to register to vote directly in the Snapchat app, allowing Snap Inc. to monitor how many users have registered using this tool. A Voter Guide will provide information about registration topics, such as voting by mail and educating users on how to use their ballot. These resources will be available by keyword search and features from expert organisations will be featured as results. A new portal called Voter Checklist is also launching, serving as a list which will be live on each Snapchat user’s profile. But will Generation Z actually use Snapchat to register to vote? According to 2018 midterm figures, 450,000 people registered through Snapchat, and a reported 50% of these people went out to cast ballots. Is this the future of voting? Let us know what you think.
Pinterest announces inclusive product updates as beauty searches rise. As part of the ongoing effort to improve it’s product recommendation tools, Pinterest is expanding the availability of its skin tone matching options. The skin tone search option was made available to US users in January this year after noting that almost 60% of the top 100 searches for skin-related content included a tone. Search results can be personalised for each user to provide the best match. A Tweet from Pinterest on Tuesday stated that “inspiration begins with inclusion…now you can see yourself in your search results”.
New Twitter update to prompt warnings on potentially harmful replies to Tweets. The feature has been tested for a few months but it was announced on Monday that it will be rolled out in the Twitter app’s new update. Instagram employed a similar process last year, asking users if they are sure they want to post the harmful comment before publishing it to a post. The prompts on Twitter will be ignited by replies that have been previously reported, with the hope to eliminate harmful content on the platform.
Twitter has also rolled out “tweet reply control” this week, allowing users to control who can reply to their tweet. Twitter started testing this feature in May and has since done it’s research, confirming that “people who face abuse find these settings helpful – those who have submitted abuse reports are 3x more likely to use these settings”.
TikTok releases the option to add text headings onto video thumbnails. Text overlays on the cover of videos on the short form video app has been developed to “give followers a preview of what your video is about”. Simply tap “Select Cover” when you upload your video and add custom text in a varying range of font colours and styles. Thumbnails play a key role in attracting viewers to YouTube content, so it follows that it would be the same on TikTok, extending reach and boosting engagement of content.
LinkedIn has published a new guide to help social media managers make the most of the platform. The guide takes users through tools the professional network has to offer in order to increase engagement and widen the reach of their content. As per LinkedIn, “Calling upon years managing LinkedIn’s own social media presence, we’ll be tackling these questions over the next four days as we talk about why social media mangers should spend time on LinkedIn, how to tell your brand’s story on the platform, how to maximize your social following and more”. Click here to access the full 32 page guide.
