Social Media Buzz Weekly: Roundup of Social Media Updates
- ClickInsights
- Apr 3
- 7 min read
Welcome to Social Media Buzz Weekly, your weekly bulletin of the latest social media updates. With the social media landscape evolving with each passing day, it can be challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments. Well, not anymore, as we have taken it upon ourselves to keep you abreast of every happening in the social media space.
So, without any further ado, let’s look at some of the most significant developments from the last week in the world of social media.
1. Meta Adds More Voices for User-Created AI Chatbots
Users can now create a chatbot within Meta’s AI Studio with not only custom personality traits, but also a custom voice, with Meta recently adding a lot more voice options to choose from.
Meta has even separated its different voice options into their own categories, making it easier to find the exact right tone, and pitch, for your AI persona. Meta has been developing its custom AI creation tools over the past year, for which you can also add interests, defined conversation parameters for your bot, and an avatar image. The update is another step in Meta’s broader plan to integrate many, many more AI characters into its apps, in order to facilitate more engagement.
2. Meta Looks To Bring Back ‘OG Facebook’ With Revamped Friends Tab
Facebook is looking to get back to its roots of connecting friends and family, with the addition of an updated tab for friend-only content, which it hopes will spark more engagement between people in the app.
Facebook’s updated friends tab, which is being launched today to users in the U.S. and Canada, will now include a feed of all of the posts, stories, and Reels shared by your connections in the app. It’ll also include a module for birthday reminders, while you’ll also be able to access friend requests, and see which of your friends are online at any given time.
3. TikTok Announces New Safety Initiatives for African Users
TikTok has held its second annual Sub-Saharan Africa Safer Internet Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, where it announced a range of updates to help ensure that African region TikTok users are safe and protected within the app.
Those include new digital literacy training, regional partnerships to combat misinformation, as well as an expansion of TikTok’s #SaferTogether campaign to more African regions, including Nigeria. TikTok also announced an expansion of its Global Youth Council, a consultative group of young people whom TikTok works with on safety and privacy developments. The Youth Council now includes representatives from Nigeria, as well as other Sub-Saharan African nations.
4. TikTok Is Expanding Its In-Stream Shopping Push in Europe
TikTok is planning to launch its TikTok Shop tools to businesses in France, Germany, and Italy, further expanding its in-stream shopping push in Europe
TikTok’s been steadily increasing its shopping push in Europe, after a couple of false starts, with the app seeing strong performance in the U.K., especially in the fashion vertical. Indeed, last year, TikTok reported that it’s now the second-largest online beauty and wellness retailer in the U.K., underlining its potential in this respect. TikTok also launched its shopping elements to retailers in Spain last December, and it’s also exploring opportunities in other markets, like Latin America, to broaden its eCommerce ambitions.
5. Instagram Launches Schools Partnership Program To Protect Teens
Instagram has announced a new schools partnership program, which is designed to help teachers and educators report potential safety issues directly to Instagram.
The program will essentially expand Instagram’s reporting capacity, by ensuring that teachers also have a direct means to highlight potential concerns. Schools that sign up to become an Instagram school partner will be able to issue prioritized reports to IG’s moderation team, which will be fast-tracked for review. Instagram will also provide educational resources to help support efforts to improve digital literacy, and keep young people aware of online dangers.
School partner participants will also be able to display a new banner on their profile, showing parents and students that they have made this a focus.
6. Instagram Is Adding ‘Re-Posts’ To Amplify Content
Instagram is rolling out a new ‘Reposts’ feature that could significantly change how content circulates within the app.
According to an update in Instagram’s Help Center, users who repost content may now see those posts appear directly in the feeds of their followers. Back in 2022, Instagram tested the same ‘Repost’ option, which enabled users to amplify any post by re-sharing it to their followers in the app, and included a dedicated “Re-posts” tab on profiles. That seemingly didn’t pass the initial experiment phase, but maybe, Instagram now feels more confident that this will work, given that more than half your feed is AI-recommended content anyway, and that it’s already showing people posts that their friends have liked in the Reels feed.
7. Instagram Adds Double Speed Playback Option for Reels
Instagram has rolled out a much-requested feature for Reels, with users now able to watch its short video clips at 2x speed if they choose.
Instagram did extend the length of Reels to 3 minutes back in January, which means that longer clips are now flowing into the Reels system. To watch a Reel at double pace, you can long-press on the right or left edge of the screen during playback. The video will then play at 2x speed until you release. There are no other playback speed options at this stage, it’s either 2x or nothing, though you can also skim ahead, as normal, to get to the punchline faster.
8. Instagram Removes Notes From Feed Posts and Reels
Instagram is removing the option to add text notes to feed posts and Reels, as part of a broader effort to avoid overloading the app with too many features.
Instagram expanded notes to feed posts and Reels last July, after seeing success with notes in DMs, especially among younger users. But they haven’t caught on, and rather than leaving them there, Instagram’s now opted to cut the feature entirely, in order to limit clutter in the app. While notes will remain in DMs, you’ll soon lose the ability to add notes to feed posts and Reels, which provides another way to engage with your friends’ updates.
9. Snapchat Adds New Styling Options for Bitmoji Avatars
Snapchat has unveiled some new Spring style options for your Bitmoji avatars, as it continues to refine and evolve its digital clothing options.
Snap has added a range of new Bitmoji looks, which take on a more baggy, relaxed feel. Snapchat says that its seasonal fashion styles include barrel jeans, boat shoes, and trench coats, among other new looks. That could help you realign your digital doppelganger with the season, while Snap’s also added additional accessories from Prada, as part of its expanded fashion collection. Snapchat announced its first branded handbag partnership with Prada and Miu Miu back in November, and is now adding more styles to choose from within this collection.
10. X Integrates Grok AI Chatbot With Telegram
X is looking to expand the reach of its Grok chatbot, by partnering with messaging app Telegram on a new integration.
So now, if you’re subscribed to both Telegram Premium and X Premium, you’ll be able to chat with xAI’s Grok AI chatbot within your Telegram streams, providing another way to get answers from Elon’s “non-woke” AI chatbot. Partnering with Russian-founded Telegram is an interesting choice, though Telegram has become popular with right-wing pundits, following their ejection from mainstream social apps.
11. X Shares Data on Gen Z Users in Europe
X has published new research into how European Gen Z users are using the app, and the opportunities for brands to reach this influential consumer group via X ads.
First off, X says that more and more young people in the EU are coming to the app. According to the company, Gen Z’s presence on the platform has grown significantly, with a reported 37% increase in users since 2022, bringing the total to over 30 million Gen Z users in the region. However, some inconsistencies in the data raise questions about the accuracy of these claims. X has reported declines, down from 111 million total users in August 2023, to 106 million at last report (October 2024). So overall, X has lost around 6% of its total EU audience, based on total reach. Therefore, it seems unlikely that X has also seen a 37% increase in Gen Z users within the same period.
12. xAI Acquires X in a Deal That Secures the App’s Immediate Future
Elon Musk has announced that X has been acquired by xAI, in a deal that values X at $33 billion.
The all-stock deal consolidates two of Musk’s multiple portfolio companies, which also include Tesla and SpaceX, and potentially eases the billionaire’s ability to train his AI model known as Grok. Including US$12 billion in debt, the deal is valued at US$45 billion. xAI has raised over $12 billion in funding to power its development, and pegged its value at around $75 billion, though as Musk notes, that’s now been bumped up to $80 billion with this deal.
13. X Adds React With Video Options To Boost Video Engagement
X has added some new video features, as it continues to transform itself into a “video first” platform, or an “everything app”, or both. I don’t know, whatever it’s doing.
First off, X is rolling out a new “React with video” option for posts, which, as it sounds, enables you to post a video response to an X update. You can now display a post over a video as a reply, which will make it easier to create reaction clips in-stream. X began rolling this out to testers earlier last month, and it’s now being expanded to more users. X is also working on a new video option that uses entity segmentation to overlay an isolated video of yourself on-screen. X has repeatedly claimed that it’s now a “video first” platform, and has been working to put more emphasis on video content.
14. LinkedIn Clarifies Premium Trial Eligibility
It seems that some people on LinkedIn have been abusing their free trials of LinkedIn Premium, with LinkedIn updating its info page on its paid subscription offering to clarify the rules around free trial eligibility.
If you are already using, or have already used, a free Premium trial, you may not be eligible for any further free Premium subscriptions, even if it has been more than 12 months since your previous free trial. LinkedIn Premium is one of the more successful social media subscription offerings, with the lure of improved job search tools and profile discoverability helping to drive more take-up of the option.
Wrapping Up
And that was a wrap of this week’s Social Media Buzz. We’ll be back next week with more news and updates for you from the social media world. Till then, stay tuned!
If you want to read more on the latest developments taking place in the social media space, take a look at ClickInsights’ Social Media Buzz, wherein we bring to you monthly reports on everything going on in social media, ranging from platform updates to policy changes that influence the way we market.
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