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 Expands Meta Verified Paid Checkmark Subscription Program to Indian Users
After initially launching its Meta Verified subscription program in Australia and New Zealand back in February, then expanding it to North American and UK users a month later, Meta’s now also giving users in India the option to buy a blue checkmark for their Facebook and Instagram presence.
Meta Verified requires users to provide a photo ID to prove their identity, then set up a recurring monthly payment of $US11.99 per month on the web, or $US14.99 in-app (accounting for respective App Store charges) to get a blue checkmark in each app.
2. TikTok Announces Queer Inclusivity Marketing Event
As part of Pride Month, TikTok is hosting a ‘Queer Inclusivity in Marketing’ event next week, which will provide tips and insights to help brands maximize their efforts to expand inclusion in their outreach.
The one-hour virtual session will include a range of spokespeople who’ll discuss how to be ‘authentically inclusive’, how to engage the queer community, while also providing creative tips and tricks to help you get started. Attendees will also have a chance to ask questions and learn from the panel of experts.
3. TikTok Adds New AI Ad Script Generator Tool in Creative Center
TikTok has added a new, AI-powered tool to help you create better TikTok video clips, with its ‘Script Generator’ within Creative Center able to map out video concepts based on your prompts.
With TikTok’s Script Generator tool, you can enter in your industry vertical, product name, a description of the item, and any relevant keywords that you want to highlight or include. You then also select whether you want a 15-30 second or 31-60 second video, then press ‘Generate scripts’. With the information you’ve provided, the system will then churn out a selection of sample video scripts to consider, each including a hook, scene, and a call to action, with both audio and visual cues to include.
4. TikTok Looks to Highlight the Gaming Community with ‘30 Days of Gaming’ Showcase Event
TikTok’s looking to celebrate the gaming community this month, with a range of live broadcasts, events, and activations, as part of its ‘Gaming on TikTok’ event. Throughout June, TikTok will collaborate with a range of gaming partners to cover key gaming events, including Summer Games Fest, the upcoming Xbox showcase event, and more.
Gaming is arguably the most influential element of modern online culture, and, as such, it makes sense that it’s a big part of TikTok as well, facilitating a range of trends and content shifts that align with the presentation format of the app.
5. TikTok Adds New Option to Facilitate Connection Between Creators and Brands
TikTok has added a new way to facilitate connection creators and brands, with a new process called ‘Open Applications’, which enables brands to post the details of an upcoming campaign that interested creators can then respond to in the app.
However, this isn’t entirely new as TikTok’s been testing it out since February. But now, it’s being made available to more users, with all brands able to access the option within TikTok’s Creator Marketplace, providing a means for businesses to spark interest among creators to help them build their campaigns.
6. TikTok Adds New Courses to its ‘TikTok Academy’ Learning Resource
TikTok has announced some new additions to its ‘TikTok Academy’ learning resource, which provides simple, free overviews of how to utilize various elements of the platform to best effect. Originally launched in October last year, with only two courses to take, TikTok has now expanded its curriculum to 17 total courses, with five more units added recently to boost your TikTok understanding.
TikTok’s also looking to launch more courses later this year, focused on commerce and retail, effective content creation, and brand safety. In combination with the existing resources, that’ll provide a range of ways to up your TikTok knowledge, and ensure that you’re getting the most out of your TikTok marketing efforts.
7. Instagram Tests New AI Chatbot Experience in DMs
Instagram’s currently developing a new AI chat option that would enable you to ask questions of an AI system within any chat thread. You’d be able to ask questions of the AI tool in-stream, while it would also be able to give you advice on how to write more effective messages.
By typing @ai into the chat field, you’d then be diverted to its AI chatbot, which would be available to answer your questions at any time. So, much like My AI, the bot will incorporate AI responses into a discussion, adding another element to your Instagram DMs.
8. New Report Suggests Instagram Has Become a Key Facilitator of Pedophile Networks
According to a new investigation conducted by The Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with Stanford University and the University of Massachusets, Instagram has become a key connective tool for a ‘vast pedophile network’, with its members sharing illegal content openly in the app.
The report identifies Meta’s reliance on automated detection tools as a key impediment to its efforts, while also highlighting how the platform’s algorithms essentially promote more harmful content to interested users through the use of related hashtags. Confusingly, Instagram even has a warning pop-up for such content, as opposed to removing such outright.
9. Snapchat Reaches 15 Million Monthly Active Users in Germany
Snapchat reported another growth milestone, with the app now reaching 15 million monthly active users in Germany.
The ephemeral messaging app, which reached 750 million total monthly actives in February, continues to steadily expand its global footprint, with EU users now making up around 25% of its total audience. The majority of Snapchatters now actually come from India, which reached 200 million monthly actives last month, while North America makes up around 190 million of its global audience.
10. LinkedIn Tests Generative AI Prompts for Ad Creation in Campaign Manager
LinkedIn is testing out yet another way to integrate generative AI into its systems, this time with copy suggestions in Campaign Manager, to help you come up with more effective wording for your LinkedIn ads.
LinkedIn’s new generative AI option for ad creation will use ‘your company page, campaign insights and the power of AI’ to suggest multiple variations of ad copy and headline, to help guide your ad creation process. At the bottom left of the composer, you can see the various suggestions that LinkedIn’s AI system – powered by OpenAI (via Microsoft’s partnership with the company) – has come up with for the ad, so you can consider different approaches, based on what the AI system thinks might work best.
11. LinkedIn Launches DMs for Company Pages
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/linkedin-unveils-messaging-inbox-for-company-pages/488886/#close
LinkedIn has launched a new option that will enable Company Pages to send and receive DMs. Users will be able to DM a Company Page, and start a conversation in the app, with Page admins able to respond as the Page, providing another engagement option.
LinkedIn says that over 63 million companies are actively posting to their Company Pages in the app, which underlines the potential of Page messaging as a connection and engagement option, and it could facilitate all new types of direct interactions, and spark new opportunities.
12. LinkedIn Experiments with New AI Assistant for InMails
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is experimenting with yet another way to bring generative AI into the app, this time via an AI assistant in your LinkedIn inbox that’ll be able to provide quick answers to questions as you engage in your DMs.
The new LinkedIn inbox assistant would be available via a dedicated icon in the UI, which provides you with a generative AI assistant for your LinkedIn responses. That could make it easier to research key points, check spelling, get advice on conversational elements, etc.
13. Twitter’s Testing New Restrictions on Who You Can DM in the App
Twitter’s looking to implement new restrictions on who can send DMs in the app, with only Twitter Blue users set to be allowed to send DM requests to users who don’t follow them.
This could limit your messaging options, especially if you use Twitter DMs for any kind of outreach. Twitter’s been an important connective tool for many in this respect, providing direct access to people who may be interested in future partnerships or collaborations. But unless you want to pay the $8 per month, that could be no more – though the most likely impact will be that users will just search the same people out on other platforms and try to contact them there instead.
14. Twitter Expands the Tweet Editing Window to One Hour
Twitter Blue subscribers now have more time to edit their tweets, with Twitter quietly rolling out an expansion of its Tweet Edit window from 30 minutes to one hour. Some Twitter Blue subscribers now have an hour to edit their tweets, up from the half-hour originally allocated when tweet editing was first launched last October.
That’ll give you more opportunity to catch any errors, with a doubling of the time available to consider your message or to respond to feedback from people who read your tweet.
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.