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. Facebook’s Retiring its ‘Code Generator’ Authentication Element
Meta is retiring its Facebook Code Generator element, which enables users to log in on another device by using a code from, say, their phone to authenticate their secondary session.
Facebook is now alerting people who still use Code Generator that it will soon be going away, and that they should switch to another form of two-factor authentication instead.
2. Meta Provides New Ad Placement Controls to Ensure Brand Safety
Meta has launched a new set of inventory filters for Facebook and Instagram Feeds, which will provide a simple way for brands to avoid unwanted association with potentially offensive, or otherwise undesirable content.
Meta will now enable advertisers to choose a setting that relates to their desired placement safety level. To ensure these requirements are met, Meta will utilize a range of content classifiers and advanced AI tools, which can now scan content in both text and visual form.
3. Meta Says it Doesn’t Need News Content, as Canada Pushes for New Publisher Revenue Share Regulations
As Canada considers implementing a new, mandatory process that would force Meta and Google to negotiate commercial deals with local news publishers, as payment for benefiting from the use of their content within their sites and apps, Meta has shared a new report which shows that Meta doesn’t need news publisher content anywhere near as much as the opposite is true.
The report found that news publishers glean ‘considerable economic benefits’ from their use of Facebook, with 90% of organic views for news publishers coming from links posted by the publishers themselves, not by Facebook users.
4. Instagram Tests New Process to Help Users Engage Over Interests In Common
Instagram’s experimenting with a new discovery element that would enable you to view a collaborative feed of content from accounts you and a friend follow in common, providing another way to enhance engagement.
The new ‘discover content together’ option would add a new feed of content that you’ve both interacted with, or from profiles that you both follow, which would then give you another way to connect over mutual interests.
5. Instagram NFTs Will Be Deactivated on April 11th
https://crast.net/302850/the-end-of-nfts-has-come-to-instagram-they-will-be-deactivated-on-april-11/
Meta has informed Instagram users that their current, active NFTs in the app will be deactivated as of April 11th. Instagram users are now being shown an alert to let them know about the change, which will be one of the final steps in Meta moving away from NFTs.
Instagram was, at one stage, viewed as the logical home for Meta’s NFT push, with the company looking to get in on the NFT boom as a means to showcase digital ownership, which it sees as a key element of its evolving metaverse push.
6. Instagram Tests New Birthday Profile Effect
Instagram’s working on a new option to help users celebrate their birthday, with a special birthday photo effect that would be visible on your profile for the day.
The new process would enable you to add a birthday effect to your profile image, which would let others know that you’re celebrating – and provide a similar function to how we’ve all outsourced our birthday reminders to Facebook.
7. Meta Adds New Group Post Sharing Option on Instagram
Meta has introduced a new post-sharing option on Instagram which enables users to spark a private discussion based on a post, via a ‘collaborative collection’ that any chat user can then add posts to.
Collaborative Collections is a new way to focus engagement around posts, as opposed to sharing with a single person or copying a link. That’ll make it a little easier to kick off a chat around a trending post, and for friends to add other posts into the mix, feeding into DM engagement.
8. Snapchat Adds Generative AI Profile Backgrounds for Snapchat+ Subscribers
Snapchat has added another AI element, with new generative AI profile backgrounds now available for Snapchat+ subscribers in the app. The new option enables users to generate an AI background for their profile display, by entering a text prompt of what they’re after.
Once you enter in your prompt, you’ll then get a few options to choose from, enabling you to select the visual that best suits what you’re going for in your in-app presence.
9. Twitter Unveils New Doge Logo
The Twitter icon in the app has been replaced by the Doge character, which is also the symbol for Dogecoin, the meme-based cryptocurrency that Musk has been a big supporter of in the past.
While the reason behind the decision isn’t clear, some users are calling it an April Fools’ Day joke that came in a couple of days late.
10. Musk Says That, as of April 15th, Only Tweets from Twitter Blue Subscribers Will be Recommended in the Main Feed
With Twitter Blue take-up failing to reach expectations, Elon Musk is taking drastic action to drive more adoption, announcing that, as of April 15th, the only tweets that will be displayed in the ‘For You’ tab – i.e. the main tab of the app – will be from paying, Twitter Blue verified accounts.
Musk noted that voting in Twitter polls will also become a Twitter Blue exclusive option, which will severely restrict the reach of non-paying accounts, while also limiting general user functionality.
11. LinkedIn Adds Algorithmically Suggested Posts to Boost Engagement
LinkedIn is the latest social media platform to add algorithmically recommended posts from across its network, expanding the pool of content that it can display to users in-stream, with the addition of new ‘Suggested Posts’, that will be highlighted to you based on your interests.
Now, suggested posts will appear with a ‘Suggested’ label in your feed, with LinkedIn’s algorithm seeking to highlight content that may be of interest, based on your engagement activity.
Wrapping Up
And that was a wrap of this week’s Social Media Buzz. We’ll be back next Monday 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.