Iris Social Media News @ 10

SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY’S PREDICTIONS FOR 2018

As my last post of 2017, it seems fitting to look to the future and share Social Media Today’s predictions for 2018. I hope you find it useful, apologies for the typos in the infographic as well (I didn’t create it).

NEW FONT OPTIONS IN INSTAGRAM STORIES

You heard it here first, these are Instagram’s NEW fonts for Instagram Stories (available for users in Japan). Roll out globally is likely to be in 2018.

YOU CAN NOW MUTE PEOPLE & PAGES ON FACEBOOK

We all have that one friend who posts a little too often or follow a page that sometimes clogs up your newsfeed with annoying memes. This news will chear you up - you can now snooze people and pages on Facebook for 30 days. Read more here.

YOU CAN NOW FOLLOW HASHTAGS ON INSTAGRAM

Instagram has rolled out what might be one of its simplest, and yet most important changes to its app since it was first unveiled in 2010. You can now follow hashtags as well as users/business.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS TEARING SOCIETY APART

Says former Facebook exec Chamath Palihapitiya. He goes on to say we’re being programmed by the behemoth social network. Watch his interview here. 

Read Facebook’s response here

THE MOST SHARED CONTENT ON FACEBOOK IN 2017 REVEALED

Click here to see the top posts, you won’t be all that surprised.

FACEBOOK TEAMS UP WITH MUNICH TECH HUB

Facebook joins the likes of Apple and Google in looking at automotive mobility as the next big thing in tech. They’ve partnered with Munich’s Digital Hub Mobility to find out how the future of urban mobility can be developed.

While it’s hard to pin down Facebook’s exact plans for mobility, they have been explicit on one point: “Facebook does not intend to build cars”.

Instead of making cars, it is likely they’ll focus on how machines and platforms can be equipped with the ability to learn and share information, to improve mobility. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the company plans on using AI to reach its goal.

FACEBOOK INTRODUCES MESSENGER FOR KIDS

Facebook has launched Messenger Kids, a new version of its popular communications app with parental controls, to help safeguard pre-teens who may be using unauthorised and unsupervised social media accounts. Messenger Kids will be ring-fenced and will not - Facebook has confirmed - used to feed data for advertising.

How it works...

Every child account on Messenger Kids must be set up by a parent and is done in four steps:

Download: First, download the Messenger Kids app on your child’s iPad, iPod touch, or iPhone from the App Store.

Authenticate: Then, authenticate your child’s device using your own Facebook username and password. This will not create a Facebook account for your child or give them access to your Facebook account.

Create an account: Finish the setup process by creating an account for your child, where all you’ll need to do is provide their name. Then the device can be handed over to the child so they can start chatting with the family and friends you approve.

Add contacts: To add people to your child’s approved contact list, go to the Messenger Kids parental controls panel in your main Facebook app. To get there, click on “More” on the bottom right corner in your main Facebook app, and click “Messenger Kids” in the Explore section.

Critics have been scathing about the news, most questioning how young is too young to be on social media? Some going even further and suggesting that Facebook is targeting young children to hook them on its services.

QUESTION: What do you think?

HEARD IT ON THE GRAPE VINE

For anyone who mourned the day when Twitter shuttered Vine, the six-second infinite-looping video social network, its co-founder (Dom Hofmann) tweeted earlier this week hinting that he’s working on a follow-up.

His second tweet simply read “v2″ and has now been retweeted over 174k times demonstrating how excited people are at his news. 

Vine appealed mainly to creatives and, for a time, was the home of the best content on social media. Hopefully version two will have the same calibre of content producers as its predecessor.

INSTAGRAM TESTING A REGRAM BUTTON (& OTHER FEATURES)

The Next Web has discovered a raft of exciting NEW features in the beta version of Instagram iOS app, here’s what they found:

A Native Regram Button - a feature many users have been waiting for for some time. Currently, users wanting to reshare content have to either save the image or video to their device and re-share it from their own account, or call upon one of several third party apps

GIFs -  Instagram may finally join the GIF party and allow users to search for and add GIFs to their Stories or regular posts

Archiving Stories - allowing you to save your Stories in a personal archive. The feature would store you posts within the app for trips down memory lane or to repost at a later date.

Closest Friend List - It’s exactly what it sounds like: add your closest friends to a select group and you can share content with just them

Share to WhatsApp - the ability to share profiles and posts, a no-brainer really

Read the full article here.

SNAPCHAT INTRODUCES REDESIGNED APP

Responding to mounting pressure to make the Snapchat app more intuitive and user-friendly, Snap, Inc. has announced a significant redesign in the hopes that it will attract new users in order to grow its stagnant user base.

The big change is placing friends and publisher content into separate tabs. In their words, it now “separates the social from the media”. They go on further to say, “while blurring the lines between professional content creators and your friends has been an interesting Internet experiment, it has also produced some strange side-effects (like fake news) and made us feel like we have to perform for our friends rather than just express ourselves.”

A further development on the friends tab is a “Best Friends” algorithm that makes it easier to find the friends you want to talk to, when you want to talk to them.

It remains to be seen if this update will attract new users, what it does do is further separate the platform from other social networks because of its clarity between friends and publisher content. 

Read the announcement here and download the update from today.

INSTAGRAM TESTING FOLLOWING HASHTAGS

Instagram is testing a new feature for some users, who can now search for a hashtag and follow the tag in particular.

Instagram used to feel like a carefully curated community. Now, thanks to the algorithmic feed, it now feels like a tiny Facebook.

Maybe this isn’t the solution, but if you’re a fan of @ihavethisthingwithfloors but don’t see those photos anymore, you might soon be able to follow the #ihavethisthingwithfloors hashtag as well.

THE FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EXPLAINED

Ever wondered how Facebook decides what appears in your news feed? This informative video will help 

FACEBOOK TRIALLING ‘RED ENVELOPE’ PAYMENTS

The feature is likely to allow users to send money peer-to-peer. Although the company already accept payments like this in Messenger, this will be a first for Facebook.

Outside of the Chinese tradition of gifting red envelopes of money during festive periods, the NEW Marketplace section makes sense to have its own native payment experience.

ROWSE HONEY: THE THREE BEARS

Rowse Honey has launched a content series inspired by the fairytale of The Three Bears, but it’s the casting of a jovial trio of modern ‘gay bears’ that the brand hopes will connect with a fun, young consumer.

The three bears will star in a three-episode breakfast-style show featuring recipe ideas, health tips, and more... all served with an extra large dose of fun.

While the premise is to be fun, I’m not sure about its authenticity. Is the audience supposed to be laughing at or with the characters...?

QUESTION: What do you think?

SNAPCHAT ADS: A FEW FACTS TO CONSIDER 

Here are a few facts that all marketers - wanting to tap into Snapchat’s 173 million daily users, many of whom fall into the highly engaged college-aged and millennial age brackets - should consider.

Keep it simple: the ideal length of a Snap Ad is three to five seconds, with a single-minded message. Ads should mirror the narrative style of other Snaps

Branding: While messaging should be concise, do not forget to incorporate clear branding so users know exactly what they’re looking at

Sound: more than two thirds of Snaps play with sound on, giving marketers a unique opportunity (on social media) to communicate a message. Research has shown that Snap Ads without sound, or worse with canned music, are more at risk of negative brand affinity

Vertical video: this probably sounds obvious but it’s surprising how many ads on Snapchat aren’t optimised. Do not simply repurpose content from other platforms

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING TRANSPARENCY

Amid growing concerns around the lack of transparency in social media advertising - caused by the ongoing investigation into how social networks spread political messaging during the 2016 US Presidential Election - Facebook and Twitter have announced they will be upping transparency efforts.

This move signals the end to ‘dark posts’, which are hidden adverts shown only to target audiences, as consumers will soon be able to see all ads running. Some might say this is “too little, too late”, but with the investigation ongoing, who knows what further measures each network will implement in the future...?!