Here’s my summary and opinion on the week’s social media news that matters including new developments from Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.
You can watch my take on latest news on THE #SocialToday SHOW below…it’s in 2 parts due to a break in transmission! Feel free to ask me questions by posting in the Comments under this blog post, the video or at Ask JP.
THE #SocialToday SHOW Part 1
THE #SocialToday SHOW Part 2
Facebook – Media companies have seen their reach on Facebook fall by more than 40% due to an algorithm change from the social media platform, according to SocialFlow. This could be due to Facebook preferring news publishers to use Instant Articles or its desire to promote content from individuals.
Facebook has announced new artificial intelligence functionality called DeepText which can understand with near human accuracy the content of several thousands Facebook posts per second, spanning more than 20 languages. Facebook is currently testing this powerful DeepText functionality within Messenger.
Facebook Messenger – Facebook has been pushing people towards its stand-alone Messenger app for some time and Android users visiting the mobile version Facebook’s website are now receiving a message encouraging them to move.
Facebook App users have been encouraged to leave since 2014 so it only seems a matter of time before messaging outside of the Messenger app becomes impossible. This is because Facebook is focussing its attention on developing the Messenger app into much more than just an app for communication.
The first share trade has been carried out on Facebook Messenger using AJ Bell’s share trading platform. The shares that were purchased? Facebook of course.
Messenger is revamping its emojis. It’s long been an irritation amongst users that emojis are not consistent across Android, iOS and other platforms but this has now been rectified. In addition, over 1,500 newly designed Messenger emojis with diversified skin tones and gender options are being introduced. These new emojis are available now to all Messenger users worldwide.
Instagram – The move to an algorithmic feed which was announced in March is now being officially launched with ‘the moments you care about first’ being shown at the top of the news feed. ‘Over the past few months, we brought this new way of ordering posts to a portion of the community, and we found that people are liking photos more, commenting more and generally engaging with the community in a more active way.’ However, the move has not gone down well in some quarters. In fact, there’s a petition against the move with over 330, 000 signatures.
Business profiles are getting closer to launch according to the Instagram for Business blog. As previously stated on this blog, the new business tools will ‘make growing a business on Instagram that much easier’ and will include a new contact button and Insights for measurement. In the UK we could be waiting a while as the roll out will start in the US. If you’re interested in shopping on Instagram check out ecommerceceo.com.
Pinterest – As reported last month, Pinterest has been testing a Save button to replace the Pin It button and the change has now been made universally.
Pinterest has announced that users can now see all the boards across Pinterest into which other people have saved a specific pin.
Periscope – Periscope has introduced a comment moderation system that allows users to report comments they consider to be spam or abuse.
Number of the week…is 60.
60% of 2000 people surveyed said it was important for small businesses to have a social media presence. The study also showed that 1 in 4 consumers uses social media to find small businesses for the first time. Source: Vistaprint Digital Services