Welcome to the August instalment of Social Butterfly – TCD’s state-of-social-media wrap with Social Media Lead Jamie Hatch and Client Services Manager Tessa Charters.
Instagram IS Brat, TikTok’s finally loosening its grip on your videos, and LinkedIn has a smooth, shiny new forehead. The last month has been a wild ride in the social media and content world – here’s what you need to know.
Insta gratification
If you thought June was hectic in the land of Instagram, think again. The IG team has been busy cooking up plenty of new updates in the app and now it’s time to eat.
We’re now entering the era of Instagram DJs, where you can add up to 20 audio tracks to a single reel, and visually align audio with elements like text, stickers, and clips while you’re editing in the app (and desperately hoping nothing crashes). Sound overstimulating to you? Yeah, us too.
Instagram’s been working on a new sticker, Pics Please, which allows you to collect photos from viewers that you can share to your Story (similar to the question box function). We can see this being super handy for businesses hunting for shareable UGC, though we’re a bit on edge about what kind of pics might end up in our DMs.
We asked and Instagram listened – retrospective tags for collaborative posts are coming to a feed near you soon. We could cry happy tears that Adam Mosseri is actually thinking about functionality.
Feeling like your account’s been hit with a shadow ban? Time to do a self-check before things go from bad to worse. Instagram has launched a ‘Content Lowered in Feed’ feature, so you can see if your posts are getting a little too cosy with the bottom of the barrel. We’d recommend checking this for all your Instagram accounts to avoid any drops in visibility, but as long as you’re following community guidelines and not spreading misinformation you’re probably in the clear.
Instagram is also testing a new ‘Super Like’ feature for Stories, allowing you to send one special like every 24 hours. It’s pretty obvious who’s going to be all over this update. (Did inspo for this come from Tinder? What have you been up to, Adam?)
While not groundbreaking, Instagram has also clarified how to amplify your content’s impact with the new ‘Reels best practices’ feature in the Professional Dashboard. It’s as simple as following these essential tips:
- Like or reply to comments within seven days on your Reels to generate more engagement and help your content get more reach.
- Start with a three-second hook to grab attention.
- Keep your Reels between 30 to 60 seconds.
- Use trending hashtags and audio (although Instagram is reportedly looking to limit the number of hashtags some users can add to their posts, meaning death by hashtag could be no more).
- Ensure high-resolution uploads for a crisp look.
- Aim to post around 10 Reels per month to stay consistent and engaging.
High watermark
If we had three wishes for TikTok, our first one was just granted. TikTok is officially letting us save our video content without the watermark. The only catch? TikTok has to see the content first, meaning the video only saves watermark-free if you post it on TikTok first. A small price to pay, if you ask us.
Social media and real life are officially colliding in TikTok’s new partnership with Eventbrite, the event hosting and ticketing platform. This collab gives any TikTok user the ability to host their events on Eventbrite, and promote and sell tickets directly to the TikTok community from your feed. You can also promote multiple events simultaneously. It could be a game-changer for businesses and creators looking to reach more attendees and boost their event visibility.
Much like Instagram’s Reel thumbnails, TikTok is now letting you use custom thumbnails. This new feature allows creators to design still images and set them as their video cover image, helping you capture attention in Search and on your profile by using standout visuals that draw people in. We predict a more curated Feed, as we lose another feature that was keeping TikTok #real.
Threads count
Baby is growing up – Threads has officially turned one. And we feel like we’re in a time warp, because that simultaneously feels like the longest and shortest year ever. To celebrate, Mark Zuckerberg announced Threads has reached 175 million monthly users. Is it happening? Is Threads here to stay?
Threads are also rolling out a feature that lets you pinch your screen to merge your uploaded images. From the looks of it, you’ll only really want to use this feature with a panorama image or a cute design, but it’s the thought that counts, we guess.
New dashboard, who dis?
LinkedIn has had a facelift – the subtle, yet still noticeable, kind. Last month, we mentioned LinkedIn were playing with a new dashboard for page admins. Now it’s officially been rolled out, and we’ve been able to take it for a spin. (Yes, we are still getting lost, and no, we have not successfully completed any of today’s actions yet).
Sponsored articles have settled into the LinkedIn atmosphere, and now its little sibling has come along – sponsored newsletter articles. Essentially, these allow members to subscribe to part of a serialised newsletter, with the intent of bringing your content closer to your target audience.
In other news…
Snapchat has launched its first content series for the brand-new Snapchat Sports Network, just in time for the Olympics.
Meanwhile, Pinterest is jumping on the AI train with an exciting new feature that lets brands create visuals from text descriptions.
If you lowkey love reading the comment section (like us), you’ll most likely appreciate Facebook’s new update. Meta is testing AI to summarise comments, which should make scrolling through conversations a lot smoother. But considering how Google AI summaries went down, we suggest you proceed with caution, and stay on top of your community management to hide any rogue commentary.
YouTube has updated its audio removal options, so you’re less screwed if you have a copyright issue. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.
And if you’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed, you can now take your frustrations out on X, with their upcoming ‘dislike’ button that’s currently in development. Just another way to encourage online bullying? Probably!
That’s all from us, folks. Until next month…
