Welcome to the June instalment of Social Butterfly – TCD’s state-of-social-media wrap with Digital Content Managers Tessa Charters and Jamie Hatch.
For those of you playing at home, you might have noticed we’ve had a month’s hiatus, and for good reason. We’ve been busy recapping Content Summit Australia – shameless plug – if you missed out on the event, you can find the recap here.
As always, the social media world hasn’t slowed down in our absence but never fear – we’ve got you covered. Let’s get into it…
Testing, 1, 2, 3…
We’ve #madeit! This month Tessa was officially invited to join the Instagram Beta meaning we now have a front row seat to new features that are being tested and developed for the app. The good news for you? We think sharing is caring, so we’ll keep you in the know.
In the realm of Instagram, testing new features is always on the agenda. The team seems to tirelessly roll out new features left, right and centre, and honestly, sometimes it’s hard to keep track. Rather than overwhelming you with a (very long) list, let’s spotlight those most noteworthy:
Low pressure sharing
Nothing is worse than investing time into what you think is an epic piece of Reel content only for it to be an absolute flop (OK there are definitely worse things but it still sucks). Instagram’s solution? Push it out as a trial first.
This option lets non-followers get the first look at your Reel, opening you up to an audience that probably DGAF, providing you with a potentially brutal understanding of if your content should reely pop off… or not.
You also have the option to have Instagram automatically share your trial Reel with followers if it’s determined that it’s performing well (by getting a lot of plays) within the first 48 hours. Um Instagram, we need a definition of ‘performing well’ please.
Send a preview
Sometimes all you need is a second opinion from the marketing girlies and with this new feature, you can get just that with a simple tap. This option lets you share draft Reels with your friends in the app, to receive feedback and help you refine your Reel before posting. While we’re big fans of this update, we’d love to see this share option for platforms outside of the app (so we can get our content client more easily approved), but us social media managers will cross our fingers until then.
Text on images
It’s well documented that Instagram likes to take a leaf out of TikTok’s book (and vice versa), and this feature does just that. Some users can now add text to their carousel images in the app, which could reduce the need for getting your word art on in Canva. Check the preview out here.
Prompts
Instagram is adding another interactive feature to the comment section, after momentarily freaking everyone out (ourselves included) by saying CTAs prompting one word comments were negatively impacting reach, they have since revisited this statement, and phew. Sitting beside the ‘poll’ option, users can now select ‘prompt’. Much like a poll, this feature promotes engagement by prompting users to start a conversation on your post. Though it’s worth noting that the prompt can’t be changed once you’ve uploaded your post, so there is no room for mistakes. Share anxiety please stand up.
They’re also testing turning your live photos into videos within the app (in case you can’t be bothered to do this in your photo album), and icons on feed posts that link to a related story highlight, opening the door to linking to url content.
A TikTok takeover
This time last year, we mentioned that TikTok might just be the new Google. Most Gen Zs would probably say it already is, and now there’s even more of a reason for us to believe it, with the app’s new image search capabilities.
TikTok is bidding farewell to text descriptions with its latest tool for shopping: image search. This feature enables users to snap or upload a photo to discover similar products in the TikTok Shop. While similar functionalities exist on Google and Amazon, TikTok is leveraging this to deepen user engagement, by having them spend more time and money in the app. Added bonus, it could do great things for product sales.
TikTok’s owner ByteDance has quietly launched ‘Whee’, a new app resembling BeReal. According to Whee’s Google Play description, the app allows you to, “Capture and share real-life photos that only your friends can see, allowing you to be your most authentic self.” An interesting move considering BeReal has just been sold to gaming company Voodoo after struggling to maintain user growth. This app is currently only available on Android, so if you’re a proud Android user, please test this for us and report back.
In contrast to TikTok’s usual attempts at keeping users in the app at all costs, it’s been reported that TikTok is now testing web links in organic content, a significant shift from the platform’s existing product link options. We’re not complaining. And if they roll this feature out, it’ll be game changing for digital marketers and content creators alike.
TikTok also seems to be testing a collaboration feature, which we are totally here for considering the positive impact we’ve already experienced with Instagram’s collaboration option.
Links by LinkedIn
Though it happens time and time again, we still find ourselves surprised when social media platforms act like businesses themselves, which is exactly what we’ve just seen LinkedIn do with its third-party link organic content. To encourage people to stay within the LinkedIn platform, the higher powers at LinkedIn have made the decision to make a link preview drastically smaller, with the idea to be less enticing or click-worthy.
While they are at it, they are also adding a price tag, with the launch of paid Premium Company Pages. Targeted to help the small business heroes (aka the ones who wear all of the hats and usually have very tight purse strings), we’re unsure of how the rumoured $99 per month cost is going to go down.
It’s not all bad news though, with LinkedIn launching a new dashboard for page admins that offers up company page insights and engagement opportunities like we’ve never seen before. We are certainly looking forward to taking this feature for a spin.
Honourable mentions
X tells us they care about our privacy, do we believe it? This week, the platform announced it is making Likes private for everyone, to ‘better protect our privacy’. While you can still see your own likes and posts you’ve liked, others cannot. If we let our imaginations run wild (and we usually do), we might just think this is an attempt to hide a drop in engagement on the platform.
YouTube has revamped its inspiration tab in Studio Analytics, with a new AI recommendations feature to help you think up new video ideas (IG is hot on the inspo train too). YouTube is also now trialling image-based search via Google Lens since TikTok apparently didn’t want it.
In March we promised to check back in with Instagram / Threads guy Adam Mosseri, who had been polling users on whether or not posts should be automatically archived after a month. While 83 per cent of the 5,000 plus voters said thanks, but no thanks, when do the team over at Meta ever really listen? While acknowledging that the vote concluded people didn’t want this as a default feature Mosseri is testing it anyway. And are we really *that* surprised?
Until next time…
