Live ‘Groups’ on Instagram
Instagram live has limits that make it less appealing to live streamers. You can do a solo show or you can do an interview show with one other person. You can’t enhance your live with third-party tools.
And it’s this that makes it kinda raw and special.
One of those limits is about to be lifted. Instead of going live with just one other person, you will now be able to add up to 3 guests. This means you can have deeper discussions, let viewers in to ask your guest questions, and run themed panels.
It has the potential to make Live on Instagram more valuable for businesses. Just like Blab, which was a briefly popular live streaming platform, it could give viewers way more access to the people they follow.
We should see this rolled out over the next couple of weeks.
TikTok Recipe Integration
How can a platform famous for attracting younger users appeal to a wider audience?
TikTok has just partnered with the recipe and shopping list app Whisk. This means you’ll be able to link to a recipe on Whisk from your video.
Recipes on Whisk are shoppable. Whisk partners with brands and retailers to add recipe ingredients to a shopping cart.
It’s an interesting revenue stream for TikTok and a great way for TikTokers to get people more deeply connected to their content.
What other apps will they connect in the future?
New safety measures for Messenger
If you manage Facebook or Instagram accounts for multiple businesses, the security of your messenger app is crucial. If someone gets hold of your phone or tablet, they can access not just your messages but also messages sent to the businesses you manage.
This week Facebook has upped the privacy settings on the Messenger app.
You can choose to unlock messenger with a fingerprint or Face ID (when that feature is available on your phone). And you can get the app to auto-lock as soon as you leave it or after a period of time.
This protects you and the business accounts you manage from malicious or accidental (I’m thinking a small child) blunders.
New Shopify payment integration with Facebook shops
Shop pay is the shopping cart and payment system from Shopify. They claim it’s the fastest cart experience around. Until now it’s only been available on Shopify websites.
But now Facebook is going to integrate Shop Pay into Facebook and Instagram shops from Shopify users.
Good news for Shopify retailers, your Facebook and Instagram shops could start delivering more sales and less cart abandonment.
This is great in the short term for Shopify as it could encourage more people to use the platform. I imagine in the future Facebook will roll out their own, better, shopping cart experience.
https://news.shopify.com/shop-pay-expands-to-facebook-and-instagram
LinkedIn tips on B2B content
B2B content is the worst. It’s full of corporate style stock photos and uninspiring messaging. LinkedIn wants to fix this and has released a PDF guide on how to create better content.
It’s a fast easy read and is full of examples.
They share 3 key features that will make your business content better.
Good B2B content is :
1. Thumb stopping. Use imagery and video that will catch the eye in the feed.
2. Interactive. Use creative types that people can click and engage with (like carousel ads)
3. Inspire by being entertaining or informative, so that users can see the value in what you do.
Instagram affiliate programme
If you’ve considered running an affiliate scheme for your business, you’ll know it takes a lot of work. You need to find an affiliate marketing partner and then recruit affiliates.
As a creator, you have to sign up to different affiliate platforms and keep tabs on them all.
It looks like Instagram is about to simplify this process. A screenshot, discovered by app developer Alessandro Paluzzi, seems to show affiliate options on creator accounts. This will help them connect with brands and set up affiliates.
Goodbye Watch Party
If you have a product that your customers don’t buy should you get rid of it? Probably. And this is why we see so many social media features disappear.
This week it’s the turn of Watch Party on Facebook. The feature that lets you share videos uploaded to Facebook and watch them with friends or in a group.
It was a good way to promote content beyond the original audience, but I don’t think I’ve seen it used outside a marketing context.
Will you miss it?
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