Instagram is changing
Instagram is no longer a square photo-sharing app. That’s what Instagram Boss Adam Mosseri said last week.
The future of Instagram looks quite different. In the announcement, he talked about it becoming more video focussed, that more immersive full-screen, mobile-first video, would appear in the feed. Which sounds very TikTok.
He also said that “People are looking to Instagram to be entertained”
How can small businesses survive in this environment?
If Instagram is going to remain a marketing channel they’ll either need to, upskill on making entertaining short vertical videos, or they’ll need to work with creators to get their message to a wider audience.
This is a scary concept for all those businesses who have invested time and money on growing their following there.
Longer TikTok videos
One of the attractions of TikTok is that the videos are short, and that keeps the content on point.
But that’s about to change. From this week TikTok is allowing users to create longer videos, up to 3 minutes in length. All users will get access to this in the coming weeks.
They say they are doing it so people can share longer tutorials and tips, but are they really just trying to nudge in on YouTube territory?
Is it even a good idea? 3-minutes allows for waffle room, something you couldn’t have on shorter 1-minute videos. The restriction forced us to be more creative. Could longer videos make TikTok less fun and less addictive?
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/longer-videos
Tweet To Just Your Friends
On Twitter, you can have either a public account or a private account. And if you want to restrict your tweets you’ll have to go private.
Until now. Twitter is working on plans to allow users to have several personas within one account.
So you could have your business persona and your personal persona within the same account, and select which to Tweet from for each tweet.
They are calling these ‘Facets’. Each Facet will have a privacy option, private or public. People can choose which to follow from your main account.
Another idea is the ability to tweet to a trusted group of friends rather than the whole world. Plus it’s possible that when you’ve created this trusted friends list you will see tweets from them first in the feed.
All this reminds me of Circles in Google+. It could be a way to get more people engaging in a safe space on Twitter, giving it a larger mass appeal.
It will also be easier for business owners to enjoy Twitter both personally and professionally.
Twitter make it easier to switch accounts
Do you manage more than one Twitter account? Have you ever tweeted from the wrong one by accident? It’s easily done.
Twitter is working on a new feature that will make it harder to tweet from the wrong account.
When you compose a tweet, you’ll be able to choose what account to send it to, just like you can on Instagram.
Not only will this make it harder to make mistakes, it will also save you a bunch of time.
Facebook threads
Treads connect a series of posts to tell a story or further illustrate the original content. They are popular on Twitter but now they are coming to Facebook.
On Twitter, they are necessary for longer posts as the 280 character limit can get in the way. How would you use them on Facebook?
It could be used to connect a series of posts relating to the same topic or event. Rather than updating your status many times, you can connect them in a thread. It will keep your comments connected first before the replies from others.
If it’s allowed on business accounts it could push your initial post into the feeds of your followers multiple times.
TikTok Brand Lift ads
TikTok ads are still young, but they are growing fast. A new ad type will help businesses measure the affinity the audience has for the brand.
The Brand Lift Ads are measured by a survey presented in the feed, which will ask how positive users feel about a brand that has advertised to them.
This is similar to Facebook brand lift ads.
It could reassure businesses that their ads are having an effect on their audience, even when traditional measures like website clicks are low. It could also show that their ads aren’t working, particularly if they aren’t TikTok enough.
No more weight loss ads on Pinterest
Pinterest users are searching for ‘Body Nutrality’ five times more than they were this time last year.
Their audience wants to embrace body acceptance. And Pinterest is taking this and turning it into a point of differentiation.
They will no longer allow weight-loss ads of any kind on the platform. They say they want to keep Pinterest safe and inspiring.
This is a great example of changing your business to better fit your customer.
https://newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/pinterest-embraces-body-acceptance-with-new-ad-policy
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