IGTV is (kinda) gone
Instagram is becoming complicated, there are so many sections it’s hard to keep up.
But they’re about to simplify one part. The IGTV brand is being retired. Long-form video remains, you’ll now be able to post a longer snippet of up to 60 seconds in the feed linking to your video and there’ll be a ‘video’ tab on your profile replacing the IGTV tab.
Could this be a lesson for our businesses? Do we over-complicate our offerings and end up confusing customers? Perhaps we need to take a leaf out of Instagram’s book.
The Facebook whistleblower
Facebook cares about money more than people. That’s the gist of the information from ex-Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed in an interview with CBS.
She alleges that Facebook tries to keep people on the platform even when they know it’s bad for them.
Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest–but the company hides what it knows.
Arguing online keeps people online and thus they ignored hate speech (because it drives engagement).
Plus they know that Instagram negatively impacts younger people.
Facebook refutes these claims and says it’s working to make the Facebook family of apps safer.
Apply for a Twitter professional account
Having a professional account on Twitter will help businesses sell.
And now all US Twitter users can apply for a professional account. The application form asks you to submit business information that will appear on your profile.
You’ll have the option to add an ‘About’, ‘Shop’ or ‘Newsletter’ module to the top of your profile.
At the moment if you want to change your about info you need to apply again, but I guess they’ll fix this as it rolls out further.
Facebook ad objective update
When you choose an objective for a Facebook ad, Facebook is able to find the best audience for you based on that objective. It knows which users click links, engage, send messages and convert.
As new features are added to Facebook, the objective list has grown. And now they are slimming down the options to just 6.
These six will incorporate all the existing objectives and it does kinda make sense.
For example, at the moment there’s a ‘Conversions’ and ‘Catalog Sales’ objective. These could both fit under the new ‘Sales’ objective in the future.
The big change is that objectives now merge Facebook objectives (like shops) and user objectives (website sales).
https://www.facebook.com/jonloomerdigital/posts/389655549480990
No more guests on Twitter live
Twitter is clearly concerned about its video quality. Last week they made an update that would make videos appear clearer in the feed. This week they removed the option to add audio guests to Twitter live, saying that the change would improve video quality.
I’m guessing we can still add guests via third-party software so it won’t have a lot of impact on streamers.
Easy sharing to multiple Facebook groups
If you have permission to share your content with multiple Facebook groups, it takes time to individually share it with each one. It’s the same even if you are sharing with your own groups.
Facebook is testing an option to send a Facebook post to multiple groups at once.
This will save time but will it encourage spamming. If it’s easier to spam, won’t more people spam? If this is rolled out further we’ll soon find out.
Likes on Instagram stories
Instagram is working on the ability to like stories without sending a direct message.
You’ll be able to see likes in the same place you see story viewers.
Likes could be a good indication of how many people are paying attention to your stories. Just like adding a poll, you’ll be able to gauge interest by the percentage of people who saw your story and engaged.
Get a headstart on Google Analytics 4 & understand the lingo with the GA4 phrase book
