Pin posts to Instagram (finally here)
What is the first thing your customers see when they land on your Instagram account? Now you’ll have more control. A long rumoured update to Instagram is finally here. You can pin three posts to the top of your homepage. These could be posts about your services, lead magnets, events or just your favourite, highest converting posts.
https://www.facebook.com/367152833370567/posts/5219408188144983
90 Second Reels (and more)
Right now, Reels are the way that you can get discovered and engage your audience on Instagram (and a bit on Facebook) and that’s not going to change for a while. Meta seeing this trend wants more Reels, perhaps so it can monetise the space.
That’s probably why it’s added some pretty cool updates to Reels for both Instagram and Facebook, making creating easier.
Here’s what’s new.
For Facebook:
- Create and schedule Reels on Facebook desktop via Creator Studio – This means Reels for pages!
- Clip longer videos to Reels on desktop – make trailers and teasers to repurpose live shows and longer videos.
- Audio tools for Facebook Reels – Narrate a voiceover, automatically sync video clips to the beat and digital voices for text to speech.
For Instagram:
- 90-second Reels
- Interactive stickers (like in stories)
- Import your own audio from videos on your camera roll
- Template Reels
https://www.facebook.com/creators/new-reels-features-for-facebook-and-instagram
Find TikTok Trends
One way to get eyes on your content on TikTok is to jump on trends, but how do you know when is the right time to do that? Could you be so close to the end of a trend that your video will never take off? Or is it too early?
TikTok’s creative centre is designed to help you discover trends at the right time and they’ve just added some new features.
You can select a country to monitor trends and then choose from hashtags, songs, creators and TikTok Videos
You can also filter results by industry, and when it was posted.
For example, on Tuesday, in Ireland, the hashtag #BillieEilish was trending (probably due to the gigs she’s been playing here). She’s been trending for 6 days mostly amongst 18 – 24-year-olds. It also tells me it’s likely to trend in the next 7 days, so it’s not too late to jump on it.
LinkedIn Skills Just Got Better
The skills section on LinkedIn always seems a little vague. People can endorse you for skills there and sometimes those skills aren’t really what you do. Luckily you can decline these rogue skills.
But that was it, skills would sit stagnant at the bottom of your profile. Which was a shame because LinkedIn says that 40% of employers rely on skills when searching for talent.
But now you can do more with them. Once you’ve added a skill to your profile you can specify what job positions, education and publications you’ve used these skills for. When you select these the job positions appear next to the skill and the skill appears in the job descriptions.
Which is nice
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kickstarting-careers-showcasing-skills-celebrating-pride-365-/
TikTok Digital Avatars
One thing that stops people from making videos is that they don’t like to see themselves on screen. We simply do not look the way we think we do, and that can be scary.
Could TikTok Digital Avatars be a way to coax these people onto video?
Search in effects for Avatar and choose TikTok Avatar to create your character. They’re very basic right now but I can see them becoming more life-like in the future.
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/express-yourself-through-tiktok-avatars
Twitter Audio Description For Charts
Twitter has come a long way since it was criticised for its lack of accessibility in 2020. This week they are testing yet another tool that makes Twitter easier to navigate for people with disabilities.
Audio descriptions for charts will read charts on the network out loud in a robot voice so that people who are visually impaired will be able to access them. The test demonstrated by product designer Julius Sohn shows how it will work within analytics.
It’s great to see how Twitter has transformed and is still working towards becoming more accessible.
Facebook Basic Ads
There’s been a lot of talk amongst Facebook ad experts recently about broad targeting. As you know Facebook was hit hard by Apple’s iOS14 update that gave users the option to opt out of ad tracking. That means the network knows less about its audience and it has become harder to target on interests alone.
Broad targeting seems to be at the centre of a new ad type that it’s working on. ‘Basic ads’ won’t rely on anonymised personal info from users and will work for those wanting to promote brand awareness on the platform. Metrics for success will include engagement rate and video views.
This sort of ad makes sense in the age of privacy, now we know less about our audience. Targeting a wider base like this could help you collect an audience of people who are interested in what you do so that you can retarget them.
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