It is the time of the year when you start layering up under comfortable long coats and trendy boots to keep it warm and going. Nothing beats a cup of coffee as we warm up with the sizzling social media announcements and updates for November. With Instagram adding ‘Add Yours’ stickers and shutting down its very own Threads app, Snapchat adding Food Scan to its camera while Twitter adds a profile search option, for us, nothing beats the much-awaited Black Friday sales of the year.
So what was your plan for November?
Social Champ, being a social media management tool, came out with an exclusive and the most significant discount of the year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday with up to 50% Off for all new users. We had separate treats for our onboard champs, so nobody felt left out.
Before we drive away with the mouthwatering sales, let’s drift back to our social media updates for the month, and let’s get started 😀
Pinterest TV’ Shoppable Live-Stream Series
Pinterest steps into the live shopping experience with an announcement to launch ‘Pinterest TV’ – a series of live, original, and shoppable episodes featuring creators right on Pinterest. Pinterest creators will host the show, including a chat feature where viewers can ask questions and otherwise participate in the experience.
According to Pinterest:
“Pinterest TV episodes are refreshed each weekday and will be recorded and available for Pinners to view on-demand and save and rewatch later. Beginning November 8, episodes will air Monday-Friday at 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT in the U.S. iOS and Android. Each Friday, products will drop in a live shopping setting where Pinners can take advantage of discounts from brands including All Birds, Crown Affair, Melody Ehsani, Outdoor Voices, Mented, and more.”
Pinterest is also launching a virtual studio where producers will work with creators to help them develop their content and provide A/V support to go live more efficiently.
Instagram Launches ‘Add Yours’ Sticker
Instagram rolls out a very new ‘Add Sticker feature to enable public threads in Stories. This feature will enable Stories to be more engaging than before as users can add the new ‘Add Yours’ sticker to their Stories frame, with the example using an ‘outfit of the day’s prompt, calling for followers to respond with their #OOTD image.
Instagram says in a tweet, “With custom prompts and public responses, you can share the sticker and see who responds to it in their own Stories.”
Direct Access to YouTube’ Shorts’
YouTube launched its short-form video integration ‘Shorts’ in late 2020, beaming among the users. YouTube Shorts is not the first of its kind as Facebook has Reels on Instagram, Snapchat has Spotlight, while Tiktok, the pioneer, has been in the market for some time. The YouTube team continues the new integration with more features, and they announced direct access to shorts.
“We’re experimenting with a new Shorts experience – if you’re in the experiment and you close the YouTube app while watching Shorts, you will be dropped into the Shorts player when you reopen the app (so you have direct access.) If you exit the YouTube app while watching any content other than Shorts, we won’t direct you right into Shorts next time you open the app.”
This experiment will have the key focus on users who regularly engage with the option, with the app opening to a full-screen, never-ending feed of Shorts clips. For now, this test is only available to a small percentage of viewers using mobile devices.
Instagram Post Preview Cards Are Back on Twitter
Instagram brings back the feature they controversially removed the feature shortly after being acquired by Facebook in 2012 – that is 9 years ago and since then it was highly in demand to be brought back. Instagram preview cards used to appear when a person shares an Instagram link on Twitter.
Instagram has announced that IG posts shared in tweets will appear with preview cards once again, helping to improve cross-platform sharing.
“If you want to share your latest Instagram post on the Twitter timeline too, you’re in luck: now when you share a link to an IG post in a tweet, it’ll show up as a card with a preview of the photo,” read a tweet on Twitter’s official support account.
Expansion in Twitter’s on Profile Search Option
Image Source: Social Media Today
In the past few months, Twitter has been testing a new feature that would make life easier for all Twitter users when it comes down to searching specific tweets within a particular user’s account. Twitter has recently announced the expansion and rollout of the on-profile search option for users and now many iOS users are starting to get access to a feature.
You will need to navigate to a user’s profile, you’ll see a search icon in the top right corner of the screen on the user’s profile banner, next to the three-dot menu. Then, you can type in keywords to search the user’s tweets.
Twitter Adds New Option to Let Non-Twitter Users Tune Into Spaces
Twitter takes another step to make a difference, this time it offers its live audio conversations feature Spaces to be available for non-Twitter users too.
Twitter explains: “have friends, not on Twitter? that’s weird but now you can share direct links to your Spaces and they can listen in via the web without being logged in”
People with protected tweets or those using Twitter from desktop still cannot create Spaces but they can definitely join Spaces created by others. Now, non-twitter users can avail of this opportunity giving value to shared links beyond the app itself, which means that you can share them with all of your contacts and invite them to listen to your Spaces chats.
New Visual Enhancement by Twitter
Twitter is adding new visual enhancement tools which will enable users to add ‘stickers, text, crops, and more to your uploaded videos and images, then attach them to your tweets, potentially giving them more presence and creative flair in the feed.
The update adds a new UI for your tweet visuals, which looks more streamlined and more aligned to the visual editing tools in other apps, while also providing additional options.
Removal of Thousands of Ad Categories by Facebook
Facebook recently announced the removal of ads that fall in the category of sensitive topics to balance some important considerations that relate to potentially problematic issues and causes.
Facebook said “Starting January 19, 2022, we will remove Detailed Targeting options that relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive, such as options referencing causes, organizations, or public figures that relate to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation. Examples include:
● Health causes (e.g., “Lung cancer awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “Chemotherapy”)
● Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage” and “LGBT culture”)
● Religious practices and groups (e.g., “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”)
● Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures”
So in other words, you won’t be able to target your ads based on topics like ‘World Cancer Day’ or other health causes, nor will you be able to hone in on elements related to sexual orientation, political beliefs, etc.
Removal of Video Dislike by YouTube
YouTube has been striving to be a place where creators of all sizes and backgrounds can find and share their voice but as a result of attacks on users, where the dislike option has been used to harm a video’s performances, the platform decided to take a big step.
YouTube announces to discontinue the dislike button publicly but it will still be there in private to avoid misuse. This feature and additional policies were implemented to improve a creator’s experience.
As explained by YouTube “As part of this experiment, viewers could still see and use the dislike button. But because the count was not visible to them, we found that they were less likely to target a video’s dislike button to drive up the count.”
Instagram Tests New ‘Take a Break’ Feature
Instagram tests a new feature ‘Take a Break’ to enable users to take a break in between using the Instagram app after a certain period of activity. The Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri took Instagram & Twitter to get the word out about this long-awaited feature which will eventually help in giving people more control over their experience of Instagram.
“It does what you think it does, If you opt-in, it encourages you to take a break from Instagram after you spend a certain amount of time on the app; 10, 20, or 30 minutes,” Adam said in his video.
Facebook Launches’ Creative App Platform’
After Tiktok and Instagram Stories, Facebook stories hold good popularity among the users as well. Facebook launched ‘Creative App Platform‘ to help people express themselves in fresh and exciting ways to leverage more audience, especially in the younger age group.
According to Facebook “we’re testing a new concept that will allow people to discover new apps featuring photo, video and audio editing tools, directly in Facebook Stories.”
Creative App Platform is currently in beta but will allow people to easily discover apps that offer new ways to create and share unique stories on Facebook. So, when creating content with Creative App Platform partner apps, it’s easy to share that content directly with friends and family on Facebook. The leading developers who partnered with Facebook in this venture included Smule, Vita, Viva Video, and B612 while Picsart, one of the world’s best creative platforms, Camera360, and Sweet Selfie, will join the team soon.
Disney Character Voices in Tiktok Now
Tiktok comes with a unique and happening update this month as they collaborate with Disney. Now Tiktok users can choose from a range of Disney character voices for TikTok’s text-to-speech feature. The new feature will allow people to have their captions read by Lilo and Stitch’s Stitch, C-3PO, Chewbacca, a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, and Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy instead of the same old female voice.
Snapchat Adds’ Food Scan’ to Provide Recipe Matches
Snapchat introduced Scan – an AR experience that senses, enhances, and transforms the physical world around us.
Scanning is a simple and intuitive action that surfaces contextually relevant information when identifying objects, situations, and other visual elements. Now Snapchat introduces a new sous-chef: Food Scan! It’s available to Snapchatters in the United States for now.
Snapchat partnered with Allrecipes to help Snap users find recipe recommendations by simply scanning in the ingredients of the food.
Snapchat took Twitter “The recipe inspiration we all needed. Hello, Food Scan!
– Just open your Snapchat
– Point your camera at an ingredient
– Tap and hold to Scan
– Start exploring recipes”
Instagram Shutting Down ‘Threads’ Messaging App
Threads were introduced in 2019 as a companion app to Instagram shortly after the company shut down its other standalone messaging app, Direct. Threads were built as a “camera-first” mobile messenger designed to post status updates and stay in touch with friends on Instagram.
Instagram has now decided to shut down its messaging app, Threads and it will no longer be supported by the end of December 2021, the company confirmed.
Now Delete Individual Posts From Carousels
Instagram now enables its users to delete an image or video where several are posted in a post. Like carousels, a single Instagram Post that features two to 10 images or videos can now be edited by deleting an image or more from in between. Do this by tapping on the three dots menu, selecting ‘Edit’, then tapping on the small trash icon in the top left of the image/video that you want to remove, as announced by Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram.
This new update will enable users to manage their carousel posts more easily instead of deleting an entire carousel and re-uploading it again.
Reddit Shuts Down Dubsmash
Reddit, which acquired Dubsmash last year, has announced they will shut down this separate short-form video social platform, which will be available until February 2022. Dubsmash was one of those fun apps that enable users to create videos aligned with music clips, including effects and filters.
Reddit now plans to incorporate Dubsmash like tools and features in its own camera to enhance video engagement on its platform.
From the growth perspective, Reddit stated “To date this year (January 2021 to November 2021), video content has soared on Reddit. We’ve seen:
● Nearly 70% growth in overall hours watched.
● More than 30% increase in daily active video viewers growth.”
Themed App Icons for the Holidays on Twitter
As app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi shared, Twitter is now testing festive app icons for Twitter Blue subscribers. Variable app icons are one of the minor features of Twitter Blue, the platform’s $ 2.99 per month subscription program that gives the most dedicated Twitter users access to a range of features.
Variable app icons, as noted, are a smaller part of Twitter Blue’s overall offering, but some people will still appreciate the ability to give their icon a new skin, and maybe give it a new one too. sensation in their app listings.
Tag Profiles in Your TikTok Video Clips
Tiktok is testing a brand new feature for all its users to be able to tag different profiles in your clips. The new option is in addition to the existing @mention option within the post captions, meaning you would be able to keep your caption text free of mentions, and still prompt other profiles to alert them to your clip.
Social media expert Matt Navarra (via Sam Schmir) took Twitter to post about this news.
LinkedIn Adds New Tools to ‘Creator Mode’
Linkedin adds-up two much-requested features to its Creator Mode, LinkedIn Live Video and Newsletter.
With live video, one can broadcast content directly to their LinkedIn profile and can interact with their audience in real-time, drive deeper engagement, and establish thought leadership.
Meanwhile as a newsletter author, one can regularly distribute content on a passionate topic. Plus, it ensures that the content is seen with automated email and in-app notifications.
Initially, LinkedIn Live was only available to members and pages with more than 150 followers and/or connections who met certain criteria. So, for the people who already had access to this feature, this update won’t affect your access to these tools but we encourage you to turn creator mode on so you can highlight your content and the topics you talk about on your profile.
That’s all folks from the much-awaited month of November.
For us, November is one of my favorite months, as this month has so much to offer along with the flowing social media updates, new feature announcements, and social media platforms growing bigger than before. With winters starting in full swing, we get to enjoy Black Friday sales to the fullest as well. Investing into a few handy creative apps, video games and some self-care essentials was on my list this sale season.
We will be back again with another set of buzzing news and some major highlights from the last month of the year before 2022 starts. Until then, try these new exciting things from your favorite social media platforms and share your experience in the comment section below.
Stay tuned with Social Champ for more updates in the coming month. Cheers 😀
