Latest on Social Media : News & Updates

If you’ve been paying attention, there has been a ton of news and updates coming out of Silicon Valley as of late. From Facebook's Single Relevance Score divide into three, to LinkedIn's Live Video, to Twitters subtitles for native videos, there are exciting things coming soon that you should to be aware of.

Like I always say, its important to know the state of social media and whats up-and-coming so you can adjust your strategies if needed and/or add addition practices to better them. So here's what you need to know:

"Check Out" on Instagram

Instagram has introduced a new shopping feature that will allow you to stay in app instead of jumping over to that specific stores website.

"When you tap to view a product from a brand’s shopping post, you’ll see a 'Checkout on Instagram' button on the product page. Tap it to select from various options such as size or color, then you’ll proceed to payment without leaving Instagram. You’ll only need to enter your name, email, billing information and shipping address the first time you check out."

After you finish your very first order, your billing information will be securely saved so the next time you shop it will be a simple and swift experience. But wait, that's not all, you'll also receive notifications about shipment and delivery right inside Instagram, so you can keep track of your purchase. Below are some images of how it will look:

As of right now, "Checkout on Instagram" is currently in closed beta for businesses and available to people in the US. Instagram released this feature to some brands so you can start shopping on these stores' Instagram accounts today and over the coming weeks.

• Adidas - @adidaswomen & @adidasoriginals
• Anastasia Beverly Hills - @anastasiabeverlyhills
• Balmain - @balmain
• Burberry - @burberry
• ColourPop - @colourpopcosmetics
• Dior - @dior
• H&M - @hm
• Huda Beauty - @hudabeautyshop
• KKW - @kkwbeauty
• Kylie Cosmetics - @kyliecosmetics
• MAC Cosmetics - @maccosmetics
• Michael Kors - @michaelkors
• NARS - @narsissist
• Nike - @niketraining & @nikewomen
• NYX Cosmetics - @nyxcosmetics
• Oscar de la Renta - @oscardelarenta
• Ouai Hair - @theouai
• Outdoor Voices - @outdoorvoices
• Prada - @prada
• Revolve - @revolve
• Uniqlo - @uniqlo
• Warby Parker - @warbyparker
• Zara - @zara

WIRED says this new feature will be a digital mall. "Instagram's New Shopping Feature Makes It a Digital Mall." One thing is very clear, shopping online and on social will be the future.

A Conversation

Mark Zuckerberg sat down with Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Europe’s largest publisher Axel Springer, for his second conversation of his 2019 personal challenge. They discussed "the role quality journalism plays in building informed communities and the principles Facebook should use for building a news tab to surface more high quality news." They also covered the privacy-focused vision Mark laid out for the future of social networking and the four ideas for internet regulations he published over the weekend. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth watching.

The "Single Relevance Score" is Divided Into Three

Facebook also announced that they’re replacing their single ad relevance score with three new “granular ad relevance diagnostics metrics.” These three new metrics are:

• Quality ranking: This tells you the perceived quality of your ad compared with those that are trying to reach the same audience. Which means that this metric isn’t totally in your control, and it’s a comparative metric.
• Engagement rate ranking: This will tell you the expected engagement rate Facebook thinks your ad will get compared with ads targeting the same audience.
• Conversion rate ranking: This looks at the expected conversion rate compared to ads that are targeting the same optimization goal and audience.

Facebook’s algorithms will still play an important role in your relevance score, which is why you’re seeing the term “expected” pop up so much here, and the relevance score metrics can be impacted as your campaign progresses.

The new relevance score will start rolling out at the end of next month, so keep an eye out.

"Why Am I Seeing This?"

Facebook also introduced “Why am I seeing this post?” to help you better understand and more easily control what you see from friends, Pages and Groups in your News Feed.

You will now be able to tap on posts in your News Feed, get necessary context on why they’re appearing, and take action to further personalize what you see.

For more details on this new feature check out Facebook's Newsroom post.

Dark Mode

Facebook Messenger has introduced a "Dark Mode" to help prevent screen glare. They are still in the testing process but an incomplete version of the feature has been rolled out in some countries.

"Facebook Messenger, seemingly due to prolonged external nagging, has started public testing Dark Mode in certain countries. They have put up a fair warning that Dark Mode isn't everywhere yet so don't complain when some UI burns your eyes off." web app developer Jane Wong wrote on Twitter.

The reason for this new feature is because previous studies have suggested blue light emitted from the screens of laptops and smartphones can contribute to blindness.

“Looking at artificial blue light for prolonged periods may increase eye strain and affect sleep patterns, so using ‘Dark Mode’ may help with this," Henry Leonard, optometrist and head of clinical and regulatory at the Association of Optometrists, told The Independent.

Messenger Message Threads

Facebook announced that message replies are launching globally for the more than 1.3 billion people who use Messenger. Long-pressing on the text to which you want to reply and tapping on the "Reply" icon kicks things off; you’re able to respond to individual GIFs, videos, emoji, text, and photo messages. And thankfully, replies don’t interfere with the text thread: The original message remains visible after it’s been responded to.

This follows a year in which Facebook recommitted to “streamlining” and “simplifying” the Messenger experience.

“Over the last two years, we built a lot of capabilities to find the features that continue to set us apart. A lot of them have found their product market fit; some haven’t,” he wrote. “While we raced to build these new features, the app became too cluttered. Expect to see us invest in massively simplifying and streamlining Messenger this year,” David Marcus said in January 2018.

Subtitles for Native Video

Twitter announced that video publishers will now be able to include .SRT subtitles that can be viewed via the web, iOS and Android. However, it will also continue to support their CEA-style captions, which can be turned on via the accessibility settings on their iOS and Android devices.

Around the world, 466 million people in the world are deaf or hard of hearing. The ability to effectively and easily subtitle videos is beneficial to deaf and hard-of-hearing users, but also for individuals viewing this content without sound. 90% of people view video with the sound off on social media. So, this is a good move by Twitter.

"Subtitles provide context and clarity to video content. Publishers on Twitter have long advocated for the ability to provide this context to their audiences through the use of subtitles, particularly in sound-off scenarios. Videos in the Twitter timeline autoplay with the sound off, which is why we’re excited to announce the support of .SRT subtitle display on web, iOS, and Android.", announced Twitter.

For more details on this new feature check out Group Product Manager, Matt Dennebaum's latest blog.

Subscribe to Conversation

Twitter has confirmed it’s developing a feature that would allow users to subscribe to individual conversations taking place on its platform. The new option was first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong, a reverse engineer who often peeks inside popular apps to discover their yet-to-be-launched features and changes.

Wong tells TechCrunch she found the “Subscribe to conversation” feature within the Android version of the Twitter app, where it’s a user interface prototype for now. Wong reached for comment from Twitter but they didn’t provide details about specific launch plans, though they did confirm it's under development.

The new subscription feature would allow you to follow a thread without directly signaling your interest, or having to join in the conversation yourself. With a click of the button, you could instead opt to receive notifications when new tweets were added to that conversation.

To get up-to-date info on these new features, follow Jane Manchun Wong Twitter account.

LinkedIn recently launched live video, giving people and organizations the ability to broadcast real-time to select groups, or to the LinkedIn world at large.

Initial live content that LinkedIn hopes to broadcast lines up with the kind of subject matter you might already see in LinkedIn’s news feed: the plan is to cover conferences, product announcements, Q&As and other events led by influencers and mentors, office hours from a big tech company, earnings calls, graduation and awards ceremonies and much more.

LinkedIn has been a late bloomer when it comes to video but better late then never, right? Live video has been a big request from its community because of how video is being used on other social platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

It’s not clear when and if LinkedIn will make it possible for everyone to create LinkedIn Live videos but make sure you are following them closely so you don't miss out.

So as always, take this, sort through the information, and figure out what will benefit you the most. Not everyone will need to add these new features but the majority I'm sure will enjoy them.

Good luck out there and here's to your success!