Staying up to date with trends and new releases in the social media and search engine marketing realm is a top priority at Wordy Girl Creative.
New features are often celebrated, but sometimes they’re a cause for pause, like the MetaVerse or Instagram’s new “Shake Violently to Report a Technical Issue” feature. Per my usual quote on this: “[They] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should,” as Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park.
Please add an invisible “(Cough Cough Facebook)” title under both the Meta and Instagram headers.
Here’s my deep dive into the ever-evolving social media landscape:
Meta Releases Widely Viewed Content
“Facebook’s obsession with managing its reputation often gets in the way of its attempts to clean up its platform,” Kevin Roose, New York Times Reporter, said.
After a debacle with Facebook-owned CrowdTangle and a Twitter account called @FacebooksTop10 (Google this for the full scoop!), the social media giant had a knee-jerk reaction and launched the new “Widely Viewed Content” tool.
Now you can see Facebook’s most widely viewed content at transparency.fb.com, which is quite educational, whether you’re wanting to keep up with algorithm knowledge or are simply curious about how social media culture is shifting.
The concerning part of this is that the number one viewed page in 2021, with 121.8 million views, is titled “This Page was Removed by Facebook for Violating Community Standards.”
This brings to mind some advice my first boss gave me: “If you find yourself in the hole, the best thing to do first is…stop digging.”
Instagram Automations & Upgrades
On a more positive note, Instagram has released some automation tools that could make both your personal and business time spent on the platform more efficient and effective.
The biggest news is that Instagram now allows links in messages. While links in captions are the dream, links in messages allow businesses to respond to inquiries with a link to their website or another resource. Talk about streamlining messaging conversations!
Second, both landscape and portrait images can be easily shared in messages now, allowing you to skip an extra photo editing session. Also, the platform reported that the new vanish and save options on messages have upped their DM users by 75 million.
Lastly, and perhaps equally as exciting as links, is the video caption automation tool. I’ve yet to dive into this, but I’m already pumped. Buh-bye to extra video post-production time!
LinkedIn Launches “Future of Skills” Tool
This new tool has the potential to change the game for job seekers. Via this new feature, you can search a specific country, industry or job title, and view a list of trending job skills.
This list is reportedly based on the skills users are posting on their profiles, not the ones job posters are including on listings.
From a marketing and promotions perspective, this could be used similarly to the Google Keyword Planner, showing keywords related to target markets. I.e., if you’re targeting artists, hop on and grab a list of the keywords listed in art industry profiles to ramp up your ad copy.
Keeping up with new features is a great way to ensure you’re always tweaking your social media marketing strategy to get the right eyes on your content.
What new social media developments are you most excited about? We’d love to hear from you on Facebook or the blog!
Until next time.
Cheers,
Wordy Girl
