What's hot on social media right now: Features and updates
Whether you’re a casual social media user, a small business owner managing your own social media accounts, an influencer, or even a social media expert, it can be hard to stay on top of what’s hot on social media, whether that means content trends, popular and emerging platforms, new features, platform updates, and more!
We’re here to help you out a little bit and share what’s hot on social media right now – from new features to platform updates.
Before we get to new features and updates, don’t forget to check out our Social Media Trends 101 guide! It’ll take you through all the ways to find what’s hot and trending on social media, from trending topics, to memes, popular audio, and more.
Now onto the new features and updates!
First up, let’s talk about what’s new on Instagram this month and what you can expect to see soon!
All videos are now Reels: Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, recently announced that moving forward all videos on the app would be Reels. He also explained other new features for Instagram Reels such as Reels templates, “remix” improvements, dual camera usage and more. You can hear a little bit more about these features on his post here.
Purchase via DM: You can now make purchases via Direct Messages from qualified businesses on Instagram (US only for now). Purchases can be customized and confirmed through DM’s and then purchased through Instagram (via PayPal). Want to learn more? Check this out.
Notes: A new Notes feature has recently been introduced to Instagram, this feature, which can be viewed in the same area as your direct messages, allows users to share notes (think of them like Post-It notes) to followers and close friends list. Users can then reply to notes via direct message. If you want to know more about this feature and learn how to post a note, check out Instagram’s help page here.
Instagram is rolling out even MORE changes. That's right, the list of changes is not done yet...
Content sizing: Some users will now be seeing a change in content sizes, for example, images will be longer or taller vertically. For a breakdown (and a visual) of these new size changes, check out this new sizing guide.
Reels scheduling: Last, but certainly not least, users will now be able to schedule Instagram Reels through third party scheduling and management tools like Later or Sendible. We suggest checking with your specific scheduling/managing platform for more platform specific need-to-know information.
Next, let’s take a look at a few new changes that have recently come to Twitter.
Hashtag Discovery for Communities: Twitter Communities is now testing a feature that allows users in Twitter Communities to select a popular hashtag to discover relevant tweets connected to that specific topic.
Unmention feature: Have you ever been mentioned in a thread of tweets and wished you could remove yourself from the conversation? Well, now you can! If you want to unmention yourself, select a tweet you were mentioned in, click the 3 dots in the corner, and then select “Leave this conversation.” Leaving the conversation allows you to untag your name from the original tweet and all replies, stop people from mentioning you again in the thread conversation, and will stop you from receiving further notifications related to the conversation. You can, however, still view the conversation.
Side note: Who else would LOVE them to introduce an Edit Tweet feature?
This month, Facebook announced it would be adding a new “Feeds” tab in app. Currently, if you open your updated Facebook app, you should see a bottom toolbar with 6 sections including, Menu, Home, Notifications, and more. This is where you can now find the Feeds tab. Feeds allows you to view the most recent posts from your friends, groups, and pages. There is also a favourites section that you can customize and manage to display posts from selected friends and pages.
What changes are you excited (or not thrilled) for? And what updates would you like to see on your favourite platforms? We’d love to know!
Does managing social media, creating content, and keeping track of all the changes, updates, and trends sound exhausting and overwhelming? We can help! Book your FREE 20-minute consultation here.