Welcome to this week’s edition of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a news show for marketers who want to stay on the leading edge of social media.
On this week’s Social Media Marketing Talk Show, we explore new LinkedIn posting tools, new Instagram features being tested, new Facebook Ad Manager app creative tools, and other breaking social media marketing news of the week!
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LinkedIn Introduces Video Captions, Articles Quotes, Translations, and More: LinkedIn introduced several new improvements to help members start conversations on the platform. These new features include the option to add closed captioning to videos posted from the desktop, as well as the ability to easily highlight and share quotes from LinkedIn articles and save drafts of posts to edit and complete later on mobile. (4:10)
LinkedIn is also rolling out a new Me tab, which offers a “quick and easy” shortcut to all of the content members have shared, written, or recorded for the site.
Last month, LinkedIn introduced a See Translation button on posts that are in a different language than you speak. LinkedIn confirmed that this new feature is currently rolling out to both desktop and mobile.
LinkedIn Rolls Out Several New Updates to LinkedIn Messaging: In addition to rolling out improvements to news feed posts, LinkedIn also debuted several new features to LinkedIn Messaging. The company added an expandable message compose box and the ability to send attachments and start a group chat on LinkedIn Messaging on mobile. LinkedIn also added the option to include emojis in messages sent from the desktop, @mention people, and seamlessly copy and paste images from screenshots or the web into your LinkedIn messages. (12:45)
Instagram Tests Ability to Remove Followers From Public Accounts: The Verge reports that Instagram is widely testing the ability to manually remove followers from public profiles. Users with private Instagram accounts have always had the ability to remove followers and limit access to their content. This new experimental feature extends the same level of direct control to a few selected public accounts on Android devices. (22:15)
Instagram Test Reaction Emojis for Stories: Instagram appears to be testing a new Facebook reaction-style emoji response for Instagram Stories. A similar feature was rolled out for Facebook Stories last month. This experimental feature was spotted by SupraBo and shared by Matt Navarra. (26:32)
Instagram Upgrades Two-Factor Authentication: Instagram accounts currently only offer two-factor authentication through SMS delivery of password reset or login codes, which make them particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks and hacking. The company confirms it’s building a non-SMS two-factor authentication system that would rely on security apps such as Google Authenticator or Duo instead. (30:22)
Facebook Adds New Creative Tools for Ads Manager App: Facebook rolled out a new suite of creative tools for the Ads Manager app “that makes it easier to build compelling ad content right from your mobile device.” These new creative tools include the ability to incorporate text; crop images; and add stickers, logos, and more into your ads. It also includes fully customizable ad templates and color filters to further embellish and improve the quality of your ads directly within the app.
Facebook Tests Branded Content Labels on Posts: Facebook appears to be testing a new About This Partnership tag for sponsored posts that details the relationship among brands and the publishers who post ads for them. This possible new label was first spotted by Jenny Earnest and shared by Matt Navarra.
Facebook Rolls Out Option to Sync Instagram Contacts to Messenger: Facebook launched a new feature in Messenger that allows users to connect and pull their contacts from Instagram. This new feature was first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong and has since been spotted by users around the world.
YouTube Features Searchable Hashtags Above Video Titles: YouTube has started displaying the first three hashtags within a video’s description above the title and at the bottom of the video. Android Police reports that the hashtags are clickable and will bring up a results page with other videos tagged with the same hashtag. The website will even display the top three hashtags at the bottom of the video and above its title. Hashtags have been spotted on both the web and on mobile. Engadget reports this new feature “might still be in the midst of rolling out or available only in the US and other select locations” on Android devices but doesn’t appear to be available on iOS.
Snapchat Launches News Partnership Initiative: Snapchat partnered with four news-focused discovery platforms – NewsWhip, Storyful, SAM Desk, and TagBoard – to give journalists access to better tools that will help them uncover Snap pictures and videos during breaking news stories. These news organizations will now have full access to all publicly available snaps and content shared on the app’s Discover channels, the same way they have access to publicly available Facebook and Twitter posts.
Twitter Puts Verification Fix on Hold: Last November, Twitter paused all general account verifications “to address confusion around what it means to be verified.” This week, Twitter announced plans to pause its work to overhaul the verification process for the next few weeks. While admitting there’s still more work to be done, Twitter cites concerns about the quality and integrity of information shared on its platform ahead of the upcoming election season for this decision.
We’ve heard some questions recently about the status of Verification on Twitter, so wanted to address directly. Updating our verification program isn’t a top priority for us right now (election integrity is). Here’s some history & context, and how we plan to put it on our roadmap
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) July 17, 2018