Social Media News Roundup: Jan 2021
With 2021 well underway it’s easy to miss the latest updates in the world of social media. Fear not as Giraffe Social Media has you covered for the latest developments and inspiration to keep your social media marketing and strategy game strong all year long.
LinkedIn: Swipe-Up Links added to LinkedIn Stories.
LinkedIn has now given users the ability to add in links to their LinkedIn Stories, although it should be noted that this may not be available to all users from the get-go. Essentially LinkedIn has enabled users to add a ‘See more’ prompt to stories that can be edited with a customised URL of the users choosing. URL’s are added via a newly added ‘link’ icon in story options and can be previewed and edited before publication. Viewers can then access the link in a similar fashion to that used by Instagram by swiping up on the screen.
It’s worth noting that as per LinkedIn, the feature has limited availability right now, limited to:
- LinkedIn Pages.
- Individual members who have at least 5.000 connections or followers and the follow button as the primary action on their profile (instead of Connect).
These stipulations, for the time being, put the feature beyond the reach of many individual users. However, there will clearly be an increased benefit to business and brand stories; pushing for click-through links to website landing pages to boost engagement.
LinkedIn is looking to’ keep up with the jones’s’, in terms of adding the feature to the platform in order to compete with emerging content behaviours. It may seem like a strange move for a platform known for its traditional news feed. However, with most social media platforms adopting similar features more and more users are becoming comfortable with ‘stories’ as a way to engage and express themselves LinkedIn needed a way to compete in this area as well as give brands another tool for their arsenal to drive engagement. Only time will tell if this turns into a success for LinkedIn.
Running along the same theme, stories seem to be a point of focus this month with Facebook also making adjustments, read on for more on this.
Facebook To Remove ‘Our Story’ Section from Pages
Facebook has started sending out alerts to Facebook Page owners of an incoming update that will see the removal of the ‘Our Story’ section in the Page’s ‘About’ information section. This will now be moved to another section called ‘Additional information,’ when alerted admins will need to transfer any relevant brand info across to the new section. This brings about a fundamental change in Facebook Page outlines, with Facebook wanting to eliminate cramped up ‘About’ sections as well as copy and paste duplication which a lot of brands are guilty of.
Originally Facebook intended the story section to provide a way for businesses to show on brand information quickly and effectively to potential followers. However, over time these sections no longer align to the clean and clutter-free look Facebook wishes brands to present. The new Additional Information section hopes to alleviate this issue and will feature all the extra details brands what their customers and visitors to see when visiting their Facebook Page.
As mentioned previously Facebook is rolling out alerts to Page owners and admins of the upcoming changes, which it seems will need to be edited manually by heading to settings and editing Page info.
These changes should add a new cleaner focus to Page presentation without disrupting user and follower interaction whilst ensuring brand information is more impactful and meaningful on their Facebook Main Page. Admins keep an eye on your inboxes as this change is said to be going live from 28th February 2021.
TikTok Adds New Q&A Option, Enabling Fans to Post Questions for Creators
It seems that TikTok is looking to promote engagement between creators and their followers through the use of a new Q & A feature, where followers can post questions for creators to answer in future video content. The feature was first spotted by Social media consultant Matt Navarra and shared on his Twitter account.
Selected creators now have the option to turn on the Q & A feature via their profile. Once enabled followers can navigate to a creators profile to pose questions via the comments section, where a new icon sits, (A speech bubble with a question mark inside). Once tapped users will be presented with a question composer in order to submit their questions. Creators can then use these questions as a jumping-off point for new content ideas, whilst other profile visitors will also be able to see all previously posted questions too. Users will also be able to like posted questions as a form of a voting system to ensure the most popular options get addressed by creators.
The feature seems to be rolling out slowly and will be an exciting way for creators to improve engagement with their followers and improve the relationship between the two. TikTok gains by keeping users and creators engaged for an increased period of time; strengthening communities across the whole platform.
