Push away those January blues with a dose of social media news from Giraffe. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Better than focusing on those new years resolutions that are already faltering right! Read on for your monthly update! We promise it’s not all about Elon musk… Honest!
Twitter Launches Updated Tweet View Count Display
Twitter has updated its new view count display; Twitter chief Elon Musk believes this change will encourage more Tweeters to engage in tweet conversations.
Last month, Twitter rolled out its new view counter display on all tweets, helping to provide more context as to the reach of tweeted content. Unfortunately whilst a few found the new insights it provided useful, it came under fire from most for messing up the balance of tweet metric displays.
Twitter has listened and has now launched n update display, with view counts moved to the right of tweet metrics listings.
As per Twitter support:
“Many of you didn’t like seeing view counts on the left. We heard you. View counts will now show on the right side of your Tweet, located between the Like and Share icons. Live on web, iOS and Android coming soon!”
This is a simple yet improved solution that still displays total tweet impressions but doesn’t convolute the existing tweet UI. Although the jury is still out on just how useful it will be over time.
Twitter has actually tried showing view counts several times in the past, including in September last year, just prior Elon’s takeover at the app. Those experiments didn’t yield great results or help to improve tweet engagement.
Elon Musk however believes that it will be a winner moving forward and that showing Tweeters how many people have seen their comments will encourage more engagement.
As with any new social media feature, the public will decide, and in time we will find out if people care about tweet reach one way or another.
Instagram Set to put More Focus on Photos in 2023
Instagram purists rejoice! Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has stated that the platform has gone too hard on promoting videos! Go figure! He states photos, once again will have more focus heading into 2023.
Mosseri went on record during his weekly O & A series via his IG stories to state:
“I think we were overfocused on video in 2022 and pushed ranking too far, and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos. We’ve since balanced, so things like how often someone likes photos versus videos, and how often someone comments on photos versus videos, are roughly equal, which is a good sign that things are balanced.”
This comes as excellent news for long term Instagram users who have wanted to see a return to the apps roots, with more focus on photo content. It is hard to argue that the app has strayed far more towards the likes of TikTok in the last couple of years. Reels in particular has seemingly taken over user’s feeds, changing the feel of the app entirely.
It has to be said that recently Instagram has been chasing the latest trends, rather than focusing on its core identity and carving out a well-defined niche. Rising to popularity on the back of still images, allowing it’s users to post and share memories or photography compositions as an interactive photo album was it’s primary focus.
Stories changes all this and saw a younger user base embrace this new visual focus, which Meta saw as the perfect Segway into taking market share away from competitor, Snapchat, Stories quickly became a key focus for the growth of the app.
However it is nice to see Instagram realigning their focus onto some of the core values of what made Instagram great, as we look forward to seeing this put into practice over the coming year.
LinkedIn Boosting Newsletter Discovery by Showcasing Newsletters Users are Subscribed to
In other social media news, LinkedIn is looking to make finding relevant newsletters easier, by enabling a new option that allows for members to view which newsletters another member is subscribed to in app.
LinkedIn broke it down:
“We’ve heard from members that newsletters on LinkedIn are a great way to gather new insights and ideas on professional topics that they care about. We’ve also heard that members are looking for better ways to discover even more newsletters that would be relevant to them. To aid in this discovery, we are making newsletter subscriptions visible to others, including on profiles. Starting February 11th, 2023, you’ll be able to see which newsletters members find value in, the same way you can see your shared interests, pages and groups.”
LinkedIn newsletters are part of its Creator Mode offering, once users switch this on they are able to create their own newsletters in app, these are the shared to subscribers via in-app/email notifications. This was added alongside the capacity for Company Pages to create their own newsletters early last year.
Whilst Twitter & Meta have abandoned their attempts at newsletters, LinkedIn seem to have found traction with their implementation and is helping to build more connections for creators via newsletter outreach. This new capacity to see what newsletters a user is subscribed to will help bolster this. If content is good, fellow industry professionals are likely to be interested in what each other are subscribed to, giving more exposure, and garnering more subscribers. Which can only be a good thing for companies and users alike.
And like that the first month of 2023 is gone, we may not have stuck to our new year’s resolutions, but we did keep Elon Musk news to a minimum this month as promised! Result. We will catch you next month for more social media news updates. Remember you can check out our blogs for social media marketing expertise from Giraffe.
