Summer has been in full swing; boy it’s been a hot one for most of us. Talking of hot things, let’s dive into the hottest social media news around. Bringing you the latest and greatest updates from the world of social media.
Twitter Launching New ‘Pin Reply’ Option soon
Ever had a tweet reply from your favourite band, brand or just a great response that you want to give exposure to?
Fear not, soon you’ll be able to pin replies to tweets that you love! Discovered by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchum Wong, tweet HQ seems to be readying the feature for an imminent release.
Looking closely at what Wong has discovered, there seems to be a new introductory screen explaining the feature, this was first reported in testing back in May by Wong, these examples show reply pinning in action, which, seems like a fairly straightforward process, working in the same way you would pin one of your own tweets.
As stated previously this is awesome all-round for brands and personal accounts alike. Whether for showcasing a celeb response you want to show off or highlighting a positive comment or review on brand products and services. It could encourage Twitter communities to get a little more creative with their replies too
All in all, it’s a great addition to see and it adds another control element to your tweeting experience. Twitter seems to have been hitting the gas hard this year, giving users tools over the last twelve months. Reply controls, to communities and removing yourself from a tweet conversation. All are aimed at improving how tweeters engage and interact within the app.
Whilst, not an earth-shattering change, it will be interesting to see how users engage with this once live and how social media professionals add this into their tweet process, watch this space as it’s coming soon!
TikTok Launches New Ad Targeting Transparency Tools
In other social media news, TikTok is empowering users with more insight into how their personal data is used for ad targeting in the app. This comes in the form of a new ‘About this Ad’ info panel, outlining all the various targeting elements that TikTok used to target an ad to a particular user.
TikTok explains:
“We’re introducing a new ‘About this ad’ feature, so users will be able to tap on any ad in their feed and view some reasons why we’re showing this particular ad to them. This is another step we’re taking to bring more transparency into our advertising practices and help users understand how ads work on TikTok.”
As can be seen in the example sequence, by tapping on the ‘About this Ad’ button in the ad info screen you’ll be presented with more info about the ad that has been presented to you. There is also the option to switch off ad personalization based on third-party data, however, whether turned on or off, TikTok will still be able to use your in-app activity in its ad targeting process.
This update will align TikTok more with other social apps, which offer similar ad transparency features. Giving users more ownership and oversight of ads they see, and data used. At the end of the day, it will also help advertisers too, ensuring their ads are seen by their intended audience.
Instagram Enters Next Stage of Developing its Native Scheduling Tools
App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi has shared a screenshot which clearly shows Instagram is developing a scheduling process from right within the app, eventually allowing users to schedule all their posts, along with Reels and Stories. Pretty neat!
Although regular IG posts and Stories have been available to schedule in Creator Studio, they have yet to become available from within the IG app itself, this may prove to be a hugely valuable option, it could be life-changing for social media managers that are on the go for instance.Meta has also recently announced a new Reels API, which is likely to allow users to schedule Reels content via third-party management tools, we can’t wait!But having the capacity to schedule directly from the in-app workflow, rather than having to schedule within other software is bound to appeal to a lot of users, cutting down on time spent dealing with different platforms. Even if you want to continue using a scheduling platform external to the Instagram app, it’s still nice to know the ability will be there if you find yourself away from a desktop etc.We can’t wait to see this go live, as we know a lot of social media managers for whom this will be a game-changer.
That wraps up another social media news roundup for us, we hope you’ve all had a fun and productive summer. Importantly we hope you had some well-deserved time off to enjoy the lush weather.
We will of course be back next month for another dose of social media news, until then, head to our blogs section for more social media expertise from the Giraffe team.
