In social media news this month, Facebook offers tips to video creators and Instagram updates their reels feature. Plus, LinkedIn and Pinterest both jump on the stories bandwagon.
Facebook offers tips to video creators
We all know video can be a tricky medium to master, so it’s welcome news that Facebook have kindly decided to help content creators out.
The lovely folks at Facebook HQ have published a 14-page guide this month, packed full of tips and tricks for anyone making video content. The guide is split into two sections; maximising content production and building a community, and features a bullet pointed overview pages followed by in depth notes.
The Facebook guide to video production can be found here.
LinkedIn offers stories to all users
LinkedIn have had a busy month. Not only have they managed to launch a fresh new pastel interface, but they’ve also started rolling out a stories-style feature to users across the globe.
Previously only tested in certain countries, LinkedIn have begun expanding the availability worldwide. The thinking behind the addition of stories is that professional people and organisations can show snapshots from their day. It’s puzzling some people, however, and the overall consensus seems to be that stories have no place on a platform designed mainly for networking and job-hunting. Will it catch on? Time will tell.
Instagram updates reels feature
It might have only been introduced a month ago, but that’s not stopped Instagram from updating reels, their newest feature to date.
Designed as a competitor to TikTok, Instagram originally set the time limit of its short video feature at 15 seconds. They’ve now extended this to 30 seconds, which allows for greater creativity for users when they’re filming and making content. The timer has been changed from three to 10 seconds, and people can also now trim and delete clips.
The new time limit still doesn’t bring reels into line with TikTok, which allows videos of up to a minute long. Additionally, the editing features are handy, but don’t match up to those offered by TikTok – which make it easy to create a fairly polished final video.
It seems that so far, reels isn’t much of a threat to TikTok. But with an uncertain future in the US, it could be only a matter of time before Instagram takes over as the leader in video content.
Pinterest launches story pins
Refusing to be left behind, Pinterest has announced the news that it’s going to be jumping on the stories bandwagon. Presumably deciding that it’s better late than never, the platform began testing their newest design of pin this month.
Story pins are, essentially, the same as stories on other platforms; a full screen, short video with options for text overlays and voiceovers. The difference is that the story pins remain on the main feed, as opposed to in a separate area. They also don’t disappear after 24 hours either.
Initially only available to certain creators in the US, anybody interested in registering for story pins can sign up here.
