Month of May saw many interesting social media updates which are directly beneficial to the users. Needless to say there were obviously a share of updates that put consumers at confusion and surprise. Also, it was a period of AI hype. Let’s see some of the significant social media updates that took place over the span of the last 30 days.
No more YouTube stories from June 26th
YouTube decided to retire its ‘Stories’ format from next month. It says that Community posts are much better at generating engagement and interaction. Also, with Shorts offering a similar, full-screen video experience, YouTube says that there are essentially better options than the Stories display.
Hence, no more YouTube Stories as of June 26th.
WhatsApp now lets you edit the sent message
WhatsApp now lets you edit your message sent up to 15 minutes after hitting the send button. There will be an edited mark on the message however history of the edit like what was edited and what’s the change etc won’t be available. Now you can edit the spelling errors which often happen due to auto-correct or while typing fastly. Also, 15 minutes is a good time to re-read your message and change the context if you feel any scope of miscommunication.
Twitter brings List search capacity on your desktop
Yay, now you can search for lists based on keywords of your choice, and check these lists for relevant mentions. Also, you can then add them as separate columns in TweetDeck, and set up alerts for specific keyword mentions by List members. It may help you grab the potential opportunities, by finding the right users to follow, and tweets to action.
You can monitor the Twitter lists by using the Lists tab (mobile or web). You can also pin lists as swipeable feeds in the main Twitter UI. Then you can easily flip over to topics of your interest. Remember that List tweets aren’t always topic specific. It’ll include all the tweets from people who commonly tweet about the chosen topic. But yes, they’re more niche-oriented than the general Twitter experience.
LinkedIn bringing more assurance to users via job listings verification
In its aim to enhance the trust in its job listings, LinkedIn is bringing a new verification feature which provides a listing of confirmed ID elements from that business. It includes whether the job poster is affiliated with an official company page, they have verified their work email or workplace, or their government ID was verified through CLEAR. (CLEAR is LinkedIn’s partner in the ID verification process.)
There will be an option to show verifications along with the job poster. Next time, make sure the job is from an authentic employer or company.
Instagram explains how algorithms of its feed, reels and stories work
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri published an overview of how Instagram’s ranking algorithms work. It could help you build an idea on how to maximise your content reach in IG’s main feed, Stories and Reels. Mosseri addressed some of the key concerns. He outlined the motivations behind how Instagram is trying to facilitate beneficial interactions.
Mosseri said that “Instagram doesn’t have a singular algorithm that oversees what people do and don’t see on the app. Each part of the app – Feed, Stories, Explore, Reels, Search and more – uses its own algorithm tailored to how people use it. People tend to look for their closest friends in Stories, use Explore to discover new content and creators and be entertained in Reels. We rank things differently in these different parts of the app, and have added features and controls like Close Friends, Favourites and Following so you can further customise your experience.”
TikTok is testing a new AI chatbot experience within the app- ‘Tako’
TikTok is following the AI hype and is generating an AI chatbot experience in the app similar to SnapChat’s ‘My AI’ generative response AI tool. It is currently being tested in the Philippines. TikTok’s ‘Tako’ chatbot is accessible via the right-hand on-screen menu where available.
The aim of Tako is more about helping users find relevant TikTok content matches for their questions and not providing answers to all queries. TikTok is not planning to release Tako to younger users at all, considering safety reasons. It will be hesitant to initiate a full launch of the functionality until its security concerns are met.
Yes, a lot of updates happened in May. And what we discussed above are few significant ones. Yes, it was surprising to hear that Youtube is retiring from ‘Stories’ however we have Shots. Whatsapp’s text editing feature is awesome and so are all other updates discussed above. The social media world keeps evolving and will fascinate us more.
