Social Media Buzz Weekly: Roundup of Social Media Updates

Welcome to Social Media Buzz Weekly, your weekly bulletin of the latest social media updates. With the social media landscape evolving with each passing day, it can be challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments. Well, not anymore, as we have taken it upon ourselves to keep you abreast of every happening in the social media space.

So, without any further ado, let’s take a look at some of the most significant developments from the last week in the world of social media.

1. Twitter Invites Businesses to Sign-Up for ‘Verification for Organizations’

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-early-access-waitlist-organization-verification-093816293.html

Twitter is now inviting businesses to sign-up for its coming ‘Verification for Organizations’ subscription offering, which will effectively be Twitter’s replacement for the current verification process for business users.

This means that you can now sign-up for the waitlist for the new business verification offering, by adding your business’s Twitter handle and contact details to the list. According to Twitter, you’ll get the new gold checkmark for your brand, with the current blue ticks set to eventually be taken away from legacy verified accounts. Twitter hasn’t provided a date as to when that will occur, but essentially, if you want to keep your business verification, you’ll eventually have to sign-up for this new program - which will also see your brand logo added to employee accounts, as approved by you.

2. Meta Launches New Legal Action Against Data Scraping Companies

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/01/leading-the-fight-against-scraping-for-hire/

Meta has filed legal action against Voyager Labs in the federal court in California.

Meta alleges that Voyager Labs used proprietary software to launch scraping campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Telegram. The question around the legality of scraping publicly accessible sites has been long debated, with LinkedIn battling for years to stop a company from using its publicly available user info to fuel its own service.

3. TikTok’s Testing a New Option to Help Facilitate More Brand Deals for Top Creators in the App

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/12/tiktok-launches-a-talent-manager-portal-so-managers-can-negotiate-brand-deals-for-clients/#:~:text=The%20new%20service%20allows%20talent,metrics%20about%20a%20campaign's%20performance.

TikTok’s adding a new ‘Talent Manager’ element to Creator marketplace, where agents and representatives will be able to oversee brand deals for their clients.

Through this new portal, agents will be able to manage all aspects of their clients’ listings, including any brand deals being offered through the marketplace app. Agents won’t have access to the creators’ actual TikTok account, but the platform will enable them to manage how their talent is being displayed to brands, which could help to refine and improve their sponsored content pitch.

4. Meta Will Now Enable You to Connect Your Heart Rate Monitor to its VR App

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/01/track-fitness-stats-on-quest-heart-rate-monitoring-android-integration/

Meta’s adding a new heart-rate tracking element to its Quest VR headsets, which will enable you to synch your heart rate monitor with the app to track your response to various VR experiences.

According to Meta, with its new heart rate feature, you’ll be able to see your heart rate, when measured by a Bluetooth-enabled heart rate monitor, even while you’re in a VR workout.

5. New Report Shows that Time Spent Using Social Apps Rose to New Highs in 2022

https://www.redmention.com/news/new-report-exhibits-that-time-spent-utilizing-social-apps-rose-to-new-highs-in-2022/

data.ai, the company formerly known as App Annie, has published its annual overview of app performance trends, highlighting all the key shifts and developments of note in 2022. The 91-page report includes a heap of insights across various app sectors.

The report notes that total time spent using social apps rose 17% year-over-year, now surpassing 2 trillion hours on Android phones in 2022. Clearly, social apps continue to dominate attention, with mobile video increasingly taking up more and more user time, which remains a key trend of note for marketers looking to maximize attention and reach.

6. YouTube Adds New Analytics Updates, with a Focus on Shorts Content

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-adds-new-analytics-updates-with-a-focus-on-shorts-content/640194/

YouTube has announced a range of new analytics and display options in its first Creator Insider update of the year, including new data on subscriber growth, Shorts thumbnails, new subscriber recognition options, and more.

The global online video-sharing platform is adding a new element to YouTube Studio which will display a breakdown of subscribers gained by each content type, providing more context on video performance. It is also rolling out a new option that will enable Shorts creators to select a frame from their Short to be used as a thumbnail during the initial upload process. That will give Shorts creators another way to customize their content, and maximize response, while YouTube also notes that it’s working on new ways to further customize Shorts thumbnails in the future. The option to select a frame for your Shorts thumbnail is only available on Android at this stage.

7. Twitter Rolls Out New, Swipeable Feed of Only Users That You Follow in the App

https://www.socialnationnow.com/twitter-launches-new-app-only-swipeable-feed-for-users-you-follow/

Twitter has rolled out its new swipeable timeline option, which will make it easier for users to switch between the algorithm-defined main feed (which includes recommended tweets from people you don’t follow), and a chronological feed of just users that you follow in the app.

Interestingly, Twitter had already launched this option in March last year, with an option to pin a swipeable feed of ‘Latest tweets’ after you tapped on the star icon in the top right of the app. The new process is essentially the same, though Twitter’s renamed the feeds for ‘For You’ and ‘Following’, as opposed to ‘Home and ‘Latest Tweets’.

8. YouTube’s New Shorts Monetization Process Will Come Into Effect in February

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/9/23547059/youtube-shorts-ad-revenue-split-february-partner-program

YouTube’s new process for monetizing Shorts, which will see revenue from ads displayed between Shorts clips shared among eligible creators in the app, will come into effect from February 1st.

YouTube first announced the new revenue share program in September last year, and it has the potential to change the way that all platforms monetize short-form video content. The challenge with short clips is that you can’t directly monetize them through pre- or mid-roll ads like regular video uploads, which presents a new challenge for effective monetization.

9. Meta Expands Ad Targeting Restrictions for Teens, Adds New Ad Control Center for Young Users

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/meta-adds-additional-ad-targeting-restrictions-for-teen-users/640287/

Following on from its already established restrictions on targeting younger users, which remove interest and activity as parameters for these audiences, Meta will now also remove gender as an option for advertisers to reach teens.

That’ll further limit advertiser capacity to focus their ads based on specific targeting, while Meta’s also removing in-app engagement - like following certain Instagram profiles or Facebook Pages – as a measure to inform the ads that teens see.

Wrapping Up

And that was a wrap of this week’s Social Media Buzz. We’ll be back next Monday with more news and updates for you from the social media world. Till then, stay tuned!

If you want to read more on the latest developments taking place in the social media space, take a look at ClickInsights’ Social Media Buzz, wherein we bring to you monthly reports on everything going on in social media, ranging from platform updates to policy changes that influence the way we market.