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 look at some of the most significant developments from the last week in the world of social media.

1. Meta Winds Down NFT Projects to Focus on Other Elements

https://decrypt.co/123379/instagram-winding-down-nfts-to-focus-on-creators-and-businesses

Meta has announced that it’s ending its NFT display projects, across both Facebook and Instagram, as it re-aligns its resources around evolving priorities.

Meta first announced its foray into NFTs in April last year, at the tail end of the initial hype cycle, led by big-name NFT projects including Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cryptopunks. A month later, it launched a live test of NFTs on Instagram with selected US creators and collectors.

2. Meta Threatens to Ban Canadian News Outlets from Facebook Due to New Online News Act

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/meta-block-news-liberal-online-bill-1.6776485

Meta has threatened to remove Canadian news outlets from Facebook entirely if the Canadian Government goes ahead with its plan of implementing a new Online News Act, which would effectively force major platforms like Meta and Google to negotiate commercial deals with local news publishers.

While the Canadian Government is seeking to address imbalances in the local media market, where Meta and Google have gradually taken more and more of the ad market share, Meta has argued that it doesn’t actually need news content, as per the basis of the legislation, given that most users don’t come to its platforms for news access.

3. Meta Pauses Reels Bonus Program as it Develops a New Ad Revenue Share System

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/10/meta-will-stop-offering-reels-bonuses-to-creators-on-facebook-and-instagram/

Meta has announced that it is pausing its Reels Play bonus program in the US, in order to focus on a revenue share system instead.

The move comes as little surprise, given the challenges that all platforms have had in implementing effective short-form monetization programs. Meta’s also working on ad revenue share for Reels with Facebook chief Tom Alison providing a general overview of its efforts in this area.

4. Facebook Depreciates Hashtag Topics in Groups

https://www.redmention.com/news/fb-depreciates-hashtag-subjects-in-teams/

Facebook has announced that hashtag topics in groups, which were added in 2019, will be depreciated next month. Group managers are now being notified that the Group Topics option is going away. The latest move will lessen group admins’ ability to categorize different discussions in the app, which had initially been seen as a means to better sort group conversations.

5. TikTok Partners with Dentsu on New Campaign Performance Tracking Solution

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-partners-with-dentsu-on-new-campaign-performance-tracking-solution/644735/

TikTok is looking to help marketers continue to track engagement data, despite the gradual shift away from cookie tracking, via a new partnership with Dentsu, which will provide alternative web tracking via Dentsu’s ‘Digital X’ process.

The new process will enable advertisers to track user data via the TikTok Events API, which will be integrated into X-Stack. Essentially, the integration will enable greater response tracking to measure the effectiveness of your TikTok campaigns, even as cookie tracking is phased out.

6. Denmark’s Public Broadcaster Bans TikTok from Work Devices in Latest Restriction of the App

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/danish-defense-ministry-bans-employees-from-using-tiktok-on-official-devices/2838829

Denmark’s public-service broadcaster has advised its staff to remove the app from their work phones, in response to a security review by Denmark’s Center for Cyber Security.

The latest action adds to the growing list of TikTok bans, amid concerns about its potential exposure to the CCP. As security officials continue to sound the alarm, it seems inevitable that similar actions will follow, as more government-affiliated organizations set to reconsider their stance on the app.

7. TikTok Provides New Insights into Top Performing Ad Copy via ‘Keyword Insights’

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/TikTok-Adds-Keyword-Insights-for-Marketers/644491/

TikTok has added another handy research tool for marketers, with a new ‘Keyword Insights’ element in its Creative Center, which enables you to find more info on which keywords and phrases are resonating best in TikTok ads.

This means that now you can search through a listing of the most commonly used terms in TikTok ads, and see how often those words have been used, what the CTR of the respective ads has been (on average), and more.

8. TikTok Launches ‘Series’ Which Enables Creators to Charge for Exclusive Content

https://www.thewrap.com/tiktok-series-feature-paid-influencer-videos/

In its bid to encourage creator monetization, TikTok has launched the ‘Series’ option, which enables creators to paywall certain content, in order to boost revenue potential in the app.

Series will significantly expand the canvas for TikTok stars, enabling them to post exclusive, paid content for their biggest fans. This could even see some cross-posting their long-form material from YouTube as a means to expand their income streams, and may eventually result in more of them spending more time developing their audience on TikTok, depending on how much revenue they can make.

9. Instagram’s Testing a New ‘Top 3’ Sticker for Stories

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagrams-testing-a-new-top-3-sticker-for-stories/644881/

Instagram is currently testing a new ‘Top 3’ sticker option for Stories, which would enable people to highlight their top 3 favorite accounts, tracks, places, etc. This is similar to MySpace’s Top8 feature, which became a point of contention for many users in selecting their favorite friends to display in their top listing.

However, there has been no word from Instagram as to whether this will actually be tested, or it’s just an internal prototype at this stage.

10. Snapchat Uses AR to Highlight Key Female Figures in French History for International Women’s Day

https://newsroom.snap.com/international-womens-day-ar-studio

Snapchat has launched a new AR activation for International Women’s Day which both highlights and celebrates the achievements of eight important female figures in French history.

The Landmarker lenses, which will be available in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz, and Nantes, showcase these important female leaders, whose contributions may not be as well-known as their male counterparts.

11. Twitter’s Working on a New Option to Show You Why You’re Seeing Each Tweet in Your Feed

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/Twitter-Tests-Why-Am-I-Seeing-This-Display-on-Tweets/644864/

Twitter is now working on a new option that could help you better understand why you’re seeing each tweet in your stream.

Twitter’s experimenting with a new option that would enable you to tap through on the three dots menu on any tweet to get to a new ‘Why you’re seeing this tweet’ element. Within that, you would get a brief overview of some of the reasons why that specific tweet is showing in your feed, including mutual follows, and their activity, related interests based on your in-app actions, etc.

12. Twitter Launches New Video Marketing Education Course

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/383370/twitter-announces-video-marketing-course-despite.html

Twitter has launched a new, eight-part educational series on video marketing, and how to create video promos that stand out in the Twitter feed.

Called ‘Unskippable’, the new series aims to provide a practical overview of all the key elements of thumb-stopping video clips. Each video in the series is around 2 minutes long, making it easily consumable, without a major time investment. The tips and advice in the series come from Twitter’s own creative team, which ’helps advertisers produce thousands of top-performing ads on the platform every year.

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.