Social Media Buzz Weekly: 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. Pinterest Launches Real-Time Analytics in its Mobile App

https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/pinterest-analytics

Pinterest has now officially launched real-time analytics elements within Pin Analytics on mobile, which will provide more data on exactly how your Pins are performing at any given time.

Real-time insights are also available in the web Analytics platform, but now, you’ll also be able to access much of the same data on the go, which is likely where many more people are looking to check in. Although Pinterest has noted that real-time insights are not available for audience metrics, like ‘Total Engaged Monthly Audience’ and age and gender filters, you will be able to see overall data on response to your Pins, whenever you check in, which could be a helpful guide for your Pin strategy.

2. Twitter Announces Price Hike for Twitter Blue Subscriptions

https://www.androidpolice.com/twitter-blue-price-hike/

Twitter has begun informing Twitter Blue subscribers that they’ll soon have to pay a lot more for their monthly subscription. The monthly charge for Twitter Blue access is jumping from $2.99 to $4.99 in the US, with all other regions also seeing the same relative increase.

Current Blue subscribers will be spared the additional charges for a couple of months, but from October, everyone will be copping a 67% jump in costs - with no additional features, no change in the process. This seems particularly odd given that Twitter Blue isn’t doing so well.

As part of Twitter’s latest performance update, posted last week, the company reported that its revenue from ‘subscriptions and other’ sources totaled $100 million in Q2 2022 - which is actually a decrease of 36% for this element, year-over-year.

3. Instagram Seeks Data on Users’ Ethnicity to Improve User Experience

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-28/instagram-launches-survey-to-study-race-and-improve-user-experience

Some Instagram users will now be prompted to provide info about their race/ethnicity, which will then give Instagram more data about how people from each community segment use the app.

According to the social media platform, this is being done to “understand how people from historically marginalized communities experience Instagram.” Instagram has also outlined that the data is being collected by YouGov, independent of Meta itself, via ‘individual, de-identified responses’.

4. Snapchat Launches New ‘Sounds Creator Fund’ to Encourage Unsigned Musicians to Share Their Music

https://www.specser.com/snapchat-launches-new-sounds-creator-fund-to-encourage-unsigned-musicians-to-share-their-music/

Snapchat’s looking to provide more support to an expanded scope of creators via a new ‘Sounds Creator Fund’ which will help emerging independent artists to gain distribution and recognition on the platform, via audio uploads that users can then add to their Snaps.

Snapchat first launched Sounds in 2020, which enables users to add song clips to their Snaps. Since then, it’s continually expanded the selection of audio tracks available, via licensing deals with various record labels. At the same time, independent artists are also able to upload their music via DistroKid, providing another avenue for audience connection and exposure.

The Sounds Fund will help to expand upon this, via the addition of funding based on usage, with monthly grants of up to $100,000 on offer to the top Sounds creators that are distributing their music in the app.

5. YouTube Adds a New Option to Cut Your Long Form Videos into Shorts

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/28/youtubes-new-tool-lets-creators-turn-their-own-videos-into-shorts/

YouTube is looking to encourage more short clips via a new option that will enable creators to convert segments of their existing long-form content into minute-long Shorts variations.

The new ‘Edit into a Short’ option will enable you to select a section of your regular video uploads and cut it into a bite-sized version. That could make it much easier for a lot more YouTube creators to integrate Shorts into their process – and with 1.5 billion YouTube users now engaging with Shorts every month, it makes a lot of sense to do so, in order to build brand awareness and reach.

6. Meta Tells US Publishers That it's Cutting Funding for News Tab Content

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/metas-facebook-is-done-paying-publishers-for-news-tab-content

Amid rising costs and an increasingly uncertain ad market, Meta has begun informing US news publishers that it will not renew exclusive content deals with them, as it shifts away from its dedicated News Tab strategy.

In total, those deals are believed to be worth more than $100 million, with all of that going straight back to news publishers, providing a key lifeline, in many respects, amid the broader ad market downturn.

Now, those publications will have to find new ways to prop up their businesses – though interestingly, Meta will be maintaining payments to news publishers in the UK, France, Germany, and Australia, where, at least in some cases, these payments have been enshrined into law as part of deals to secure a level of revenue share with local publishers for the use of their content.

7. YouTube Launches Commercial Music Program for Creators

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-launches-commercial-music-program-for-creators-expands-test-of-dis/628407/

Just days after Meta announced that it’s launching a new Music Revenue Sharing program, which will enable creators to add licensed music into their content, YouTube has announced that it’s implementing the same, in a small early test pool.

Like Meta’s program, the initiative will see music rights holders take a cut of any revenue generated as a result of using their music within a creators’ clip. That could lead to some concerns with their music being attached to controversial content, though creators will be held to specific platform usage standards and requirements to qualify for the program.

8. TikTok Will Provide More Insight into Content Trends and Moderation via New Research Initiative

https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/strengthening-our-commitment-to-transparency

Under increasing scrutiny from regulators, and amid various lingering questions and concerns about its ownership and its content approach, TikTok is looking to provide more assurance that it’s not censoring certain content or amplifying certain perspectives, via new API access points which will enable academics and researchers to glean more insight into exactly how its systems work.

Under a new program, TikTok will soon enable researchers to access public and anonymized data about content and activity on the platform. It will also facilitate insights into its content moderation systems, via API access points, with stringent restrictions on who can access the tools.

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 the social media world, ranging from platform updates to policy changes that influence the way we market.