In this issue of social media round-up, Instagram celebrates 10 years since its inception with new features, Facebook announces new branding for Messenger, Snapchat rakes in higher revenues, and Youtube introduces new tweaks to its playback options. Here’s your monthly social media news roundup brought to you by Tulumi Digital Marketing!
Instagram Introduces New Features as it Celebrates its 10th Birthday
We’re starting off with hearty congratulations and a happy 10th birthday to Instagram. Can you still remember what life was like before this photo and video-based social network rolled in on October 6, 2010?
In any case, the social media giant recently released a number of exciting features to celebrate its birthday. At the top of the list, we have the Stories map, a feature that provides Instagram users with a retrospective view of where their stories have been posted from as far back as three years ago.
The platform also introduced a new range of home screen icon styles, from the classic Polaroid style to themed variations of its current logo. To update your Instagram icon on your phone, simply open the app and go to the settings. Swipe down on the screen until you expose the party emojis and unlock the icons.
Lastly, in line with its commitment to tackling cyberbullying on its platform, Instagram has launched a feature that hides negative comments on posts. There’s also the option for users to view these hidden comments.
Facebook’s New Branding for Messenger
Facebook‘s Messenger logo is boasting a new look! The logo now features a color gradient tone of bluish purple. Messenger VP Stan Chudnovsky made the announcement in a blog post on October 13.
“Our new logo reflects a shift to the future of messaging, a more dynamic, fun, and integrated way to stay connected to the people you’re close to.” he said.
It’s not just the logo that received an overhaul. There are also new chat themes that essentially let users customize the backdrops of their chats with other users.
“10 million people customize their conversations every day so we know that personalization is important when it comes to how you connect. Along with our new logo and default chat color, we’re also rolling out new chat themes, like love and tie-dye, and custom reactions.” the statement read.
Facebook Messenger Merged With Instagram Direct Messages
In related news, cross messaging between Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs is now a thing. This merger has been a long time coming since Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg initially announced plans to merge Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram back in January 2019.
With this new feature, people using the Messenger app can now chat with Instagram users directly and vice versa. They can also control where these correspondences are received, whether in their chats or in Message requests. They can even choose to block any incoming messages.
Snapchat Rakes in higher Revenues
Ever since Instagram Stories hit the social media scene in 2016, Snapchat has struggled to rule the market like it once did. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help matters as ad spending drastically went down across the board. Naturally, one would expect that Snapchat’s fortunes would have fallen further.
Then, the opposite happened.
The social platform not only expanded its active user base but also recorded a 52% year-on-year revenue growth. Snapchat’s revenue rose to an impressive $678.7 million, over $100 million more than initial estimates of $557 million.
One reason for this surge is the fact that Snapchat is very popular among the younger demographics (13- to 34-year-olds). As such, brands looking to target this audience are turning to the platform to spend their ad dollars.
YouTube Revamps Playback Options
Back in May, YouTube introduced the ‘video chapters’ feature that allows users to easily navigate long-form videos. Following the huge success of this feature, the video giant has rolled out some tweaks to its playback options to make viewing and controlling videos much easier.
In an October 26 blog post by Youtube’s Product Manager, Reid Watson introduced the new updates and encouraged users to give it a try. Among the new additions is the Gestures feature that allows people to customize their viewing experience with a few simple swipe and tap gestures.
“People love being able to double-tap to the left or right of a video to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. Today, we’re making it easier to enter and exit full-screen mode – simply swipe up to enter full screen and down to exit. And if you’d rather see how much time is counting down vs. the time that’s elapsed in a video, now you can simply tap the timestamp to switch back and forth.” He said in the post.
There’s also the bedtime reminder feature, a time management tool that allows users to set reminders on when to exit the platform and go to bed.
This concludes our social media round-up from October. As always, Tulumi will continue to curate the best social news for you. If we missed any updates, feel free to let us know about it.
In the meantime, if you’re looking to take advantage of the many benefits of social media marketing, we can help. Simply give us a call at (800) 481-1720 today to get started.
