Social Media Notes
Here’s this week’s round-up of social media (& sometimes tech) news. Come back weekly for what I hope to be a fun & informative blog post on social stories that caught my eye throughout the week!
Lots on Snapchat this week!
- How do Instagram’s Spotlight, Snapchat’s Live Stories, and Twitter’s Moments compare? Techcrunch lays it out for you (with Snapchat coming out the winner) – feeling “like the future of secondary media consumption. You feel like you were there, but you also feel more special than if you were just stuck in the crowd.”
- Techcrunch has also imagined Snapchat’s future, detailing 21 ways that the fastest-growing social network can grow and improve engagement and commerce. I wonder whether these ideas will actually inspire those behind-the-scenes at Snapchat and we’ll see some of them in action down the road.
- And in more Snapchat news: they might start allowing users to subscribe to their favourite Discover channels and receive push notifications when new content gets published.
- Brands can also now buy (pretty affordable) on-demand geofilters for specific locations and events! Oo, the possibilities.
- What a story – a girl who tried to call out racism on social media is suspended – but no action so far on the student who actually snapped the racist comment.
- Also: Tyler Jack Butler (social media strategist at MacEwan) and I will be doing a workshop on Snapchat at the upcoming iMEDIA social media conference on March 12! Register for the awesome conference today. Check out the great session line-up!
In other news:
- Ads, ads everywhere. Facebook Messenger may be adding ads to the app in the next couple of months.
- 100,000 projects have now been successfully funded through Kickstarter! To celebrate, they released 100 fascinating tidbits about its history including: 9 million backers helped fund those 100,000 projects.
- Everyone’s calling it the death of Twitter – we’ll see: Twitter’s released their Facebook algorithm-style timeline, meant to show you “the best tweets” when you first check in, then after you swipe down, it will refresh back to chronological order. Have you tried it? Is everyone just overreacting?
- I love Twitter, but when it comes to harassment, abuse and bots, it can be the worst. They’re always trying to battle this, and the latest news is that they’re forming the Twitter Trust & Safety Council – a panel of experts who will help Twitter develop tools and policies to get rid of abuse, bullying and harassment.
- You can now send videos in Twitter DMs!
- “Facebook is pushing ahead with its ambitious plan to disrupt digital media,” opening up its Instant Articles to all publishers. Media outlets “of any size, anywhere in the world” are now eligible to create articles through Facebook’s platform – designed to keep people on Facebook.
- Mark Zuckerberg says “virtual reality is the most social platform” – and talked about Facebook’s virtual reality work at the Samsung Mobile World Congress event this week.
- Print sacrilege: Bon Appetit featured a 43-page feature spread with each frame/photo captured on an iPhone, part of this food culture where Instagram/smartphones give everyone an opportunity to be a photographer.
- When you file for bankruptcy, you shouldn’t then post Instagram photos showing you playing around with wads of cash. That’s what 50 Cent did. I love that his lawyer said “it is part of 50 Cent’s branding and image to appear to be rolling in cash.”
- World leaders may have social media accounts but how often are they actually using it? A new study says one-third of world leaders who have Instagram accounts are actually inactive.
- Apparently, social media is destroying the lives of teen girls. This conclusion from an author of a new book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers.
- Here’s the week’s Cat Saturday photos! My favourites are 3, 4, 14, and 21!
Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!
Linda