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! 

Let’s start with all the Twitter news

• Lots of people were freaking out over news of Twitter’s ‘algorithmic timeline’ last week but we’ve been assured now that once you swipe down and refresh your feed, it will go back to reverse chronological order. Looks like it should be a mix of the timeline that makes Twitter, Twitter, and the Facebook-style algorithm feed.

• Also new on Twitter.com: tweets will now expand into a pop-up window instead of opening on the page you’re on so you don’t lose your place. The idea is this will make it easier for you to follow conversations as well.

• They’ve also redesigned their homepage for logged out users – hopefully making it easier and more interesting for them to find tweets / be enticed to sign up!

• Twitter is also taking a more serious stance on terrorism – increasing the team that reviews reports and shutting down thousands of accounts that promote terrorism.

• GIFs continue to be so hot right now. Twitter is testing a dedicated ‘GIF Button’ on their mobile app.

• We’re starting to see more custom emojis following Twitter hashtags and apparently they come at quite a cost for the brands associated. Advertisers are reportedly forking out a million dollars for official emojis (along with other promoted trends, moments, and tweets).

Over in the Instagram world… 

• It’s finally happened!!!! You can now toggle between up to 5 different accounts on Instagram without having to log in and out again. Hallelujah! You can see I’m basking in all the glory.

• Interesting (or odd?) It looks like Instagram is launching its own video series (it will take quite a bit of posts to get through, given that Instagram Video only lets you upload up to 15 seconds at a time, lol).

• Not the case if you’re an advertiser though – Instagram is extending length for video ads from 30 seconds (already more than the free user 15 seconds) up to 60 seconds. http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/03/instagram-video-ads/

Happy Friend Day!

• To celebrate Facebook’s 12th birthday, the social networking giant created its own holiday called Friends Day – celebrating friendship.

• Users got to share their ‘#FriendsDay’ video recap with their friends and I thought it was really cute.

• The world is so teeny. You might think there’s six degrees of separation between you and everyone on the planet, but Facebook says it’s less than that – just 3.57 degrees.

• Facebook is changing its news feed algorithms (AGAIN), in an effort to make the feed more “fundamentally human.” Hm. (Bad news for marketers).

• Did you know, more than 11,000 engagements became ‘Facebook official’ on Valentine’s Day last year? Facebook says Valentine’s is the most popular day for users to get engaged (/announce their engagement).

And the rest:

• I think influencer marketing is so interesting (being on both the PR/communications side of it as well as the blogger/influencer side of it). Here’s a look at 5 predictions for influencer marketing in 2016.

• Remember these? Friendster, Foursquare, Livejournal, Myspace – a look at the sad social networks everyone’s sort of forgotten. I would’ve also added Xanga!

• Google / Alphabet is King of the World! or at least, the most valuable company in the world (beating out Apple).

• Google’s also released a new strategy to combat terrorism/ISIS – planning to show anti-radicalization links in response to terrorism-related searches.

• SuperBowl social media content is up 223% since 2012 (and Twitter isn’t dead you guys). So. Much. Content.

• Snapchat is just making advertising dollars left and right – especially jumping into the SuperBowl advertising game.

• I thought Snapchat’s move to give users ‘add me’ links was brilliant from a desktop/discovery stand point. Here’s a bit more on what Snapchat’s doing to help users be more discoverable.

• Did you know: media and entertainment brands receive 3x more messages on Facebook and Twitter than average brands, but reply back the least? (typical)

• Here’s the week’s Cat Saturday photos! My favourites are 1, 7, 10, 11, and 20!

Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!

Linda

Follow @lindork