What’s New in Social Media - January

28 January 2022

We know just how hard it is to keep up with the constant social media updates and new features! Here’s a shortlist of all the most important changes and announcements from your favourite Social Media platforms for the first month of 2022! 

Story Highlight Clips in Facebook Creator Studio

First up, Facebook has added new video highlights in Creator studio. Creator studio has tools where you can control both Facebook and Instagram and they’ve recently added a new tool called ‘Story Highlight Clips’. These are 20-second snippets from videos that you post to your main feed on either Facebook or Instagram, which are then shared to your stories. The tool automatically cuts 20 seconds from whatever video you’ve shared and you can edit which 20 seconds you’d like. It also includes a call to action of ‘See More’ that can be found at the bottom of the clip - which takes you to the main video. 

This tool is super helpful and it saves time as you don’t have to manually edit the clip to repost on stories. Not only that but it also drives viewership of your full video and also raises awareness of content they might have missed on your feed. You’re essentially getting two pieces of content in one, so don’t miss out on taking advantage of this amazing new tool. 

YouTube’s new performance analytics

Next, Youtube has updated its studio app, with advanced analytics. The new analytics tools mean that creators can see additional performance statistics about their videos and other peoples videos on similar topics so they can compare. With this update, they can view data from up to 100 of their videos at any one time.

The additional analytics feature means creators can now understand video performance in comparison to their other videos in the same category. They can understand their followers' favourite topics and they can really nail down their niche within their chosen areas. Knowing that their audience is more responsive to that specific content. 

Customisable Instagram grids

Could we be getting customisable Instagram grids? This is a super exciting update spotted by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who said that Instagram is reportedly working on a feature where you can edit your Instagram posts after they have been posted to your feed. This has been found in the profile settings menu and works by letting you drag and drop your posts and rearrange the order. 

Twitter Spaces replays

Twitter Spaces is no longer just a real-time feature as Twitter have announced you can now view replays of Spaces, meaning you can tune in later if you missed the live discussion. Hosts can also view how many people joined the broadcast and the number of replays the session has had. These stats can be accessed in the ‘View Details’ button and can only be seen by the host themself.

LinkedIn is launching live video and audio events 

Linkedin is catching up to Twitter Spaces and Facebook Live audio rooms, confirming that it's planning to release an audio-only events platform with a video version also coming soon. With the live audio and video events, hosts can record broadcasts, chat with fellow hosts and moderate live discussions with attendees. Linkedin will then promote these across peoples networks on the platform.

Over the last two years, we’ve naturally seen a huge increase in interactive events, especially on Linkedin. At the moment, LinkedIn feeds can be quite text-heavy so audio and video means more content formats to explore which means more variety in feed. 

Are you as excited as us about these new social media updates? Remember to visit the Gather Social website today to read another blog. 

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