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28 Oct
6

Instagram Update Brings Instagram Stories to The Explore Tab

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

instagram photoIn a recent update, Instagram added their Instagram stories to the Explore tab within their app. The Explore tab allows users to see a variety of different types of stories and posts that relate to their interests, but don’t necessarily come from people they are following. Instagram released an update that created Instagram stories back in August. Adding these stories to the Explore tab will help to make them more prevalent on the site.

 

The goal of adding Instagram stories to the Explore tab was to boost engagement and accessibility for users on Instagram. With this tab to work with, users will be able to see stories related to their interests and through this process discover more people that they may want to follow. This is a great way for Instagram users to find accounts that are posting what they are most interested in. The update has already gone out globally among all of the iOS users. To start seeing these stores in the Explore tab, Android users have to update to Instagram version 9.5.0 or above.

 

There are mixed reviews on this particular update, which is no surprise since many Instagram users were already not too happy with the addition of Instagram stories. While having these posts show up in the Explore tab could help users to gain more followers, many people are annoyed since there are stories from random accounts on their page. Those who follow only a select group of people often don’t want to be seeing these new accounts popping up all of the time.

 

Most people recognize that this further update to Instagram is just one more way for it to compete with Snapchat. Adding the Instagram stories which are very similar to Snapchat stories to the Explore tab just makes these stories even more prevalent within the Instagram community. Further updates are likely to come out as these different apps continue to compete.

21 Oct
6

Facebook Updates Action Buttons and Adds Recommendations For Businesses

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

facebookIn a recent update, Facebook made a couple of changes to help make it easier for businesses and their customers to interact without even leaving Facebook. The main parts of the update focused on adding new action buttons that make it easy for customers to place orders, get quotes, and even buy tickets to events without ever leaving the Facebook app. In addition to this, Facebook has added a recommendations feature that will make it easier for people to get recommendations from their friends.

 

Facebook’s new action buttons make it easy for customers to interact with businesses through Facebook. The Start Order, Buy Tickets, See Showtimes, and Book Now buttons make it easy for customers to make purchases and set up appointments right away through their Facebook app. Other buttons link in with messaging allowing customers to easily get quotes and request bookings through a business Facebook page. All of these buttons make it easy for customers to connect directly to the businesses, performers, and restaurants that interest them.

 

On top of this, there is a new recommendations feature designed to make it simple for Facebook users to get recommendations from their friends. This feature is focused specifically on allowing users to ask friends for recommendations within certain areas for restaurants, hair stylists, and much more. The feature makes it so that recommendations are then plotted on a map with links to the business page. Users can then visit these pages and use the action buttons to make a booking, buy tickets to an event, or order food to be delivered to their door.

 

With these new features as a big part of Facebook, many business owners will want to make sure that their business pages have features like these enabled. To do this simply update the call-to-action button on your business page. This can either link to third party apps that can then take orders or schedule appointments with these customers or link to messaging so that customers can contact your business directly. Setting up these buttons is key to building a great relationship with your customers through Facebook.

14 Oct
6

Facebook’s Voter Registration Reminder Proved the Importance of Social Media

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

voteAt the end of September, Facebook proved that social media is not just a great place to talk about politics, it is a great way to change the political climate. Facebook launched a brief campaign that encouraged people to register to vote by popping up a special message saying, “Are you registered to vote? Register now to make sure you have a voice in the election.” They then offered a link to online voter registration so that people could register freely. We have just seen what the results of this campaign were.

 

During the time that Facebook had this message up on their site, a huge number of people ended up registering to vote. Many of the people who registered were within the age 17-25 demographic and the 26-35. This means that many young voters have now been registered who may not have registered otherwise. Among the states that saw the most results were California, Minnesota, and Indiana.

 

The number of people who registered to vote during the four-day period that Facebook’s message was up for is incredible, showing just how social media sites can have an influence on people. Facebook says that their reason for posting the message was to try and get better voter turnouts than we saw in the last presidential election. Their specific goal was to get many younger people to vote in this election so that they can have a say in the political climate of their world.

 

While many people are talking about how wonderful it is that Facebook has been able to create such a large number of people registering to vote, others worry that this isn’t something that companies should be able to do. Some people are concerned that by influencing young people and telling them to vote, Facebook can have actually made a change to what candidates may be favored as well.  Some are pointing to this as a problem with a profitable company and social media site being an influence within the political sphere.

28 Sep
7

Instagram Update Provides Users With a Way to Block Abusive Comments

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

taking instagram picturesWith a groundbreaking update, Instagram is striking back against trolls and internet abuse. This particular social media site has been having many troubles with internet abuse because many of the users can stay largely anonymous. This has led to people commenting on photos with rude and hurtful comments that often include harsh language. Now these users won’t be able to get away with this so easily since Instagram has launched a filter that will block this type of language.

 

While Instagram will be providing a premade list of offensive words that people can block, users will be able to personalize this list so that they can block words and even emoji that they feel are offensive or inappropriate. This will allow each user to choose which words will not appear in the comments, allowing them to create a safer space to express themselves.

 

The main reason for Instagram being one of the first social media sites to try something like this is largely because Instagram has had many problems with abusive comments. In some cases, users have had to delete their accounts because of the level of abuse. Instagram doesn’t want to lose users of course, so they are doing what they can to make sure that users aren’t discouraged from being on the social media site because of the level of abuse they might have to endure.

 

Instagram’s plan is to allow users to implement these filters so that the users can post more freely. The idea is to make it so that people don’t have to worry about expressing themselves in unique and individual ways and receiving a lot of backlash because of it. The hope is that Instagram will be able to keep experiences on their social media site a lot more positive.

19 Sep
6

Twitter Makes Change to 140 Character Limit At Last

In Press Releases | No comment

tweeting on twitterAfter their announcement about changes to character limits in May, Twitter users were left wondering when this was happening. Finally, some different changes were launched today. While the 140-character limit is still in effect, Twitter has gotten rid of many of the different items that used to count against it. The limit will no longer count videos, images, gifs, polls, and quotes, allowing users to have more free characters to use when Tweeting.

 

Some of the ways that this will effect Twitter users will be in the different ways they’ll be able to use Twitter. Users will now be able to provide context in replies since the quotes won’t count against you. They will also be able to add more visual pieces into Tweets in general. One of many users favorite changes is that they will no longer have to use a period prior to mentioning a name if they want that Tweet to go out to all of their followers.

 

With these many great benefits, it may come as a surprise that not all users are that excited about the changes. Many users have been pushing for these updates for a long while and are now looking for further updates. There are also some complaints that this won’t really make too much of a difference. These different elements didn’t take up too many characters before, so the lift on these counting toward Tweet length isn’t really that substantial of an increase. Many users are looking for more characters that they can use to express larger ideas.

 

While Twitter is probably making these changes to try and save its depleted user base, many are saying that this update is just too little too late. Such a small update is unlikely to be something that draws new users since those who weren’t interested in using Twitter before likely won’t be effected by this difference. Those who left already won’t be likely to come back just because of this change either. Twitter will just have to wait and see how these changes really end up effecting the number of Twitter users.

16 Sep
8

Twitter Updates Features to Attract Businesses

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

business communicationAs Twitter continues to fight to stay prevalent among other types of social media, it has been working on some new changes that will make it so that businesses can find new uses for the platform. Since many businesses already use Twitter, Twitter has been working on building different features that can make it so that these businesses will be able to communicate and work with their customers while using this social media platform.

 

In their new update, Twitter has added a few new features that can make it so that businesses can more easily use their Twitter accounts as a place where customers can come for customer support. They have added a customer service tag that businesses can add to their account to designate which account (if they have multiple) is the one that provides support. They have also made the message button on business pages larger so that people can easily find this button. In addition to these other changes, they have added an area where businesses can show support hours and time zones so that people know when a good time to contact them is.

 

Twitter has seen more and more companies offering support through social media so this is really the next step to make it so that businesses will be able to use Twitter in a much better way. The goal of the new changes is to make it so that Twitter is a good social media site for businesses to give support from. With many businesses doing this and customers looking for new ways to get support, this may be the best way for Twitter to encourage people to keep their accounts or to make new ones.

 

For large businesses that may already have multiple accounts on Twitter, the new features will be perfect for directing customers to the right account to send questions to. Those smaller businesses, will be given new ways to interact with their customers and by listing service hours they can set specific times to employ someone to answer these messages. With the new updates to business Twitter accounts, businesses will yet another avenue to communicate with customers.

09 Sep
10

Twitter Makes Changes to Direct Messaging

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

messagingIn a recent move, Twitter released an update for their direct messaging application. The new changes to this particular feature of the website include adding typing indicators, read receipts, and also content previews beneath links that are sent over this messaging program. Many of these changes are ones that put this messaging program on a similar level to others used by different social media sites.

 

As part of the new changes to their direct messaging, Twitter has implemented read receipts. These make it so that users are able to see when the person who receives the message has looked at it. In addition to this, Twitter also has added typing indicators which are small boxes that pop up to let you know when the other person is typing. This can help you to avoid typing at the same time. These different features are all part of Facebook messaging already so there is nothing especially innovative about them.

 

Many people don’t really like having it so that the other person can tell if they have read a message. Luckily, Twitter has a solution for this. Users that don’t want to have read receipts sent to other users they are talking to can turn off this feature in the settings of the Twitter application. If they turn off read receipts, they will then be unable to see when people have read their messages in addition to other people not being able to see when they have read theirs’.

 

Twitter is continuing to add different features as they are struggling to compete with different social media sites. Many users are complaining that while Twitter continues to add updates, these are not the updates that Twitter users have been asking for. One update that Twitter users would like to see is a lift on the limit of how many direct messages can be sent in one day. For now, it looks like Twitter isn’t interested in making these user requested changes.

02 Sep
9

Latest Instagram Update Allows for Zoom On Photos and Videos

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

taking picture for instagramInstagram has long been one of the biggest social media sites for photo sharing, so it should come as no surprise that they have decided to make a new change that will make it easier for people to get a closer look at the pictures and videos that friends have changed. They are launching a pinch to zoom feature that will make it easy for users to zoom in to any image on their site.

 

This new feature is currently only being rolled out for iOS users, but the plan will be to make it so that Android users will also be receiving this update in a few short weeks. These users will all be able to zoom into videos and pictures with the mere pinch of their fingers making it easy to identify everyone in a picture, especially if it is a picture with many people in it. The zoom feature will really help people who want to get a closer look at something while looking at Instagram on their phone.

 

This feature will be available throughout the Instagram app, which will mean that users will be able to use it in many different areas. The pinch to zoom feature will work on their feed, other user’s profiles, and even in the new Explore tab. It will work on both pictures and videos that are shared making it easy for anyone to get a closer look at specific parts of these images.

 

The addition of this feature makes a great deal of sense since just last year Instagram decided to increase their default image size to 1080 x 1080. With these large pictures making their debut on Instagram, having the ability to zoom in to specific sections of an image to see everything better is something that is bound to be helpful. This excellent addition will definitely make Instagram a great place to view images.

26 Aug
8

Twitter Adds a New Night Mode That is Easier On the Eyes

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

phone at nightAfter several smaller applications have released versions of their apps that are better for those using them at night, Twitter has decided to also jump on board with a new night mode. Their night mode features a darker color scheme perfect for using during the night. While the update was initially only available to Android users, it has been extended to iOS as well.

 

The purpose of this new mode is to help those who use the Twitter application in the night. There have been many studies over the last few years to show that a blaring white phone screen can damage vision and cause the natural sleep rhythms of the body to become confused. As a response to this problem, Twitter has joined other applications in adding a special night mode to their app. This will allow users to switch from their standard display to a darker one that is better for those tweeting in the evening or late at night.

 

For now, Twitter’s night mode has to be toggled on and off by hand, but there are hopes that this will eventually change so that Twitter’s display will change as it gets to a certain time in the evening. In the app on Android and iOS, users will be able to change what mode they are in by changing their Twitter settings. It is easy to access the areas where you can turn the screen from one mode to the other.

 

There is some speculation that this change in Twitter and in other applications may be foreshadowing some of the features of the future iPhone 7. Some wonder if Apple will use this phone as their chance to roll out a new screen that will have the ability to more easily display darker colors without using as much battery life. Of course, for that information, we’ll have to wait for news from Apple.

19 Aug
8

Instagram Launches a New Events Channel for Video

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

instagramIn the increasingly competitive world of social media, Instagram is working to compete with other social media sites. In a brand new update, they have added an events channel that is going to be used to display videos of recent events and events that are happening at the moment. This will allow users to view videos of events happening all over the world in something close to real time. This section of Instagram will be sorted based on what is recent, popular, and relevant to your own likes.

 

One of the initial criticisms for this new part of Instagram is that it is obviously a copy of Snapchat’s live stories. The features are awfully similar, so it is clear that Instagram is probably following a similar idea to Snapchat’s feature. Many users of Instagram are becoming frustrated about this since they don’t want these different changes. As Instagram is adapting, people are becoming more frustrated about the changes since the social media site is so different from how it was when they joined.

 

Some benefits of the new channel include allowing users to connect with Instagram users that they might not be able to see otherwise. They’ll also be able to enjoy big events that they might not get to experience because they are too far away or too expensive for a specific Instagram user. This is similar to the way that Snapchat’s live stories work, but seems to have a more targeted purpose.

 

In addition to the major update, Instagram has also made a few small updates that will help with the filming of videos in general. They have a few small updates including one that allows for zooming in and out while recording video and one that will allow iPhone users to use both cameras on their phone and switch between the two. All of these updates just show that Instagram is making great strides into the video aspect of social media.

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