What’s happening in the wonderful, weird, ever-evolving world of social media?
Here’s all the latest news, announcements, and updates from September 2021.
One of our favorite things about working in digital marketing is that it’s constantly changing.
We know that can be frustrating as a small business owner.
But each new change brings new opportunities to connect with people and grow your business.
If you’re not a super nerd like us, you probably don’t have the time to keep up with all of these new social media updates. That’s where we come in!
We’ve collected the biggest updates, news, and changes coming to the world of social media in this post.
Today, we will cover:
- Facebook announcements and updates
- LinkedIn’s new business tools to increase engagement
- Twitter tests Communities
- Instagram Montage & Lead Generation Campaigns
Let’s get into it!
1. Facebook Announcements and Updates Reference
Facebook has announced new personalization tools for small businesses. In their announcement, they said:
“In this new era, people will want to easily discover products and services, get support and ask questions right from chat, and conduct transactions…
…all while having more control over their personal information.”
According to Facebook, 75% of adults globally said they’d prefer to communicate with a business via messaging.
So, they’ll be rolling out new messenger features.
Let’s look at what you can do now and what’s being tested.
What You Can Do Now
You can now add a WhatsApp click-to-chat button to your Instagram profile (this is available globally).
When users click this button, your chat will open in WhatsApp.
Facebook is currently testing this feature on ads, but it is not available to all yet.
What Facebook is Testing and Hoping to Roll Out Soon
- A button for quote requests on your business page and on ads. You’ll get these requests via messenger.
This button would be available when running Facebook Lead ad campaigns and Customer Acquisition campaigns.
- Email marketing and remarketing in the Business Suite. This will be a game-changer for your marketing funnels if it works well.
- File Manager, so you can create, manage, and post content within the Facebook Business Suite.
- A/B testing for organic posts, so you can learn what your audience likes best.
- Facebook wants to offer more packages for small businesses, like an ad coupon…
…along with free access to QuickBooks accounting software for three months or free access to creative tool Canva Pro for three months.
- Facebook Explore will soon be available to the United States and internationally.
This includes countries like Australia, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
- And, the thing we’re personally the most excited about, Facebook is (finally) testing Work Accounts.
This is so you don’t need to use your personal account with your business stuff.
(This is one of the only tests with an expected launch date. Facebook wants to roll this out in 2022.)
We still have new social media updates on Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram platforms next…
…but first, here’s our social media ads training course that you might want to check out.
This course will surely help you master social media advertising and generate more results from your ads.
2. LinkedIn Business Tools for Engagement
As stated in their announcement, LinkedIn wants to help businesses deepen their connections with their audience.
To make that a possibility, they’re rolling out some 4th quarter changes you should be aware of:
a. Organic Articles for Page
This is so you can build a community with long-form content.
Prior to this, you would post a link to your blog or website, and users would click that if they wanted to read it.
Now, you’ll publish directly on LinkedIn and manage conversations there.
This will also be a great way to run retargeting ads using engagement.
b. Improving Scheduled LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events
Users of these tools have been asking for better reach and engagement opportunities, and LinkedIn has responded with LinkedIn Live Events.
You’ll be able to:
- Sponsor your stream in advance to a targeted audience.
- Auto-notify event registrants and a subset of Page followers when your event goes live.
- Amass views on your public Live Event post from anyone on LinkedIn, whether they’ve hit “Attend” or not, during and after the show.
- Easily share the replay of your Live Event content for maximum distribution and value.
Additionally, there are some other new social media updates to LinkedIn Events. These updates include:
- Fewer followers are required for access to LinkedIn Live; only 150.
- Automated and expedited review process for LinkedIn Live applicants.
- All Page Admins can go live once a Page is approved.
- An expanded registration form for Events.
- A lead management integration with one of our partners, Zapier.
c. Adding Better Ways to Optimize and Measure Brand Awareness
As LinkedIn puts it, “these are designed to help you more seamlessly accomplish and measure your brand building goals”.
The 3 enhancements are:
This new feature allows you to measure the impact of using LinkedIn advertising on your brand by taking a baseline of your brand’s perception…
…and then testing the brand impact of those ads against key metrics.
- Reach Optimization
You can now optimize toward the number of unique member accounts that are shown ads.
Thus, easily increasing your brand’s exposure to new and relevant audiences.
- Reach/Frequency Forecasting and Reporting
With these new social media updates, you can easily:
- view the predicted reach and frequency for your Brand Awareness campaigns within the Forecasting Tool, and
- measure their results in the Campaign Manager reporting.
3. Twitter Tests Communities
Twitter recently fleeced their Fleets.
Fleets were disappearing tweets meant to encourage folks who had been hesitant to join the app. It did not work that way.
However, they’re still chasing the growth that other platforms are enjoying.
According to Twitter’s announcement on their blog, they’re:
“testing Communities, a way to easily find and connect with people who want to talk about the same things you do.”
How Communities Will Work
- Communities can currently only be created by Twitter-approved moderators.
- When you tweet, you can select a Community and your tweet will appear to them, but not on your timeline to all of your followers.
- Community pages and all the tweets are public, and anyone can view and report tweets from a Community, even if they’re not part of it.
- Communities must follow all Twitter rules…
…and moderators have to go through continued eligibility requirements which include not violating Twitter’s rules.
The first few Communities Twitter will be rolling out are around some of the most popular topics on the app:
- Dogs
- Weather
- Sneakers
- Skincare
- Astrology
Once Communities launch to everyone, you’ll be able to create a community around your topic.
Now this will most likely increase your Twitter engagement too.
If you’re wondering about safety, Twitter will be using AI and machine learning to spot problematic Communities that shouldn’t be part of Twitter.
They’re also working on new reporting flows and bespoke enforcement actions.
4. Instagram Tests Montage
Instagram wants us to publish more engaging Instagram Reels, so they’re testing a feature called “Montage”…
…that takes your Stories and lets you convert them frame-by-frame to a short Reel.
If you want to learn how to use Instagram Stories for businesses, then read this post next.
Instagram is also testing Lead Gen campaigns directly in the Instagram app.
We’re excited to get to work on these when they’re available to everyone, but this is about all the info we have right now.
Watch Out For These New Social Media Updates!
So those are some of the new social media updates that you need to know and prepare for as a business owner.
Do you need help with marketing your small business online?
If you answered yes, then work with LYFE! Give us a call and one of our Business Development Specialists will answer your questions.
Or, you can also check out our social media marketing services today. Get started and head over to our website now!
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