SOcial Media Updates You Need to Know
As an entrepreneur, it’s important to keep up with social media updates, but man there have been so many lately! With all these changes in mind, I’m going to give you a recap of some of the latest social media changes and what they mean for your business.
The Return of the Chronological feed on Instagram
In 2016, Instagram changed the way the feed operated. Rather than seeing a list of posts in the order they were posted, the algorithm now determined what content you see. Giving users the option to return to chronological view is a way give users more control over their feeds. Also, given what we’ve seen from Facebook’s own research into how the algorithm tends to favor inflammatory, anti-democratic content, offering a chronological feed view may be a way to address that.
Switching to the chronological view is predicted to be available in early 2022, and will be something users will need to opt in to.
Takeaway: Depending on how many people choose to opt-in to this, the reach of your posts may go down. Also, hashtags will still be important, but less so. Hashtags won’t matter as much for the feed, but you still want to use them so as to be able to be found on the discover page.
Facebook: Facebook announces new creator features.
Facebook has announced a ton of new features for video creators including Featured Links in live-stream broadcasts, new ways for creators to interact with fan comments, and more. This move seems to be their attempt at creating features that will draw in younger users and help them compete with Instagram and TikTok.
Takeaway- if your audience is on Facebook, this is great news for you. Leaning into video helps your audience get to know you better and video content tends to have a much longer “shelf life” than other types of content. Use these new tools to your advantage!
TikTok: On the rise
TikTok was ranked as the top performing social media app for 2021. They continue to add millions of more followers and brands are paying attention with many are choosing to use their marketing dollars on the app. TikTok has also had an impact in other ways, with all the other apps trying to add in TikTok-like features and elements and prioritizing video content.
Takeway: If you already leverage video content for your brand or are looking to do so in a major way AND you have the capacity to add another digital channel, I would highly recommend joining TikTok.
