The #SocialSkim – Week of January 28th

This week in social media:

Instagram Testing Link-backs For Stories

According to Twitter User Lindsey Gamble, Instagram has been spotted testing out the ability for users to link directly to their stories. See image below:

This new feature is an exciting new addition for marketers looking to gain more exposure for their profiles.

This is most likely part of Facebooks larger push to emphasize more dynamic content, and further cut into Snapchats market.

No word on if this new feature will be rolled out more universally, but we will update the story as more news comes in.

Facebook Closing ‘Moments’ App

This week, Facebook has announced that they will be closing the standalone ‘Moments’ App. The app was intended to make photo sharing easier but has had a hard time gaining traction.

The app is scheduled to officially close on February 25th due to lack of use. Here is the statement Facebook released regarding this decision:

“We’re ending support for the Moments app, which we originally launched as a place for people to save their photos. We know the photos people share are important to them so we will continue offering ways to save memories within the Facebook app.”

Facebook Tests Sharing Events In Stories

Facebook has begun testing the ability to share events within stories. If officially released, users will be able to share events within their story, where viewers will also be able to register from within the story.

This is again part of Facebook’s push for more dynamic content. It is currently being tested in the US, Mexico,  and Brazil.

LinkedIn Expands Interest Targeting

This week, LinkedIn announced that they would be expanding their ‘Interest Targeting’ Options. This will include over 200 professional interests in a wide breadth of subjects. As described in their announcement:

“Interest targeting lets you reach members with relevant ads that match their professional interests – based on the content they share and engage with on LinkedIn. With these added options, you can more easily achieve your campaign objectives and grow your business…

Since members are spending more time than ever on the news feed engaging with content and joining the conversations they care about, you can leverage these activities to create more tailored campaigns and reach the professional audiences that matter most to your business.”

LinkedIn Updates Company Pages

LinkedIn has announced a new series of updates to company pages. One of these will be an expansion to their ‘Job Alert” system. This informs recruiters of a candidate’s specific interest in a company. Recruiters will now be able to see lists of people who are already interested in a specific company and designated roles. As explained by the LinkedIn Team:

“With the new Pages redesign, we’re taking job alerts one step further. When you set a job alert, we’ll let recruiters at that company know you are interested in opportunities to help increase your chances of hearing from them. You can set this to automatically opt-out at any time in your privacy settings. Your job search is important, so we want to make sure that you see the jobs you’re interested in first and hear from your dream companies when they are hiring.”

Additionally, LinkedIn has added a new dashboard to provide insights on employees at companies.

The information provided will include where they attended college, what they do, and where they are located. Additional information will include skills, and how they are potentially connected to you.

WhatsApp Expands Business Tools

As previously reported by the Social Skim, Facebook has only recently started monetizing the WhatsApp platform. The App currently has 1.5 billion monthly active users, who send more than 60 billion messages per day. With these astounding usage rates, Facebook is trying to make the platform more business-friendly. Last year, they rolled out WhatsApp Business which allowed companies to interact with customers and automate message responses.

A year into the new release, WhatsApp released a statement saying that there are already 5 million businesses using the app. For the one year anniversary, they are expanding the business features to desktop and mobile web. Here is their statement on this release:

“To help celebrate the first year of WhatsApp Business, we’re announcing that some of our most popular features can now be used on WhatsApp web and desktop.

These features include:

• Quick Replies – These are frequent messages to answer common questions. Simply press the “/” on your keyboard to select a quick reply and send.
• Labels – Organize your contacts or chats with labels, so you can easily find them again.
• Chat List Filtering – Easily manage your chats with filters to sort by unread messages, groups or broadcast lists.”

YouTube Adds Video Swiping

YouTube announced this week that they will be adding the ability to swipe between videos. Users will now be able to swipe left to skip a video or swipe right to repeat a previous video

Users will also be able to partially swipe to view sneak peeks of either the previous or next videos.

Twitter Find Bug With Android Users

Twitter announced that they have found yet another bug this week, specifically affecting Android users. What is unusual is about this is the length of time the bug was live. As explained by their team,

“We’ve become aware of an issue in Twitter for Android which disabled the “Protect your Tweets” setting if certain account changes were made. You may have been impacted by this issue if you had protected Tweets turned on in your settings, used Twitter for Android, and made certain changes to account settings such as changing the email address associated with your account between November 3, 2014, and January 14, 2019. We fixed the issue on January 14, and we’ll provide updates if other important information becomes available.”