Facebook Adds New Music Features
Bringing back the feels of the early 2000’s, Facebook has announced the release of new music features. No, the music won’t start playing as you land on a page ala myspace. Rather, users can upload a playable sticker to their profiles with accompanying album art. As described by the Facebook team:
“Just take a photo or video from the Facebook Camera, or grab one from your camera roll, then tap on the sticker icon and select the music sticker. Once you find the song you want to add, you can pick the perfect part to share and add the sticker with the artist and song name. Move the sticker around and add other stickers and effects to customize your story”.
Facebook Rolls Out Recommendations For Businesses and Groups.
Facebook has added a section to groups, specifically dedicated for recommendations. Now, when users recommend pages and businesses within groups, they will be aggregated into a dedicated panel
Google Adds In-depth User Control Options
With the ever-increasing instances of platform breaches, Google has rolled out new options for users to control their data.
Users will now be able to control whether or not their data is stored by the search engine, right within the app. As explained in a recent update from their team:
“Without ever leaving Search, you can now review and delete your recent Search activity, get quick access to the most relevant privacy controls in your Google Account, and learn more about how Search works with your data”.
Instagram Adds New Way To Share IGTV Videos
In an ongoing effort to expand the consumption of IGTV content, Instagram has made it easier to share with friends. Instagram released the following post on their official page, describing the new function
As IGTV has not had the success the social giant originally hoped for, Mark Zuckerberg has said they already have plans in the works to bolster viewership.
Facebook Rolls Out Expansion of Breaking News Tags
Facebook has announced that it will be releasing updates to the ‘Breaking News’ tags available to publishers.
Here is the reasoning they gave for the update:
“Over the last several months we ran a test that allowed more than 100 news publishers from North America, Latin America, Europe, India and Australia to identify and label stories as “breaking news” on Facebook. We found that people engaged more actively with stories marked as breaking news, showing us that this product helps people find news that’s important to them.”
They have already started showing breaking news labels to people in more countries including, Austrailia, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. Additionally, they have begun testing it in even more markets.
Twitter Expands Tweet Reporting Options
As the platform strives to crack down on online bullies and make the site a safer place, Twitter has expanded user’s ability to report Tweets. They released the following Tweet about the update:
Additionally, from the images below, you can see the new options available. These include “The account tweeting is fake” and “Uses the reply function to spam”
Twitter Rolls Out New Compose Option for IOS
Twitter has added a new option to IOS which locks a compose option in place, even while scrolling. Here is what it looks like. 
Thus far, the new feature has definitely been met with mixed reviews with many users calling it “annoying”. Let us know what you think of the new feature!
Pinterest Introduces New Carousel Ad Format
As part of their on-going effort to make the platform more advertiser-friendly, Pinterest has added Carousel formatted ads. The new ad type will enable users to include up to five images on the same ad. The pins will appear very similar to other ad types but will have small gray buttons at the bottom to allow users to swipe through the images. Here is an example they released. ![Pinterest carousel ad [screenshots]](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/user_media/diveimage/pin_carousel.jpg)
These will look and function very similarly to the way Instagram and Facebook carousel ads operate.
WhatsApp to Start Showing Ads
In a much-anticipated move, the President of WhatsApp, Chris Daniels, has confirmed that the app will start showing ads in it’s “Status” feature.
According to Daniels:
We are going to be putting ads in ‘Status’. That is going to be the primary monetization mode for the company as well as an opportunity for businesses to reach people on WhatsApp.
It is worth noting, the platform has never run ads up to this point, and is a moment many investors were looking forward to. There are currently over 1.5 billion users of the app owned by social giant Facebook.
LinkedIn Rolls Out New Google Campaign Manager Integration
LinkedIn has announced that it will be releasing new options to integrate Google Campaign Manager to make it easier for marketers to compare and manage ad performance. They released the following statement about the addition:
“Today, we are excited to announce a measurement integration with Google Campaign Manager (formerly DoubleClick Campaign Manager), now part of Google Marketing Platform. It not only allows you to (1) see LinkedIn ad performance alongside the rest of your paid spend, but also (2) get attribution for your LinkedIn ads across all impressions and interactions, measured in a cross-device and cross-platform manner.”
After creating your sponsored content as a draft, by clicking on ‘Manage Tracking’, users will now be given the option to insert a Google tracking tag.
Snapchat Ads New Lenses For Desktop
In an effort to expand the use of user-generated lenses, Snapchat has released a new app for desktop. They released the following tweet about the new function:
The app should function with most third-party conferencing applications, except Facetime. It appears Snapchat and Google could not come to an agreement regarding the new function.
