The changing pace of social media is unrelenting. Despite working on various social media accounts and managing a plethora of pages, it’s still remarkable how many times you find yourself asking ‘what happened to that feature?’ or ‘what’s this new thing all about?’ Change is definitely a good thing but keeping on top of things can be tricky – there’s only so much you can read about on any given day and if you are working across all areas of digital marketing, keeping up with all the latest developments in all areas is not easy. That’s why we wanted to pull together some of our favourite little tips and shortcuts to help you to get the most out of whichever platform you are using and keep you up to date with what’s been going on.
These tips are based on questions we find ourselves asking or on things we see on social media sites that are not getting updated when they should.
Ordering your Facebook Tabs
This one was a bit of a sneaky one that Facebook updated in late 2016 but we are still seeing heaps of big companies who have yet to reorder their tabs so that posts are not displaying at the top of the page (for most companies, posts is the most important thing they want at the top). This means if someone lands on your company page, they’re going to see things like photos, videos, reviews, likes, events and any custom tabs you may have added before they get to your latest post which is not a great experience. Here’s how to fix it:
1. Go to Settings in the top menu
2. Click on Edit Page on the left menu
3. Scroll down to Tabs and drag Posts to the top (or wherever you want it to be ordered)
Simple!
Messenger Day
Facebook has been making a number of changes to the Messenger platform (a lot of which have been stolen from Snapchat!). First up is Messenger Day, Facebook’s answer to Snapchat Stories which allows users to add filters and stickers to any pictures they take during the day with post disappearing after 24 hours.
There are also rumour afoot that Messenger will be introducing the same reactions as Facebook plus a thumbs up and thumbs down reaction (the closest thing Facebook has introduced to a ‘dislike’ button). Watch this space!
Snapchat Updates
Snapchat is undoubtedly one of the big social media success stories of 2016 and following a stellar year, they decided to make some updates to the platform in January 2017. Some of these were UX driven, improving the look and feel of the platform and some of them added new features that you may not yet be familiar with. Here are some of the main changes introduced in 2017:
- Search Bar – in the camera section of the app a search bar has been added which brings up a Quick Chat window showing the people who you have recently spoken to on Snapchat. Simply click on the profile icon of the person you want to speak to and you will be taken to the Snapchat chat.
- New Friends, Quick Add, Contacts menus – along with the search bar, Snapchat has also added a New Friends menu which is self-explanatory, Quick Add menu which suggests Snapchatters you might know and Contacts which displays Snapchatters via your smartphone’s address book. All of these make for a more seamless user experience.
- Clone tool – this one’s pretty cool and works a bit like the clone tool in Photoshop allowing users to click on the scissors in the top right and outline an area you’d like to clone. One selected, you can then move and reshape it using two fingers and drop it where you want. This can be done as many times as you like.
Instagram Multiple Image and Video Posts
This has been one of our favourite updates and one that we have seen the most uptake from businesses on Instagram. Multiple image posts (also called carousel posts) let you create a single Instagram post with a slideshow of up to 10 images and/or videos. Users can scroll through them and you can tag individuals on each individual image in the carousel. Here is a good example from Rodd and Gunn here is New Zealand:
This is a great way to showcase your products in a range or to tell a story using multiple images.
Instagram Live Video Save
Literally breaking news as we write this post! Instagram have now added a feature that allows you to save your live video to your phone at the end of your broadcast. As we know, live video content is getting more and more popular and whilst the video will disappear from the app at the end of the broadcast, clicking Save in the top right hand corner downloads the video to your phone so you can use that content again on other platforms. This is especially good if something exciting happens during the live video.
That brings our update to an end. Make sure you keep up to date with all the latest digital marketing news by signing up for our newsletter.