The biggest updates in social media | April 2023
Keeping up with the latest and greatest updates in social media is no easy feat. With new platforms emerging, on top of our usual favorites making moves, it’s hard to keep up with this constantly changing landscape. Luckily for you, we’re here to clear up the confusion, un-mask the most important updates, and keep you securely in the loop.
Prefer to watch?
Every month, Andy and Jordan talk us through the key updates that you need to know to stay ahead of the social media curve. Watch their April roundup here:
Get Social: April’s Biggest Social Media Updates | Adobe Express
Data
TikTok tops Q1 download charts
Data from data.ai reveals that TikTok is the number one most downloaded app from 2023 Q1, followed by Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. In terms of where consumers are spending their money, TikTok is top of the charts again with YouTube in second place. This second piece of information is particularly interesting as an indication on where users are potentially spending money — whether they’re buying products through the TikTok platform, boosting content, or gifting money to creators.
What makes a standout LinkedIn Ad revealed
A survey carried out by Vidmob (reported on by search engine land) discovered the following in relation to LinkedIn Ads:
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+149% lift in view through 25% when displaying messaging in the opening quarter of a video
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+54% lift in engagement rates with 7-15 second video duration
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+102% lift in view through 25% with high text contrast
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+175% lift in view through 25% when showing a person in the opening quarter
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+33% lift in click-through rate when offer includes “Get a Quote”
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+17% increase in click-through rate when featuring brand logo in the first two seconds of content
Trends
YouTube Shorts gains popularity
YouTube Shorts is gaining steady attention and has even now overtaken Instagram Reels when it comes to Google Searches, reveals Digital Information World.
The growth of Lemon8
A new social media platform, Lemon8, has been installed 17 million times globally since launching in March 2020. It’s also been installed over 650,000 times in the US in the last few weeks, and its largest market at the moment is Japan, responsible for 36.5% of its lifetime downloads.
Features
Instagram
Hashtags have limited reach and editing tools don’t impact reach
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, confirmed in a series of Instagram Stories that using hashtags in your Instagram content will not significantly change your reach. He also confirmed that Instagram Reels will not be downranked if you use a third-party editing tool.
Save posts with friends
Live now
Instagram now allows you to save content into “collaborative collections” where you and your friends can contribute and view.
Trim videos down to 60 seconds for Stories
Live now
A new feature from Instagram allows you to take your longer content and easily trim it down, making it easier to share as a Reel or within your Stories.
View Story reshares
Live now
You can now keep an eye on Story reshares to see how many people shared your Story in DMs. This is another useful statistic to track and learn from as a creator.
@ mentioning in Notes
Live now
“Notes” is a newer Instagram feature that allows you to write a status that will disappear after 24 hours and is visible to your followers in your inbox. An update to this feature means that @-mentioning in these Notes will now be possible.
Reels trends in professional dashboard
Live now
A new Reels trends area in the professional dashboard will reveal what audio and hashtags are trending currently to help you stay in the loop on what’s popular moment by moment.
Updates to Reels insights
Live now
You can now see how your Reels have impacted your reach amongst your followers and non-followers. You can also see your average watch time, which is an incredibly useful statistic that'll help you understand at which point in time your users are switching off — or rather, swiping away.
Instagram makes it easier to connect with your audience
Live now
Instagram will now reveal via notifications what of your content brought in new followers. You’ll also get a weekly engagement list that shows everyone who engaged with you recently so you can show appreciation to them in your responses.
Updates to Instagram virtual gifts
Live soon
Instagram has announced that it is expanding its Reels-focused gifting service — which is great news for Creators.
Add up to five links to your Instagram bio
Live now
Instagram bios have historically only allowed you to add one link, and now you can add up to five, which is sure to be great news to many businesses and influencers in particular who want to send their audience to multiple destinations.
Further reading: 15 Instagram bio ideas and templates
Facebook
Broadcast channels for Facebook Groups
Live now
Broadcast channels will allow admins and moderators to send messages to all group members via chat to ensure everyone is kept up to date on the most important updates and news.
Create clips from Facebook livestreams and cross-post content
Live now
It’s now easier than ever to create clips from your Facebook Lives and then post them across other Facebook pages. It’s also now possible to create clips from the livestreams of other users that can be published and shared with your own followers.
Add first comment on Facebook Stories
Live now
A new feature from Facebook allows you to add the first comment for Facebook Stories to be published alongside the story.
AI-generated stories
Live soon
Facebook is testing the option to create Stories for you using AI where it will suggest ready-made stories for you using advanced photo and video data based on what you’ve been posting on the platform recently.
Twitter
How Twitter’s algorithm works
Twitter has open-sourced their algorithm, meaning that how the algorithm works is now publicly available info. Some of the key takeaways include the following: likes, retweets, and replies are most beneficial (in this order) for ranking; using links will harm your ranking; Twitter Blue will extend your reach; posting content outside of your usual niche will harm your ranking, as will content that contains misspelled words or made-up words.
Twitter Blue for business launches
Live now
A version of Twitter Blue for businesses has now launched (known as “Verified Organizations”). However, this new update also comes with the announcement that you can no longer advertise on the platform unless you are subscribed to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations.
Twitter will be rebranded to “X”
Live soon
In a shocking tweet from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, he revealed that “buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
LinkedIn
Share a post with multiple members
Live now
LinkedIn now allows you to find a post of interest and share it with multiple of your connections via DMs.
Verification comes to LinkedIn
Live soon
LinkedIn verification means that LinkedIn will soon be able to validate that you do indeed work at the company that you claim.
LinkedIn adding more algorithmically “suggested” content
Live now
This new update means that you’re more likely to see content from outside of your usual friends and close colleagues. This means more opportunity for anyone to get their content seen without having a large following.
TikTok
More detailed analytics
Live now
This new update means that when you post a video you can get hourly and daily insight updates to keep close track of the progress of your TikTok engagement.
TikTok adds a “play next” option for Playlists
Live now
TikToks that have been added to a playlist will now appear with a “play next” option, allowing users to choose whether to continue swiping through their feed or to watch more videos from this playlist.
WhatsApp
WhatsApp rolls out broadcast channels
Live soon for all
WhatsApp is rolling out broadcast channels allowing you to broadcast messages to a set group of people.
WhatsApp extends group support
Live now
WhatsApp has made changes to groups allowing the number of members you can have in a group to be expanded to 1,024 (double the size it was before). Admins now control who can join groups, and you can also now search and view shared groups.
YouTube
More details added to YouTube Analytics
Live now
New data within YouTube Analytics will help creators to see how their viewers are discovering them (via which of their content).
Podcasts come to YouTube Music
Live now
With Podcasts now available on YouTube Music, here lies a really great opportunity for podcasters to merchandise their podcast and extend their reach to YouTube Music’s 2.5 billion monthly users.
Substack
Substack launches “Notes,” their Twitter rival
Live now
Substack, a platform known for newsletter subscriptions, has officially launched “Notes,” an app designed to be Twitter’s natural competitor.
Your Key Takeaways
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More editing and analytics tools are making Reels easier than ever to create.
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More flexibility of Instagram profile links potentially spells the end of “Link in bio” tools.
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Twitter is the first social network to go full “pay to play.”
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More content is being shared via DMs as opposed to the feed, so social networks are creating solutions to support this more private version of sharing.
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AI continues to have a big impact on social platforms.
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Keep an eye on Lemon8 and Notes.