Need to Know: The Latest Social Platform Updates

In the digital world changes are always on the periphery. When we are just about getting used to one platform update, five more come at us. But change is good… and at MXB, we like to keep our finger on the pulse. Here’s a swift roundup of the most recent platforms updates and potential incoming updates.

If you can’t beat ‘em…join ‘em!

If you haven’t already noticed, Instagram has begun rolling out its new update – a home page redesign centred around a vertical feed. Inspired by TikTok’s average time per session, Instagram now want to test dwell time on their own platform, by pushing shorter formats in full screen 9:16 ratio – Reels. Be warned copywriters – users will soon have to click to see any copy at the bottom of the screen that is longer than a few words, so grabbing your audience with the headline has never been so important.

It is predicted that the next update to take place will be optimizing still feed posts to 9:16 ratio. The average user has just about adapted to cropping images to square, so we can’t wait to see how Instagram approach this change.

Less is more

Instagram also have a new stories layout in testing, which will only show viewers the first 3 story tiles and hide the rest. If viewers want to see the remaining stories, they will have to expand the set. The maximum number of stories you can post will remain at 100 but Instagram want to show users more stories from more people in a shorter space of time.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled to see if this feature is rolled out but, in the meantime, it may be wise to get into the habit of capping your clients Story ads to 3 per day. Afterall, we already know that the less disruptive an ad experience, the more staying power it holds, especially for those full screen immersive formats. In this case, less is definitely more.

Are you that person that heads straight to the comment section? Well if so, this one’s for you!

Twitter are experimenting with notable replies to tweets. This will allow brands to publicly support or highlight responses to their tweets – similar to the ‘liked by creator’ feature on TikTok replies. By publicly endorsing witty or valid responses, brands are cleverly encouraging further engagement from their followers or indeed from other brands. We have all come to truly appreciate the brand to brand Twitter banter, so let’s hope this update is rolled out for an extra layer of juiciness. We predict further brand alliances forming in this social space.

What’s that, WhatsApp?

WhatsApp are developing a paid for subscription service – WhatsApp Premium. If rolled out this will allow ‘WhatsApp for Business’ users to avail of extra features for a small subscription fee. The main benefit will be the ability to link up to ten devices to a chat, which is ideal for businesses with customer service team. We predict WhatsApp will become increasingly popular in the sphere of customer services, particularly as user and customer demand for tighter turnaround on returns and query responses continues to grow.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of our Need To Know series.