the one with all the twitter updates

September 03, 2021

*Read this newsletter on the web for the best experience*

Hello, geeks!

It’s been another busy week in social media land, especially for Twitter, which pumped out a ton of new stuff...

...However, some Twitter users have strong feelings about this one new feature 😆

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

  1. LinkedIn accepts LinkedIn Stories sucked… And killed it 

  2. Twitter officially launched Super Follows

  3. Facebook’s getting into Fantasy Gaming 

  4. TikTok launch new API to boost influencer marketing activity

  5. Twitter revealed plans for new privacy-focussed features (more on this later)

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Nearly every social media platform is jumping on the social shopping bandwagon. Facebook has rolled out Instagram Shops. TikTok is experimenting with shopping via livestreams. Even Twitter is working on plans for shoppable tweets. For social media managers and marketers, it’s just one more thing to learn, understand, and possibly experiment with.

Thankfully, Hootsuite’s team of experts are hosting a FREE webinar to give you the Social Shopping 101 you need. So, if you want to get to grips with social commerce and find out how to kickstart your social shopping strategy, join the experts from Hootsuite who will tell you all you need to know. >> [Register to attend] <<

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💎 HIDDEN GEM | Poet.So - A FREE tool to capture and share Twitter posts as beautiful images 🎨 [Try it out]

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Before we jump into this week’s top talking points, here’s a few other bits & pieces worth being in the know about:

ICYMI…

Ok then… Let’s dig in to the social media news making the biggest headlines this week 👇

— Matt

P.S. My weekly Geekout debriefing on Twitter Spaces will return soon. More details soon. I promise 🙂

🎧 Don't miss...

If you missed my live interview with Facebook’s Messenger boss Stan Chudnovsky last week, you can catch up with the future for messaging in the latest edition of the Geekout podcast.

🚨 Everyone's talking about...

After way, way too long, Twitter is finally listening to its users when it comes to their safety. Bloomberg reported yesterday on new tools apparently in the works:

Among features being considered is the ability to edit follower lists, and a tool to archive old tweets so that they’re no longer visible to others after a specific amount of time designated by the user. Hiding past tweets could be a popular feature with people who don’t want their posts to exist online forever, offering an easier solution than manually deleting posts or combing through years-old messages to find those you wish you hadn’t sent.

It'll be great to say goodbye to the fiddly 'soft block' trick. No more having to block and unblock someone to remove them from your followers without them noticing (a version of the new approach showed up in Android app code recently as keen readers of this newsletter may remember).

But being able to auto-hide your tweets after 30, 60, 90, or 365 days is the real boon here. No more worrying about people digging through your ancient opinions from a decade ago to embarrass you today, and you won't have to turn to third-party tools that completely delete the tweets either.

This is all part of a push for what Twitter calls "social privacy" and it ties in well with 'Safety Mode', which was announced in February and started rolling out to a test group this week. The mode auto-blocks accounts that send you harassment. If it works well, it could be a huge mental health boon.

Twitter's design has long made it far easier to harass than it was to avoid harassment. That Twitter is finally addressing this upside-down situation shows how at least some social platforms are maturing, coming to terms with how people actually use them 2021, rather than how their creators optimistically wanted them to be used in the mid-2000s.

Beyond Twitter's reset of how it handles users' problems with its platform, another sign of social platforms evolving comes in the form of Facebook making what Wired described this week as a "big admission."

The company’s new approach to political content acknowledges that engagement isn’t always the best way to measure what users value.

Yes, following a survey of users' opinions, Facebook is to downrank political content in the News Feed.

It's part of a shift away from treating its algorithm, driven by what users engage with, as the best possible way of knowing what to show users.

Moving forward, Facebook will expand some of its current News Feed tests that put less emphasis on certain engagement signals, like the probability that a user will share or comment on a post, in its ranking algorithm.

Instead, it will begin placing a higher emphasis on other types of user feedback, like responses to surveys.

The problem with treating engagement as the algorithm's main guide is that if you don't know what else you could be seeing, you're going to engage with what you see. And then you see more of the stuff you don't particularly like, and so you and your friends post more of that content because that's the tone set by the algorithm. Like a crime-ravaged neighbourhood in a cycle of decline, social platforms driven by engagement can get stuck rewarding the worst content.

This has been clear to many of us for years, but Facebook is finally taking action on the problem. Let's hope any negative effect it has on ad revenue doesn't end up dragging the company back in the other direction.

Working with big-name creators is more than just a revenue opportunity. Popular creators have a bigger voice in the community than regular users, and they may use that to push platforms to change their behaviour.

Twitch saw that this week, as The Verge reported:

On Wednesday, September 1st, a number of channels on Twitch will go dark as streamers participate in #ADayOffTwitch, a walkout designed to bring attention to the ongoing hate and harassment that’s plagued the platform for the last several weeks.

Created by Twitch streamers ShineyPen, Lucia Everblack, and RekitRaven, the walkout aims to bring greater awareness to the problems creators are suffering on Twitch.

The protest had a noticeable effect on viewership on the platform.

Twitch promises that change to better protect creators is coming, but the walk-out this week shows how millennials and Gen-Z are far more comfortable using people-power to push for change than the generation before them, as we've seen in the push for unionisation in the US media industry, driven by staff in their 20s and 30s who want better working standards.

Another form of user protest got results this week over at Reddit, where many in the community were disappointed at CEO Steve Huffman's decision to allow vaccine misinformation on the platform. "Dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy. Reddit is a place for open and authentic discussion and debate. This includes conversations that question or disagree with popular consensus," he wrote.

But when lives are at stake, many don't see scaring people away from being vaccinated as a matter for debate. 135 subreddits went dark in a protest this week, stopping non-members from reading or joining their communities.

The move appeared to be enough to prompt change, with Reddit taking action against many anti-Covid-vax communities just days after it had said they were welcome.

People power: it gets results.

👀 ICYMI...

Stories you need to know about:

Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp:

Instagram will ask users' ages as it rolls out new protections for young people. If you don't share your age, eventually you won't be able to continue using the app.

  • Facebook reported incorrect data to advertisers about campaigns due to an apparent bug. [AdAge]

  • Facebook Gaming has expanded who can use licensed music in game streams. [Engadget]

  • WhatsApp has been fined $276m for breaching European data protection laws. [TechCrunch]

Twitter:

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are excited to see that Twitter is working on Bitcoin and Etherium support for the tipjar feature. CEO Jack Dorsey is a big crypto fan.

TikTok:

TikTok will hold an event later this month where it is expected to present a preview of what's next for the platform.

  • TikTok is partnering with influencer agency Influential to help brands find the right people to front their campaigns. [AdAge]

  • Consumers trust Spotify ads more than TikTok ads, a study has found. [AdAge]

And the rest…

Two big names in Twitch game streaming are the latest to switch to YouTube Gaming.

  • Amazon is working on its own live audio platform. [Axios]

  • The UK's digital privacy code for children has come into effect. It's behind many of the child safety improvements social apps have made recently. [The Guardian]

  • Laypeople could do as good as job as professional fact checkers, a study has found. [Wired $$$]

  • Telegram has been downloaded 1 billion times globally, according to Sensor Tower data. [TechCrunch]

👍 Pro-tip of the week

  • Instagram hashtags: should they be in the caption or a comment for best results? The debate has raged on for years, but Instagram has officially settled it.

🌟 New feature of the week

Work with Facebook ads? You should like this one...

🔍 Insights

Social media data, insights and reports to give you an edge at work:

  • Want some TikTok audience insights to help shape your campaigns on the platform? A new study by the company could help. [Social Media Today]

  • Want to make a splash as a creator on Clubhouse? The company has created a set of resources to help you. [Social Media Today]

  • Want to make the most of marketing on Twitter? Check out this interview. [Social Media Today]

  • Want to improve your Pinterest marketing skills? A new series from the company could be useful. [Social Media Today]

📲 Quick hits

Updates, experiments, and useful info snippets:

  • Facebook will highlight top-rated shops to help users choose where to buy from. [Social Media Today]

  • Facebook's Live Audio Rooms feature is starting to pop up in the UK. [@MattNavarra]

  • Facebook is testing 'Your Shortcuts', helping you find events, pages, and profiles you've recently accessed. [@oncescuradu]

  • Instagram has launched a live video hub in its Shopping tab. [TubeFilter]

  • Instagram is working on stickers you can collect from locations to include in your Stories. [@alex193a]

  • Instagram could soon let you cross-post your Reels from one account to your others. [@alex193a]

  • Instagram now shows normal photos in the Reels feed. [@vikkiboden]

  • Instagram is developing the Tutorials content section for creators. [@alex193a]

  • Instagram is working on a 'Monetization Status' section in the Creator menu. [@alex193a]

  • Instagram is still developing its Fan Clubs feature. [@alex193a]

  • And the creator onboarding screen for Fan Clubs has also been uncovered. [@alex193a]

  • WhatsApp has fixed a potentially serious bug that could have let hackers access private data. [9to5Mac]

  • WhatsApp beta users who activate multi-device will also be able to access the new archive feature. [WABetaInfo]

  • Sky Sports News will use WhatsApp's view-once feature to share football transfer deadline day news. [T3]

  • UK rail users can now get journey updates via WhatsApp. [Evening Standard]

  • Twitter is working on letting you create GIFs via the in-app camera. [@alex193a]

  • Twitter tipping via GoFundMe and PicPay seems to be on the way. [@alex193a]

  • Twitter could soon let you listen to Spaces without logging in. [@alex193a]

  • Twitter is developing a DM column for the new TweetDeck. [@wongmjane]

  • Twitter could soon let you manually flag a photo as sensitive as you compose a tweet. [@wongmjane]

  • Twitter has refreshed its Help Center. [@TwitterSupport]

  • Twitter could soon follow your device settings for dark mode on Android. [@alex193a]

  • TikTok has launched quick 'Promote' ads for business accounts. [Social Media Today]

  • ABBA have joined TikTok as they make their big comeback. [@tiktok_uk]

  • YouTube has made it easier to find its experimental features. [Android Police]

  • LinkedIn Learning now offers a live events feature. [AdAge]

  • Reddit has launched ads in conversation threads. [AdAge]

  • Clubhouse now supports spatial audio. [Social Media Today]

  • Telegram now lets unlimited users join live streams and video calls. [Android Authority]

😮 Did you know?

Did you know…

  • Geekout has 15,000+ subscribers.

  • Geekout subscribers work in social for the world’s biggest brands including Apple, Amazon, BBC, Edelman, Redbull, Twitter, McDonalds, and more.

  • Geekout has an industry-beating open rate of 50+% and a CTR of 30+%.

Want to advertise in Geekout?

Drop me an email: [email protected]

📖 Weekend reading

😳

💀 Meme of the week

📅 Back next week...

...And that’s a wrap!

Your weekly download of EVERYTHING new in social is complete ✅

Right… It's time to go grab a drink.

The working week is over and the weekend has started!

Goodbye, geeks!

— Matt

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This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant.

Copyright 2021: Matt Navarra Media Ltd

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