February 04, 2018

#SocialSpeak: Your Weekly Roundup of Social Media News!

Building and extending connections is what social media networks are all about. When users interact and communicate via these networks, whether as businesses or individuals, they share their feedback about what they like and what they don’t. Be it a new filter or an enhanced video feature they want. And what do these platforms do? They heed the call to make their users’ experience as engaging and interactive as possible.

In this week’s edition of Social Speak, we bring you the latest features that our fave platforms are adding to their arsenal.

A New Video Platform is Coming to Town

Remember that time in 2013 when almost everybody was making funny albeit clumsy six-second looping videos? Yes, Vine, that was the platform. Good times, huh? Well, a new version of it will soon be making a comeback.

Dom Hofmann, Vine’s creator, has recently announced that he’s launching a new video hosting app to replace the old Vine, which will be called v2. But don’t call it Vine 2, here’s why.

So Twitter had bought Vine back in 2013 before its launch. Upon facing economic struggles and not giving the app the attention it deserved, Twitter decided to shut it down in 2016. It left users with a Vine camera app that allows users to view and create videos, but not share them. This feature was not well-received by users, as evident from the average user rating on the App Store.

Then Hofmann decided to step up and announce his plans to create an, “…homage, follow-up, remake, and brand new thing,” he writes. Because Twitter still owns the rights to Vine, Hofmann did not want people to associate it with the old app or think of it as an update, and hence the name v2 (with the lowercase, specifically).

Through the app, you’ll be able to shoot looping videos of 2 to 6.5 seconds, shoot in full-screen, and switch to selfie mode while recording.

With vieos thriving more than ever on the social media scene, the introduction of this app would mean more exciting work for digital agencies. Because who wouldn’t want to see short, entertaining and informative videos on their timelines?

How do you think this new app will affect the social media video content? Share your opinion with us on our Twitter page @SOCIAL-EYEZ!

GIFs to Spice Up Your Insta Stories

This platform always surprises us with new cool features, right? Instagram will be adding the ability to insert GIFs to their stories. In a partnership with GIPHY, you will have access to a huge library of thousands of moving stickers to make your stories more lively.

To add a GIF to your Insta stories, tap to add a sticker to your photo or video and you’ll see a new GIF option. You can check the most trending ones or search for the one you want from their library. Whether it’s dancing hearts or twirling cats, you’ll be sure to find that perfect GIF to complement your Insta stories.

Facebook to Give Local News a Push

As part of Mark Zuckerberg’s revamp for the platform’s mission statement, Facebook will now start pushing local news up your news feed. How and why, you ask?

So among the key aspects that Zuckerberg wanted the platform to emphasize is “civic engagement,” making sure that Facebook enhances the connection among local communities. This will put more focus on people-to-people interactions, in addition to news about topics that have a direct impact on the community you’re living in.

Facebook will identify the sources to push up your news feed depending on the links that users in your tight geographical area click on. The US will be the first country to get this update, then it will be applied to other countries along the year as well. Looks like 2018 will be quite a busy year for Facebook!

But what does this update mean for digital agencies? It means that they would have to go that extra mile to make sure that the content they’re creating for their clients is engaging enough and is relatable to the audience they’re catering to.

And that’s a wrap! Stay tuned for our new blog post next week for your dose of the latest social media news.