This month in social media (October 2020)

The main focus in October for social media seemed to be channels releasing those things we don’t really need or asked for, but now they’re here will begin to be used by many. We’re talking about things like Google allowing us to search for songs by humming, Snapchat releasing an original series and Facebook launching a dating service

Below we take a look at some of the more useful updates in social media throughout the month that may be beneficial for your marketing strategy, and allows you to connect with your audience in new ways.

Instagram Live for up to 4 hours

Instagram Live is something that has grown in popularity ever since it launched back in 2016, but with the changes to everyday life we have all had to make in 2020, they have seen the need for longer live streams on the app.

With more people, businesses, lecturers, teachers, musicians and more turning to live streaming over the past few months, as a way to entertain and educate, Instagram have upped the time limit on a live video from 1 hour to 4 hours, giving businesses and individuals more time to get their point across without the need to keep switching streams.

In addition to the increased live streaming time, Instagram will add live streams to IGTV’s “Live Now” when they end. This way, it hopes to attract more users to live content on its platform. They will be saved after recording for 30 days.

Facebook announced new tools for groups

You’ve been hiding under a rock if you haven’t noticed Facebook has a strong focus on promoting its “groups” feature recently, with tv adverts and paid posts about it. They seem to be spending a lot of time adapting groups to best fit the needs of those who use them, either as an admin or a member.

For admins, they have launched “admin assist”, which means Facebook can help you moderate your group with the likes of banning certain keywords in posts, or double checking over posts from members who haven’t been in the group for long, and those who have been flagged in the past. That’s not all though, admins can now organise their conversations by topics and hashtags, and pin certain topics to the top when it needs to be highlighted. Admins can now use the Brand Collabs Manager to make money from their Public groups by connecting with brands looking to promote their products and services.

For members, expect to see more Q&As in these groups, along with admins being able to jump in on messages at any point to help and advise. You can also conversations with a new type of collaborative post where you can share photos about a specific topic and swipe through everyone’s responses.

Are local lenses the future of Snapchat?

You have to give it to Snapchat, even though it is losing in popularity in recent times, it still has a core audience base, and is always up for trying new ideas and technologies to give it a boost over competitors, although these are often then copied.

The new one is local lenses, which they launched first in London’s Carnaby Street, and you can see in the video below how this worked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jA1RM5_WMc

Essentially, they created the first local lens, called “city painter”, which is the first persistent, collaborative, and shared AR experience. It allows users to use the Snap camera to virtually spray paint colors and graffiti murals on Carnaby Street’s shops. Snapchat users can see others spraying and can battle each other to add their own colors and graffiti.

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