Spring sparks a new beginning for many individuals and the same goes for businesses. From new platforms being promoted, AI-generated Stories, and new Google updates, there has been a lot of movement this past month from our everyday social media and search engine tools. Read on for all the latest updates!
Social Media Updates
What is Lemon8 and Why Is Everyone Talking About it on TikTok
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance has been pushing their new “Instagram meets Pinterest” type app called Lemon8. The platform caters to interests in food, beauty, wellness, and travel, allowing users to share videos and photos. ByteDance has paid Influencers to take to the TikTok platform to spread the word. While Lemon8 is already popular in Japan and Thailand, Lemon8 will not formally launch in the US until May.
Facebook Tests AI-Generated Stories Based on Your Previously Shared Images
Facebook is looking for ways to get users to utilize Stories. Facebook is currently testing ‘Advanced Stories’ which is an automated Stories using AI to create new Stories from your shared content. Facebook will suggest ready-made Stories for users by using advanced photo and video data, which includes image location, and the presence of people, or animals. The platform will provide templated frames using uploaded images to share with your audience. In terms of brands, this can help create batch content, while for everyday users, this can be helpful in sharing pet pictures, wedding pictures, or baby pictures, quickly and easily.
YouTube Introduces Reactions and Ads Automation for Live Streams
YouTube is launching some new tools for creators to use during live streams, including live reactions, adding better live stream management tools, improving audience interest, and the ability for creators to create posts on tablets. The new live reactions filter will be enabled by default in which both creators and viewers can see people’s reactions, but the users providing the reactions will remain anonymous. The creators can disable the feature through the live control room.
YouTube will also be adding an optional ads automation tool, which will allow the platform to determine the best times to insert ads during live streams. The new live control panel will provide creators with stream stats and ad-serving capabilities in a smaller display space, which can also be accessed in the live control room. The platform will also help creators by providing more audience insight via top formats. This will show creators the types of videos, and formats, their viewers have watched on other channels, broken down by videos, Shorts, and livestreams. Lastly, as a top request by creators and viewers, YouTube is experimenting with making posts viewable on Android tablets. They plan to bring the feature to iPads in the coming months.
Your Instagram ‘Link in Bio’ Can Have up to Five Links
Instagram bios will now be able to hold up to five links. Mark Zuckerberg said this was “Probably one of the most requested features we’ve had.” Additional links can be added by editing your profile. Here, links can be given titles and can be reordered. Only one link will be clearly displayed in your bio, while the rest can be seen by clicking the ‘other’ message next to your first link.
Twitter Inc. Merged into X Corp. As part of the Next Evolution of the App
Twitter Inc. no longer exists since it has now been merged into X Corp. under Elon Musk. The Twitter platform will still be known as Twitter, but this merger is the start of building Musk’s vision for an ‘everything app’ known as X, as Musk currently holds the URL for X.com. In the past Musk has mentioned making an app similar to WeChat in China where users can pay their bills, buy groceries, tickets for transportation, and more. Musk has a digital payment background as he was CEO of PayPal, which at the time was called X.com. So, we will see how he adds payment functionality to tweets.
Industry News
Google Updates Helpful Content Guidance, Streamlines Search Console Reports
Google is emphasizing the importance of page experience by revamping its help page on helpful content with a new section dedicated to excellent page experience and how it can help your page in Google Search results. Google will also be making changes within Search Console in the coming months. They will be creating a new page that links to general guidance about page experience and a dashboard view of the individual Core Web Vitals and HTTPS reports. Starting December 1, 2023, Google will retire Search Console’s “Mobile Usability” report, the Mobile-Friendly Test tool, and the Mobile-Friendly Test API. Google assured that mobile usability remains critical to page experience guidance and that site owners should still prioritize it.
Amazon Offers Free Access to its AI Coding Assistant
Amazon is making its AI-Powered coding assistant, CodeWhisperer, free to everyone that signs up to use it. Developers can use it within various integrated development environments (IDEs) to generate lines of code based on text-based prompts. CodeWhisperer will automatically filter out any code suggestions that are potentially biased or unfair and will flag any code that’s similar to open-source training data. It supports several languages including Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, and C#. Amazon launched a preview of CodeWhisperer last year and was originally only made available to Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers, but this latest announcement will make it more accessible to those that don’t use AWS.
Wondering how to get the most use of these latest updates? Contact our team to talk about a digital strategy that aligns with your company’s goals!