Week ending July 12, 2019

~ weekly social media updates to keep you in the know ~

Facebook is taking a page out of Twitch’s book with the addition of some new features to attract online content creators. ‘Stars’ are going to be a new mode of donations to give during streams. For $1.40 you can get 100 stars to donate to your favorite creators. Additionally, ads will be available for users to place in the middle of streams.

Next, Instagram is taking a stand against bullying on its platform, with the addition of AI to flag potential hateful comments before they’re posted. Supposedly this will result in a pop-up question, something like, “Are you sure you want to post this?” And for victims of bullying, new features will be added allowing them to limit the visibility of their own posts to bullies without notifying them.

Twitter also announced they’re updating their rules regarding hate speech to include dehumanizing and hateful religious content. (Honestly, we’re not quite sure why this wasn’t the norm already.) Past content that was posted before this update went into effect should be removed, but won’t result in the suspension of a user’s account.

Also, Twitter has launched Twitter ArtHouse, a creative team set up to help content creators and brands produce “Twitter first content that moves people.”

And lastly, YouTube just announced a whole heap of new features to assist creators in making money. Check out all the details here.

Other useful tidbits of news:

• Facebook‘s ThruPlay ad optimization will target people who are most likely to watch at least 15 seconds of your video ad. They’ve also added the ability to trim videos on your pages.
• Pinterest is going to be adding new video tools, including the option to pre-schedule videos.
• Instagram is rolling out an enhanced focus mode for Stories (akin to the Portrait Mode camera in iOS).

See you all next week!