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

For Pride Month this year, Instagram is changing the color of the rings around a user’s profile picture that appear when a story is uploaded. In June, if you use a pride-related hashtag, that ring will turn rainbow-colored.

Secondly, it looks like Instagram might be incorporating purchasing into Stories through a new ‘order’ sticker that some users have spotted, though no official announcement has been made on the feature.

Facebook has launched Portal, a new smart device with Alexa built in, designed to make video calling more connected. The Smart Camera and Smart Sound features incorporate AI to make users feel more present. It’s connected to Facebook Messenger, as well as a user’s activity feed. If any of this sounds invasive, don’t worry—privacy is part of the design too.

YouTube is going to be implementing some changes to the platform in the near future. One of these changes is that subscriber counts on channels with over one thousand subscribers will be shown as a flat count (ex: 10k instead of 10,567).

Another new feature to be implemented soon will involve the shortening of longer ads through machine learning. Now, what viewers see before the “skip ad” button appears will have been designed by AI to be the most interesting and engaging parts of an advertisement.

Lastly, advertisements will be implemented into YouTube’s feed, appearing among and in the same format as a channel’s regular posts.

Tip of the week:

Video content performs better on ALL platforms. Videos on LinkedIn are 20% more likely to be shared than any other type of content. So if you’re having trouble engaging your audience, try a video. Here are some hot tips to make sure your videos are doing the most for you.

See you all next week!