Social Media News You Need to Know: June 2017 Roundup

Author: Kendall Walters / Source: Hootsuite Social Media Management

Facebook added closed captions for Live video, Twitter rolled out a redesign, Instagram added archive functionality, and Snapchat released a new map feature—June was a busy month for updates on social media.

Let’s dive in.

Table of contents

Twitter

Direct message buttons

On June 13, Twitter rolled out the ability for businesses to add buttons to direct messages. Businesses can add up to three buttons—to open any web URL, including links to other Twitter features—to any message. Button text is fully customizable, including the use of emoji.

The intent of the update is to make it easier for people to take an action outside of the conversation, such as composing a tweet, following an account, or opening a website within the Twitter app.

Redesign

On June 15, Twitter announced a new look for the platform, across twitter.com, Twitter for iOS, Twitter for Android, TweetDeck, and Twitter Lite.

Some of the changes include:

• A new side navigation menu featuring a user’s profile additional accounts, settings, and privacy
• Links to articles and websites open in Safari’s viewer in the Twitter app
• More consistent typography and bolder headlines
• Rounded profile photos
• Updated icons, including changing the reply button to a speech bubble instead of an arrow
• Real-time updates of reply, retweet, and like counts on tweets
• Increased color contrast

Facebook

New tools for politicians

At the beginning of June, TechCrunch reported that Facebook has added several new tools for politicians and their constituents:

• Constituent Badges—allow users to identify themselves as a person living in the district elected officials represent
• Constituent Insights—helps politicians learn what news stories and content is popular within their district
• District Targeting—allows elected officials to gather feedback from the constituents via Facebook using either posts or polls targeted only towards users who actually live in their district
• Add representative info—when composing a message, U.S. users can now choose to add the contact information for their government representative to the post

New Facebook Album features

On June 1, TechCrunch reported that Facebook rolled out the ability to add videos, check-ins, and text posts to albums.

Users can also now display a featured album on their profile and follow friends’ albums to get notified when they are updated.

Developer Circles

On June 1, Facebook launched Developer Circles, “a new program for developers all over the world to connect, learn, and collaborate with other local developers.”

Developer Circles are intended to serve as forums for developers to share knowledge, collaborate, and more.

Developing new messaging app for teens

On June 1, technology news site The Information reported that Facebook has begun working on a new messaging app for teens. The app, called Talk, will let parents monitor who their children are in contact with. Code for Talk was discovered on the flagship Facebook app.

Closed captions for Facebook Live

On June 6, Facebook rolled out the ability for publishers to add closed captions to Facebook Live video in an attempt to make the feature more accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Publishers can use Facebook’s speech recognition service to automatically generate captions for videos on their Pages. Viewers who have captioning settings turned on will automatically see closed captions on Live broadcasts when they’re available.

Disaster maps

On June 7, Facebook introduced disaster maps, a new feature that uses “aggregated, de-identified Facebook data to help organizations address the critical gap in information they often face when responding to natural disasters.”

The three types of maps are:

1. Location density maps—show where people are located before, during, and after a disaster
2. Movement maps—illustrate patterns of movement between neighborhoods or cities during a crisis
3. Safety Check maps—based on where users mark themselves as safe during a disaster

Updates to Canvas

On June 7, Facebook made Canvas available for every ad format in News Feed by opening it to the new “collection” function. Originally launched in March, collection “increases the likelihood of discovery and a purchase by featuring a primary video or image above relevant product images.”

Advertisers can now use collection for objectives beyond mobile shopping as well as attach a Canvas full-screen experience.

Facebook has also added easy-to-use full-screen templates for Canvas based on different business goals, such as getting new customers, selling products, and showcasing your business.

Value optimization ads tool

On June 12, Facebook began rolling out value optimization, a new tool for advertisers that uses purchase values sent from the Facebook pixel to estimate how much someone might spend on a business in a week.

Facebook explained: “The ad’s bid is then automatically adjusted based on this estimation, allowing campaigns to deliver ads to people likely to spend more with your business at a low cost.”

Updates to Safety Check

On June 14, Facebook introduced updates to Safety Check, the feature that allows people to communicate with friends and family during a crisis.

The new updates include:

• Fundraisers in Safety Check—people in the U.S. can start a fundraiser within the Safety Check feature
• Expansion of Community Help—making it available on desktop and for all crisis types once Safety Check is activated
• Personal note—when people mark themselves as safe, they can also share a personal note to add additional context
• Crisis descriptions—get more information about a crisis from NC4, Facebook’s trusted third party global crisis reporting agency, within Safety Check

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