Social Media News Stories You Need to Read This Week.

There are many changes that happen in the online world each month, and the SA Media Crew are here to help keep you on top of the latest developments with our monthly bulletin.

FACEBOOK HAS CHANGED THE WAY IT COUNTS ORGANIC IMPRESSIONS

Facebook has changed how it calculates organic impressions, meaning these figures will likely show a decline. It has done this by updating the way it filters repeat organic impressions to better align with the methodology used for paid advertising on its platform. Reach and engagement stats will remain the same.

FACEBOOK HAS REMOVED GREY VERIFICATION BADGES FROM PAGES

Facebook removed grey verification badges from Pages on 30th October, after calling the checkmarks “more confusing than helpful”. Removal of the badges won’t impact on the way the Page appears in search results, but Facebook has invited Page owners to a “Best Practices” webpage to improve Page visibility and follower engagement. We noticed a while back that we could no longer verify pages, so we were waiting for this to happen.

FACEBOOK IMPROVES ITS ‘KEYWORD ALERTS’ FOR GROUPS FEATURE

Keyword alerts open up new opportunities for admins to better manage group engagement and manage discussions more effectively. The alerts allow admins to get a notification about any mention of a keyword in a post in their group, then select whether to keep or delete the post. This sounds like a really useful addition.

FACEBOOK PROVIDES NEW STORIES TEMPLATES FOR BUSINESSES

Facebook has just released a new set of customisable Stories templates for use across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger advertising. The new templates provide simple, visually effective Stories presentation options that brands can use to showcase their offerings. Will you be using these?

INSTAGRAM HAS INTRODUCED A NEW ‘RESTRICT’ FEATURE TO HELP COMBAT BULLYING

Bullying is a big issue on social networks, with young users facing “a disproportionate amount of online bullying” but also “reluctant to report or block peers who bully them.” Instagram’s new ‘Restrict’ feature allows them to quietly protect their account, while at the same time being able to monitor an online bully. It’s great to see social media platforms taking online bullying seriously like this

IGTV “series” is out

Now you can brand your video series with a title and theme on IGTV. Yep, just like on Snapchat. This new labelling system allows users to easily find content via playlist while making it easier for creators to arrange content.

“THREADS” IS FINALLY HERE

Facebook is finally launching Threads for Instagram, after being announced in testing mode a few months ago. Thread is a new camera-first messaging app that helps you stay connected to your close friends in a dedicated, private space. Is this something you will use

GOOGLE SEARCH NOW LETS YOU FIND ‘KEY MOMENTS’ WITHIN VIDEOS

When searching, you can’t just skim through the contents of a video as you can with text. But now Google will let you find ‘key moments’ within videos. With this new feature, video search results become more accessible, organised, and more useful, allowing you to get to the information you’re looking for faster.

LINKEDIN’S AI AUTOMATICALLY GENERATES PHOTO TEXT DESCRIPTIONS

Currently, LinkedIn allows users to add alt-text information to uploaded images, but not all users take advantage of this function. LinkedIn has now developed a feature that generates alternative text descriptions for photos ranked by a confidence score. With this feature, LinkedIn hopes to make rich media accessible for all of its members.