Social media continues to dominate the digital landscape as more and more people adopt platforms like Instagram and Facebook. We’ve seen several key changes over the past few years. Here are the most important ones I have noticed for 2024.
Instagram continues to grow, especially thanks to Threads, which we’ll discuss in a moment. Instagram has recently added new testing features for posts and carousels. These include a feature that lets you see your post in your grid before you finish, allowing you to refine your image to fit into your overall aesthetic. They’re also testing prompts, allowing you to add a prompt to the top of the comments to improve engagement or add a clear call-to-action to your post.
Threads
In an effort to move beyond simply being a competitor to the lagging X/Twitter, Threads has joined the Fediverse. Fediverse is a third-party platform that highlights posts from across multiple social media networks. This allows users to monitor and interact with multiple social media platforms in one app. The advantage to marketers is clear, as they will have the same tools for monitoring and interacting across platforms.
TikTok
While TikTok has seen challenges over the past year, the popularity of the site has not diminished. Its features have also gotten better, especially for those interested in using the platform for e-commerce and digital marketing. Among the best features are live shopping, where users can go from a sponsored post to the shop, and back to their feed easily, and product showcases on the platform.
LinkedIn remains largely a niche platform, with its focus on job seekers and professional networking. To boost this, LinkedIn has added key features, including premium company pages, which give brands more ways to customize their presence on the platform, and AI assistance for job seekers. This second one is a huge boost to the platform, and if it proves successful, we’ll probably see AI assistance expand on LinkedIn in other ways as well. Of course, the limitations of AI mean that to be successful, companies need to ensure that their pages and content are clear, concise, and unambiguous.
Facebook remains a worldwide giant, and its most recent changes will help ensure that it remains so, even as its competitors grow. Facebook has brought Broadcast Channels to more pages, expanding it to those with 10k or more followers. Broadcast channels are a phenomenal tool, allowing creators to share information, messages, and content with their followers more easily and directly.
These are only some of the changes that I’ve seen with social media over the past year. They show that platforms are utilizing the tools available to them to expand their reach and usability with consumers. Now, the question is, how will you make use of these tools?
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