This has been a week of change for some of our favorite social media platforms. Read on to learn about three big announcements made by social media leaders this week:
1. Twitter released two new features: video and group messages. With Twitter’s new video capability, you can capture, edit and share videos lasting up to 30 seconds directly from the Twitter app (an increase from Vine‘s 6-second limit). With group messages, users can now direct message a group of up to 20 people instead of just one at a time. Additionally, users can exchange messages through the group function whether they are following each other or not.
2. Snapchat introduced Discover. Discover is a section of the app that aggregates stories from major news companies including National Geographic, CNN and People. Artists and publishers compile content that will then be available for users to watch for up to 24 hours.
When Snapchat described the new Discover feature on their blog, they said they don’t post stories based on what’s recent or popular, but instead, they “count on editors and artists, not clicks and shares, to determine what’s important.”
3. Pinterest announced Tuesday that they will now be placing “Promoted Pins” directly in users’ home feeds, making Pinterest ads more visible to users. More than a year ago, Pinterest began testing promoted Pins in search results and category feeds, and a year later they released data from the testing that showed “promoted Pins perform just as well and sometimes better than organic Pins.”
As Pinterest has promised from the beginning, promoted Pins will be tasteful and relevant to users’ interests. If you don’t like a promoted Pin, you can always hide it and can even offer feedback on how the site can improve their ads in the future.
Which of these new features are you most excited to use?
Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons – William Hook
