Monday Morning Learning – 5 April 2021
Published on 07 Apr '21
TikTok Launches New ‘Playlists’ Feature to Group Clips into Themed Collections
TikTok has begun rolling out a new feature on its platform, “Playlists” around the last week of March. This feature enables users to group these TikTok clips into themed collections. The new option enables you to create dedicated collections of video clips, which you can name as you wish (up to 15 characters), that are then displayed on your profile.
The option could be a great way to create longer, thematic TikTok content, and boost engagement with your clips. For brands, that could give you the opportunity to post product tutorials or explainers, for example, which run in sequence based on how people generally need them, while for regular creators, it could encourage them to create episodic content, with each clip carrying over to the next, ideally keeping people around for longer and building stronger audience connection.
TikTok is currently testing out this new feature on Creator and Business accounts.
Instagram officially launches Remix on Reels, a TikTok Duets-like feature
Instagram today is officially launching a new feature called Remix, which offers a way to record your Reels video alongside a video from another user. The option is similar to Tik Tok’s existing Duets feature, which also lets users react to or interact with another person’s video content while creating their own. Instagram’s new feature has been in public testing before today, so some Instagram users may have already gained access.
We recently reported on Instagram’s plans with Remix, when noting that Snapchat was developing a Remix feature of its own. In fact, Snapchat is also using the name “Remix” for its TikTok Duets rival that’s currently in development.
YouTube could hide Dislike numbers from videos to help content creators
YouTube is planning to bring a major overhaul to its video platform that will benefit creators. The video-sharing platform announced that it will begin a test that will hide the dislike count on videos from public view.
YouTube says that it will run a small experiment wherein it will try several new interface designs that won’t publicly display the number of dislikes a video ‘has earned.’
While the move comes in response to creator feedback, YouTube says that it won’t remove the dislike button entirely. The announcement about the new plans comes via YouTube’s official community forum.
Twitter looks to release its own take on Social Commerce features.
Well, well, well. Looks like another social media network succumbed to making things shoppable on their feed! News around the block is that Twitter is experimenting with social commerce features to allow users to shop in-app without leaving the platform. While Twitter might be late to the party of bringing shoppable features to their platform, it still presents great opportunities for brands looking to boost their sales on Twitter. Watch out for a ‘Shop Now’ CTA on Twitter real soon, people!
Twitter to host a ‘Best of Tweets’ brand battle.
Over the past few months, Twitter has identified the best brands for their scroll-stopping tweets, and now they will all go head-to-head in Twitter’s ‘Brand Bracket’ aka, the epic battle to crown the best brand on Twitter. As explained by Twitter: “We know the conversational nature of Twitter makes it a place where brands can be their most human-sounding selves. Brands can have two-way conversations with their audience that are real and unfiltered and can’t be replicated anywhere else. With this bracket, we aim to celebrate those that do this the best – as selected by the people of Twitter.” Let the games begin!
LinkedIn Adds New Profile Features, Including Video Cover Stories and ‘Creator Mode’
The update is part of LinkedIn’s increasing focus on content creators on the platform.
- Profile picture will auto-play a preview of your video
- “Creator Mode” enables creators to add a selection of hashtags indicating the topics they will post about most, helping LinkedIn showcase them to interested audiences
- “Featured” and “Activity” sections will be at the top of the profile to more prominently display content creators post
- “Connect” button will be changed to “Follow” to help LinkedIn creators build an audience
- LinkedIn Live Broadcasters will have their videos played as the cover photo whenever they start streaming
This could be a big addition. If you’ve been looking for ways to build a stronger presence on LinkedIn, this will be a major update and could end up providing a significant benefit in your personal branding, and industry profile-building efforts.
LinkedIn confirms it’s working on a Clubhouse rival, too
LinkedIn has now confirmed it’s also testing a social audio experience in its app which would allow creators on its network to connect with their community.
Online networking, remote work and virtual events will only continue to grow, even post-pandemic, and this audio networking addition makes for a natural extension of other areas on LinkedIn, like Groups and Events – which have grown particularly during the pandemic
How LinkedIn’s version will be differentiated?
- More connected with users’ professional identity, not just social profiles
- LinkedIn already built a platform that better serves the creator community with tools like Stories, LinkedIn Live video broadcasting, newsletters, etc
- LinkedIn just formalized some of its efforts in this area with the launch of a new “Creator” mode that lets anyone set their profile as one that can be followed for updates, like Stories and LinkedIn Live videos
- Their focus on creators puts LinkedIn on a competitive footing in terms of expanding its own Clubhouse rival (for eg, for Twitter Spaces, the full set of creator tools have yet to arrive, and although Facebook has creator-focused features, they only recently invested in newsletters)
Facebook Adds ‘Feed Filter Bar’ News Feed Control Tool, New Options to Restrict Post Comments
After testing the option out for more than a year, Facebook has today officially launched its new News Feed Filter Bar option, which makes it easier for users to switch between the regular News Feed, ranked by Facebook’s notorious algorithm, and either a ‘Favorites’ or ‘Recent’ listing of posts, the latter being kind of like a reverse-chronological feed.
Facebook adds a new visual prompt in a bid to encourage take-up of the vaccines
- They launched a profile frame on 1st April to go along with your current profile photo
- They say “Let’s get vaccinated”
- Same sticker on Instagram available through IG Stories that say “Let’s get vaccinated”
- A visual cue that may encourage people to do the same: “Research shows that social norms can have a major impact on people’s attitudes and behaviors when it comes to their health. We know people are more likely to get a vaccine when they see many people they trust are doing it.”
- Uses the concept of social proofing
