Social Media News: What’s New in Social Media in January

How to leverage new changes and updates to social media

Stay on top of social media news and trends with CareerArc’s Social Media News series. We’ll alert you to all things new to social media, and how those updates affect your employer branding, social recruiting and overall hiring efforts.

Without further ado, here’s what’s new in social right now.

Twitter

After years of slower development, Twitter says it’s now “picking up the pace” of innovation. As a result, there are a lot of new features in the pipeline like:

• Topic activity insights
• Tweet reply controls
• Disincentives for trolls

Here’s a little more about these new features:

Topic Activity Insights

Designed to help improve Twitter content discovery and connect more people (particularly new users) to increasingly relevant, engaging tweet content, this new feature is good news for brands. Previews of topic listings, would include things like related hashtags and follower counts, as well as notes on how active the topic is in the app. This is helpful for users looking to estimate the daily tweet volume they can expect by following a topic, but also helps brands determine which topics to target in their marketing efforts. You can identify trending topics or avoid those with too much noise.

Here’s how to follow topics:

“On your Home timeline and in search results, you’ll see prompts to follow topics. Tap the Follow button in the prompt and we’ll personalize your Twitter experience based on your interest in this topic. We may also match you with other topics that we think you are interested in based on your profile and activity, such as the Tweets you view or like.”

As of November 13^th, Twitter had curated listings to cover 300 topics of general interest.

Tweet Reply Controls

One of the hesitations brands have with posting to social media, and Twitter in particular, is managing replies or comments. Many HR Departments don’t have the bandwidth to monitor ongoing comments. Twitter is working on a feature to limit who can reply to tweets. Potential audience settings could include:

• Global – Anyone can reply to your tweet
• Group – Only people you follow, or mention can reply
• Panel – Only people you directly mention within the tweet text can reply
• Statement – no tweet replies allowed

This feature would come as a huge relief to brands and HR departments who don’t have time to manage replies. Stay tuned to our Social Alert series to find out when/if this feature goes live.

Disincentives for Trolls

Twitter is also working on ways to reduce the incentive for anti-social behavior or trolling on the platform. According to Twitter’s head of product Kayvon Beykpour, “One of the things we’ve been thinking about is whether we have the right balance of incentives within the core product experience. Putting our rules aside for a moment, just as an example, there isn’t really a disincentive today to be a total jerk on Twitter. And that’s a product problem.”

Facebook

Page Management History

Facebook has added a new tab to Page settings. If you have multiple people contributing to your Facebook page, this update is for you.

The Page Management History tab will allow you to track changes to Page admins, Page roll allocations, contact information, Business Manager relationships and more.

It will show what management actions have been taken, when they were taken and by who. Only Page managers can see the Page management history. To view this tab, go to Page settings and view the options on the left side column.

Suggested Moderator

Looking for brand advocates? Use Facebook’s new “Suggested Moderator” tool to help you identify Facebook Group members that would make good potential moderators. The tool will help brands build relationships with key brand advocates and even discover ideal candidates. Facebook Groups are a great way to engage with your community, employees and passive candidates.

Pinterest

Pinterest Trends

Pinterest is introducing “Pinterest Trends” which will provide brands with consumer behavioral insights. The tool provides data on the top US search terms for the past 12 months on the platform. It also shows when these terms peaked during the year to help with planning.

TikTok

1.5 Billion Downloads

Do you have a TickTock strategy? If not, it’s time to consider it. TickTok is now the fourth most downloaded non-gaming app, hitting 1.5 billion downloads. The app now has new features like the ability to add links into user bios, and eCommerce URLs to uploaded videos.

What do you think about these new social media updates? What questions do you have about how to use social media in your recruitment marketing efforts? Subscribe to our blog to be the first to learn about social media trends and updates.