Instagram stories are one of the main and most-used features of Instagram. As the statistics have always shown from the beginning of the time, Instagram stories where launched, people tend to watch more stories than posts and users actually love them.
Instagram knows the popularity of the stories, and as its use grows among Instagramers, Instagram has started to test something big on the platform. “a Full-Screen Stories Display.” Instagram has officially confirmed that it’s testing its somewhat intimidating full-screen Stories display.
It was about a month ago when Instagram published an announcement about double-story stories feeds, which was applied to a limited number of users worldwide. And now as AdWeek’s marketing manager Julian Gamboa, has shared screenshots on her twitter, it shows that the double-story stories feed is real and is actually being tested on some accounts.
The purpose of this feature is to let users watch and access stories faster and have them on a screen just like an album of stories that they can easily choose from.
The feature Is explained in even more detail by Social Media Today. Some users are now seeing a prompt below their double-story Stories display to ‘See all stories.’ When tapped, the Stories display then expands to full screen (depending on how many Stories you’re eligible to view), creating a Connect 4-style display grid of tappable Stories.
What’s the goal of the “double-story” stories feed?
As I mentioned above, the obvious goal of this feature is to make it easier for users to access all stories in one place and have a separate page for them.
I also think of this new option as an idea of Facebook to drive more traffic and users to stories since the stories feature is of great importance for Facebook when it comes to advertising.
“We’re always testing new ways to improve the Instagram experience for our community,” a Facebook company spokesperson said, in reference to the test.
LinkedIn is acting very considerate for the people who are seeking jobs and is also trying its best to be helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why LinkedIn has launched New “Support” Reaction, a new “Open-To Work” feature, and a new Career Opportunities Hub to do something good for the job seekers on the platform.
LinkedIn “Support” reaction
LinkedIn has now added a new option for users to react better amid COVID-19, the “Support” reaction. The emoji-response option will provide another way to engage with LinkedIn posts, particularly, as noted, those relating to COVID-19, for which a ‘Like’ or ‘Curious’ response doesn’t fit.
The “Support” reaction is somehow like the “Care” reaction, which Facebook launched some time ago. The change also underlines the popularity of Reactions as a response tool.
LinkedIn “Open-To-Work”
LinkedIn is making it much easier to find jobs. Job seekers are now easier to be seen by the new LinkedIn feature. LinkedIn is also adding some new display options for both job seekers and professionals looking to lend a hand, where possible.
For job seekers, LinkedIn has added a new “Open To Work” feature, which will enable users to display that they’re available for offers and opportunities.
With the new “Open to Work” option, a new green label would be displayed around your profile picture showing that you are a job seeker. This can help to make your profile stand out in searches and in feeds.
Follow the steps below in order to add an “Open to Work” Frame to your profile:
Head to your profile and tap on: “Show recruiters you’re open to work” under your profile picture.
Fill in your job preferences such as location and job type
You can customize the option’s preferences by tapping on “choose who sees that you’re open” to select if you want to keep this to recruiters, or if you want to add a badge to your profile that everyone can see.
With these new LinkedIn updates, It would be easier for users to react to posts relevant to COVID-19 and also find their dream job faster than before and thank LinkedIn later.
Today Facebook has updated its news feed algorithm to something way better and more reliable for users. The news feed algorithm is going to put more emphasis on original reporting and boost content from news websites that provide information on their journalists, increasing transparency.
Facebook has decided to apply this change mostly because many of its users rely on Facebook as a reliable news source for any filed such as Covid-19 now. Moreover, with many local news outlets being forced to close due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reliance on Facebook for news, especially local updates, is only going to rise.
From now on, Facebook has promised to show its users more original reporting and stories with transparent authorship.
“When we ask people what kind of news they want to see on Facebook, they continually tell us they want news stories that are credible and informative. Today, we’re updating the way news stories are ranked in News Feed to prioritize original reporting and stories with transparent authorship.”
“We do this by looking at groups of articles on a particular story topic and identifying the ones most often cited as the original source. We’ll start by identifying original reporting in English language news and will do the same for news in other languages in the future.”
Let me make the procedure of this algorithm a little easier for you. There will be variable impacts but take this example form me. Think that several of your friends share reports on the same news topic, and one of them shares the original reportage, Facebook will show you that first.
The second element of the update pays attention to ‘Transparent Authorship.’
Another big change of the algorithm with the new update is Transparent Authorship. According to Facebook itself, they are also starting to demote news content that does not have transparent information about the publisher’s editorial staff.
They will review news articles for bylines or a staff page on the publisher’s website that lists the first and last names of reporters or other editorial staff. They’ve found that publishers who do not include this information often lack credibility to readers and produce content with clickbait or ad farms, all content people tell us they don’t want to see on Facebook.
Overall, we all surely love the idea of the new algorithm change, and I guess that might help Facebook gain the trust and credibility it has lost in the past few days due to controversies.
If you are using any form of social media, you might wonder how you can get some more information about your accounts. The best point of accessing to the analytics of any social media accounts like Facebook Instagram Twitter or YouTube is that you will know how you should direct that account.
If you are using any form of social media, you might wonder how you can get some more information about your accounts. The best point of accessing to the analytics of any social media accounts like Facebook Instagram Twitter or YouTube is that you will know how you should direct that account.
Indeed it will give you a better inside of what you have done on it, or what you should do in the future. For example, you are running a business account, and you need to get more women because you are selling women stuff. An insight would show you how your accounts are growing.
Looking for the best time to post on social media? What are the men and women portions of your account? Or to know what time of the day would be the best to post? Or an insight into the best and engaging posts? All answers are inside the analytics tools of social media.
What is social media analytics?
Social media analytics tools are the software or apps providing the statistics of social networks. They will provide the posts and user engagement, user behaviors, the best time to post, and all other information one needs to grow their account. For example, age, gender, living places of users, or country.
If you are running multiple accounts on different social networks, it’s better you use third-party apps to get more metrics (all in one social media analytics tools). I would introduce here to manage all accounts in one place.
Free social media analytics tools
Let us divide analytics tools based on the platforms:
YouTube analytics tools
Twitter analytics tools
Facebook & Instagram analytics tools
However, many third-party apps may have the all in one place such as Hootsuite. It means at a time; you can manage and get the analytics of all your social accounts.
YouTube analytics tools for others’ channels
Social Blade
If you want to know the estimated earning of someone else channel, you can get it through Social Blade or TubeBody Chrome extension. As you see in the picture, the number of subscribers, estimated earning per videos, and their rank is shown in the analytics section.
There is some fantastic section on the website that shows if channel trending is rising. And, the option to see similar accounts. If you are looking forward to gathering some videos from YouTube with the same topic, it can be a good idea.
Tube body
It is true that if you find the channel with the highest rate of earning, but you can come up with your ideas. Some topics are competitive, and thousands of channels are competing on a specific topic. It is good to get some ideas that which channels are proper (and well worth spending time creating videos, making content), but always think for uniqueness and quality.
Free Instagram & Facebook analytics tools
Creator studio
I highly recommend the creator studio, and the Instagram insight (available for creator and business accounts) available on the Instagram app.
The tool would indeed give you the basic statistics about your account, but in some cases, it might be enough. The Instagram insight is divided into three main sections of content, activity, and audience.
In the content section, everything about your posts, including the engagement rate. Activity will show you the best time (hour or day) to post, and the audience section will show the portion of both genders, their age, and country (and city).
It depends on your business or Instagram activity. Instagram creator studio is also giving the same information. Connecting Instagram account to the creator studio is easy, and you can log in to the creator studio with your Instagram account. Then, tools are in front of you.
If that is not enough for you, you can go for free Trial of other social media analytics services like Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, etc.
Creator Studio to see Facebook and Instagram analytics for free
If you are running a page on Facebook, you might have seen the insight menu on your Facebook page. Facebook has provided complete analytics about the growth of the page. You can get Facebook analytics on Creator Studio. Facebook insight gives you posts performance data, audience statistics, data of stories, and other necessary information you need to know about your page.
Creator studio for Facebook free analytics
You can use the insight for free, and of course, do not forget to check all options on the Facebook page set. You can set the audience and place of visitors. So, the page would be open for those you want to be there. This customizes the audience and determines the direction that a page is growing at.
Free Twitter analytics tools
Like other services above, Twitter also has its analytics services that you can use for free. It will give you a better insight on which direction your account is going.
Best third party social media analytics tools
As I have seen, what makes this software and apps different from what the social network provides is the report you can make within the app. However, making a report is not free, and they charge you (sometimes separately from the other services).
Social media analytics services like Hootsuite, Buffer is the one you can make the social report. These services are excellent if you are a social media manager, and you need it for your job/resume. Otherwise, if you are running your accounts, you no need the report, in my mind.
When And Where You Can Find Social Analytics Tools
Equally important is the question of where to look for appropriate social media analytics tools. In general, there are several options where you can get such a tool, so let’s take a closer look at each of them.
The reality is, social analytics tools can be found everywhere, for example on the best web developer freelance platforms. Usually, there can be some experts that can provide you with the perfect tools to analyze your account data. As a result, you get a qualified tool that is created only for you with all your requirements and wishes in mind. It will provide you with analytics data and other useful information about your account. As a result, you get a good product for an affordable price. The tools created by developers are completely personalized and provided with modern technologies, for example, AI development or other technical decisions to obtain reliable and accurate statistics.
But of course, there can be totally other situations. For example, your project has no extra funds for such an application or tool. In that case, you need to find a way to do it cheaper or even for free. In fact, it is not a problem, as you still can try some free tools that can be found on the Internet. They are no worse than paid tools, and their only disadvantage is that they will not be personalized specifically for you. However, they often have several options that you can use to get some type of information about your activity and visits to your account. Sometimes you do not even need to download them as some sites already have useful instruments for gathering statistics. Usually, these are internal tools of sites that are available to all users and which give accurate information about your target audience.
Conclusion
If you have few accounts to run of less than 100K followers on each, use free tools. I highly recommend you use the social networks to get the insight. If you are a social media manager or running multiple accounts, you can use social media management tools.
Twitch, the very popular streaming, has temporarily banned President Trump’s account for “hateful conduct.” a Twitch representative said that the account had been suspended for violating the company’s policy on hateful conduct.
“Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch. In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed.”
Regarding what Forbes has clarified, The company pointed to two examples of offending statements from recent and older rallies:
2016 campaign rally, recently rebroadcast on Twitch: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards, and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.”
Tulsa Rally: “Hey, it’s 1:00 o’clock in the morning and a very tough, I’ve used the word on occasion, hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do. And you call 911, and they say, “I’m sorry, this number’s no longer working.” By the way, you have many cases like that, many, many, many. Whether it’s a young woman, an old woman, a young man, or an old man, and you’re sleeping.”
Reddit also banned a subreddit dedicated to Trump
Another social media platform that dared to stand against Trump’s hateful content and term’s violation is Reddit. But the difference is that the subreddit community wasn’t set up by or formally involved with the Trump campaign.
Trump’s Twitch channel was banned on the very same day Reddit announced a slew of new policies that also saw the popular r/the_Donald subreddit permanently banned from its platform.
Overall, Trump has been causing issues and controversies lately on almost all social media platforms. The president has also recently seen action taken against his Facebook and Twitter accounts, too, for hateful content.
India finally banned TikTok along with 59 other mobile phone applications, which are mostly Chinese apps. The ban is applied especially to TikTok, mostly because Indian users wanted it.
The move was taken after several complaints were received by the ministry, alleging theft of users’ data and violations of user privacy. Now, Google and Apple will have to follow the order and remove these apps from the Android and iOS stores.
The Indian Ministry of Information Technology, who authorized the ban today, said it received an “exhaustive recommendation” to ban the 59 Chinese apps from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Furthermore, the ministry also said India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) has also received complaints from users about the privacy and security of the banned apps.
Why India banned these Chinese apps?
Regarding what the Aljazeera website has explained, India’s decision comes as its troops are involved in a tense standoff with Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh in the Himalayas that started last month. India lost 20 soldiers in a June 15 clash that took place approximately 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) above sea level in the Galwan River Valley.
The deaths triggered enormous outrage and street protests in India.
Anti-China sentiment has long simmered in India over accusations of cheap imports flooding the country, but the border clash has brought tensions to the fore with calls being made to boycott Chinese products.
Which Chinese apps are banned in India?
In this section, I want you to have a closer look at which apps India has now banned in the country. Keep up with me to find out more about the apps that are now banned in India.
TikTok, Video Call apps from Xiaomi, two of Alibaba Group’s apps (UC Browser and UC News); Shareit; CM Browser, Club Factory, and ES File Explorer are the biggest names in the list of apps banned by India on Monday night.
Other banned applications are listed in the picture below, by TechCrunch.
In the past few days, twitter has been labeling several tweets that were about COVID-19 as misleading. Most of the tweets were labeled by mistake, which made Twitter apologize for the huge misunderstanding.
Regarding The Verge website, Twitter began fact-checking tweets that linked 5G and the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this month, by adding the label that reads “get the facts about COVID-19” which links to a Twitter moment with “No, 5G isn’t causing coronavirus” as its title
Twitter made excuses claiming that it is operating on strengthening how it labels tweets with problematic 5G or coronavirus content material, and that’s why such minor issues happen.
“In the last few weeks, you may have seen Tweets with labels linking to additional info about COVID-19,” Twitter Help tweeted. “Not all of those Tweets had potentially misleading content associating COVID-19 and 5G.”
The problem was caused by the program that decided which tweet should be flagged as misleading. Users figured out that the program has mistakenly flagged the tweets, which include the words and phrases “oxygen” and “frequency.”
The fact-check label is part of Twitter’s effort to attach warning labels to provide context for tweets with misleading COVID-19 information. In April, the company went so far as to remove misleading COVID-19-related tweets that it viewed as inciting people to engage in “harmful activity.”
Twitter now says it is trying to solve the issue as soon as possible by building new automated capabilities to apply these labels to Tweets we think could be relevant.
Instagram is testing another cool feature on its stand-alone messaging app Threads, which would surely come in handy a lot.
For those who do not know what “Threads” is, Facebook launched the Threads app last year. This app is a messaging app that lets you share photos, videos, messages, Stories, and more with Instagram close friends list.
Instagram is working on “video note,” which helps users stay connected and to keep track of what is being said on a video in theThreads app.
The feature was first announced by mobile developer and tipster Alessandro Paluzzion Twitter.
What exactly does a “Video Note” do?
The new feature will turn the audio of the video into live captions that will be shown in time with the recording.
One of the uses of a “Video Note” is for users with hearing disabilities. The video note feature would also help Threads users understand what their friends are actually meant to say, and respond clearly. “Video Note” is somehow similar to YouTube’s feature “Live captions,” and will be helpful when the accent or audio is not very understandable. Also, Twitter has recently started rolling out “audio tweets” on iOS, which is somehow similar to the new feature.
“You are in control of who can reach you on Threads, and you can customize the experience around the people who matter most,” said Robby Stein, Director of Product, Instagram.
We assume that the “video notes” feature would be a popular one, and users would love using it, and this type of messaging might soon replace texting or typing completely.
As you surely have heard by now, many huge companies and big advertisers are boycotting Facebook for various reasons, such as allowing misinformation or violent content from politicians such as President Donald Trump.
After Facebook came to know it is losing its best brands and businesses, such as Verizon and Unilever, as the result of the global Facebook ads boycott, CEO Mark Zuckerburg decided to take serious action and do something about the issue.
After all the controversy and user complaints, Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new plan to occasionally do something about content that violates Facebook’s policies. This action is not for 100% of the situation and is applied every now and then.
Zuckerburg, who had previously refused to do anything against Trump’s posts suggesting that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud, is now forced to take actions due to the vast complaints and boycotts.
Mark Zuckerburg announced the decision in a Facebook live stream and then an official Facebook post on Friday. He seemingly attempted to mollify critics of his decision to allow a post from Donald Trump threatening violence against protesters with a new policy that may or may not address similar posts by the president in the future.
Below is the written statement Mark made on his Facebook post:
“The policies we’re implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they’re showing up across our community.”.
“A handful of times a year, we leave up content that would otherwise violate our policies if the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm,” wrote Zuckerberg. “Often, seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest, and in the same way that news outlets will report what a politician says, we think people should generally be able to see it for themselves on our platforms. We will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case.
As a result, Facebook will begin adding new labels to all posts about voting that will direct users to authoritative information from state and local election. officials. Moreover, violating posts from politicians or other people is still allowed but will be labeled as inappropriate by Facebook, just like Twitter.
It has been several years since Facebook is being used as the number one platform for advertising, and a remarkable percentage of marketers have been using Facebook to market their brands and businesses. The main reason which makes Facebook a great place for marketing is its vast amount of audience and popularity among people all over the world.
But in recent days, Facebook is seen from a totally different view, and many users have changed their view on Facebook, and thousands of people have even stopped using it.
Facebook is confronting a new pressure campaign from advertisers, unlike anything it has ever experienced before. A growing number of big household names have joined a Facebook advertising boycott over its handling of hate speech and misinformation, culminating on Friday with the news that home goods giant Unilever would halt ad spending for at least the remainder of the year on Facebook, as well as Twitter.
With major advertisers like Verizon joining the campaign Thursday and Unilever, Coca-Cola and Honda saying they would pull advertising on Friday, Facebook is now facing a snowball effect of advertisers abandoning the site.
Meanwhile, as CNBC explains, Facebook has signaled it intends to do things on its own terms. In a more than 1,600-word memo to advertisers obtained by CNBC, the company’s VP of global business solutions, Carolyn Everson, said, “boycotting, in general, is not the way for us to make progress together.”
“I also really hope by now you know that we do not make policy changes tied to revenue pressure,” Everson said in the memo. “We set our policies based on principles rather than business interests.”
Facebook’s stock closed down more than 8% Friday.
What exactly is the #StopHateForProfit campaign and Where things could go from here
As you might have known a bit about the campaign by now, it is a campaign created by users to boycott Facebook, especially its advertising. The Campaign Forces Zuckerberg to Change Facebook Policies.
This boycott is surely getting Facebook to somewhere bad, and the effects of this act are being shown even now.
Since the boycott launched, over 133 advertisers, including high profile brands and companies, have joined the fight, such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, The North Face, Ben & Jerry’s, REI, Patagonia, Hershey’s, Honda, Levi Strauss, Verizon and many more. As a result, Facebook’s stock dropped more than 8%, roughly $50 billion devaluations.
From my point of view, the campaign is more serious than what Mark Zuckerberg could ever think it to be and if he does not change Facebook’s rules and keep ignoring users’ complaints, soon, there will be not even one well-known brand advertising on Facebook, which is a disaster for the company.
Until Zuckerberg himself decides to change the limits of free expression on his platform, Facebook may simply lose brands until only those that don’t object to the company’s conductor who cannot survive without the platform’s reach are left, Martin said.
