How Social Media Changed in May 2016

Social Media is changing on a daily basis with constant updates, new looks and add-ons being created and with all of these changes it can be hard to keep up with it all. If you’ve been on holiday for the past couple of weeks with no internet reception or occidentally switched of your notifications then you may have missed out on the latest social media changes. Here’s the three most talked social media updates which took place in May.

On May 11^th, Instagram rolled out its new and simplified brand logo. There have been mixed reviews on the new design but whether reviews are bad or good, it’s got people talking and updating the app to view the new changes.

The original Instagram icon was a brown Polaroid camera with a strip of four colours: red, yellow, green and blue. This icon has been around since Instagram was launched back in 2011 and has become very recognisable so creating a new, and pretty different logo, was a bit of a risky move for the team at Instagram but with the majority of reviews being positive, its seemed to have payed off. The new logo is a simplified version of the original, a white outline of a camera with a rainbow gradient background. In comparison to the other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, it really does stand out from the crowd.

Instagram have revealed that there was a reason for the change, a not just because the icon was becoming a little dated, but because over the past 5 years the app and use of the app has changed massively. The app was primarily used by people wanting to add a retro filter to their snaps, mostly meals but the occasional selfie or landscape also appeared. However over the past couple of years Instagram has blown up with over 400 million users now using the photo filter app including some of the world’s biggest celebrities including the Kardashian clan, Justin Bieber and Beyoncé. Celebrities post images from their extravagant lives but are also paid to sponsor products. Instagram is big money for celebrities with them making hundreds of thousands from one post.

Another relatively new aspect to Instagram is advertising for businesses. When scrolling through your feed you are bound to come across at least a couple of Sponsored Posts. Some benefits of choosing to advertise with Instagram include an increase web conversions, app installs, video views, reach and frequency, and brand awareness. There are also three types of advertising which you can choose from which are Photo Ads, Video Ads and Carousel Ads. We’ll delve deeper into the benefits and types of Instagram advertising for businesses in a future post.

As you can tell, a lot has changed with Instagram over the past 5 years so it comes as no surprise that they have chosen to rebrand themselves. If you are interested in rebranding your business then read our latest post How to Rebrand Your Business for our tips on how to successfully rebrand your business.

Twitter is known for its 140 character limit. If you’ve never used Twitter you’ll be surprised as to how little 140 characters actually is. The first two sentences of this section is how long 140 characters is- now when you put that into perspective of trying to promote your business or explain something, it can be quite tricky! What makes it even harder is that if you want to include a link to your site or blog post you will instantly lose 23 characters and if you want to add an image then say goodbye to about 20 more characters. With links and photos taking up over a third of your character count, it can be hard for a company to successfully portray a message to a customer with the remaining characters.

One of the things that makes Twitter stand out from the rest of the social media platforms is its restricted character limit and a lot of users are fond of this characteristic. It allows users to easily scroll through the feed without have to wade through large paragraphs about a subject that they’re not interested in. The Founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey has described the character limit as a ‘beautiful constraint’ that ‘inspires creativity and brevity’ – this is a statement which many of us agree with, including myself, but with a recent share price decline in the previous year Twitter is re-evaluating its character limit.

Earlier this year Dorsey stated that Twitter would explore ways of enabling users to write longer posts which caused a bit of an uproar amongst Twitter users. Recently it has come to light that Twitter will, instead of extending the character limit, stop counting photos and links in the character limit. This is fantastic news for businesses and marketing agencies as it allows them to be a little more descriptive and free with their character limit whilst still being able to share links and direct customers to their sites and blog posts.

The Twitter character limit is yet to be changed and there has been no official statement from Twitter regarding this topic however some sources expect there to be a change to the social media platform within the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes peeled!

Facebook is the king of the social media world with over 1.65 billion monthly active users – that is more users than WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram combined. With Facebook ruling social media it seems that the only way is up for this platform. Facebook has now extended its portfolio of success by adding advertising to the mix.

Facebook created an Audience Network for advertising which has become so popular that it is thought to overtake Channel 4 and Sky in ad sales by 2017. The Audience Networks allows businesses to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook to approved sites, apps, video players and in Instant Articles. With many businesses using Facebook as part of their marketing campaign anyway it makes sense that the Audience Network has become so popular among businesses and agencies.

The recent addition of Brand Video Advertising is set to rival that of Google. Facebook already provides video advertising however it was primarily aimed for direct response advertisers such as promoting in app installs and focusing on conversions. This new brand focused video advertising will be focused on promoting brand awareness and encouraging people to learn more about a brand. These adverts can run pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll within the video player.

With Facebook continuing to grow and expand into new sectors, we are sure to see a large profit from this new venture and growth into other sectors. If your business isn’t currently on Facebook and you’re interested to see how using this social media platform can benefit you then read Benefits of Using Facebook for Business for more information.

With the social media world constantly updating and reinventing itself we are bound to see many more changes during 2016. If you are not currently using social media within your marketing campaign and would like to know more information about the benefits of each social media platform then don’t hesitate to Contact Zelst directly where we will be more than willing to help you to come up with a successful social media strategy for your business.