Here’s a quick review of some of the big changes.
Threads
Meta jumped into the pool of Twitter rivals by introducing a new platform called Threads on Wednesday and had 40 million people sign up in the first 24 hours.
They are describing Threads as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app,” and encouraging people to sign up through their Instagram account. This allows you to carry over your handle from IG, and gives you the option to follow the same people on both platforms.
At the moment it is strictly an app that can be downloaded from Google Play or the Apple App store.
In response to an influx of personal content that began during the pandemic, LinkedIn is trying to bring the platform back to business and announced changes to its algorithm designed to prioritize professional content.
They are also planning to identify and highlight expert knowledge by looking at the activity on a user’s profile. “Experts” will be identified if other members of their niche are engaging with their posts. Sharing insights and thought-leadership over promotional will also contribute to this.
Want more details? Read this.
Instagram now allows users to have multiple links in their bios, replacing the need for a service like Linktree.
They have also introduce a handy feature to focus your newsfeed so that you only see content from the people you follow, rather than tons of ads and suggested posts. To do this, simply tap on the Instagram logo in the upper left and you’ll see a drop down option. Click on “Following,” and voila!
All videos automatically become Reels now and Stories can now last 60 seconds long.
Other features that have been announced, but are still rolling out are:
- The ability to schedule posts directly from the app.
- The same group features you can find on Facebook to share content with a dedicatees group (this is considered an experiment at this point and may not be widely available for a while).