April 2024 Digital Updates Instagram Launches Stories Tips and Tricks, Page Messaging Arrives At LinkedIn and More

Facebook and Meta News Updates

• Meta Makes Small Changes to Ads: Meta improved storytelling options within the AI-powered Advantage+ ads feature. Additionally, they introduced new sales features with reminder ads that aim to highlight promotions and ads with product tags.

Instagram and Threads News Updates

• Instagram Launches Stories Tips & Tricks: Instagram released a guide on tips and tricks for Stories. It includes new features like the “Add Yours Templates” and how to maximize oldies, but goodies like the layout option and solid background features. Worth taking time to read through if you use Stories.
• Add Promo Codes to Instagram Ads: This feature is already available in Facebook Ads and has now been launched for ads on Instagram globally. Businesses can provide shoppers with promo codes in the caption to be applied at checkout.
• Hashtag and Search Receive an Overhaul: Instagram simplified the search and hashtag experiences to make it easier for users to find content.
• Threads Updates With a Trending Now Page: Threads made major moves to stay “real-time” by adding ‘Trending Now’ and ‘For You’ pages to their platform. These are currently only available in the US.

LinkedIn News Updates

• Collaborative Articles Celebrate 1st Anniversary: A great way to promote your personal brand is to earn a top voice badge on LinkedIn through collaborative articles. They just celebrated their 1st anniversary and had over 10 million contributions!
• Use Thought Leader Ads to Promote Content: This is a new take on sponsoring content from LinkedIn. The new LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads allow businesses to sponsor content from ANY member, not just employees.
• Page Messaging Finally Arrives at LinkedIn: LinkedIn Pages had a massive update with the arrival of messaging. This allows businesses to send and receive messages from their LinkedIn business pages. Remember to establish a monitoring and response plan for messages and be vigilant about potential spam.

TikTok News Updates

• Miss Music on TikTok? Try Sounds for Business: With Universal Music Group leaving TikTok, a new feature was introduced – ‘Sounds for Business,’ which provides voice clips for videos instead of music—still not the same as the “Anti-Hero” but way better than #silence.
• TikTok Makes Major Changes to Creator Rewards Program: TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program has been revamped to incentivize creators to generate content that aligns with TikTok’s objectives. The changes in the rewards program reflect the type of content TikTok wants to promote, which includes originality, quality, and relevance to popular search terms.

X News Updates

• Have “A Lot of X Followers” Get Verified for Free: According to Elon Musk, users with over 2,500 paying users or 5,000 blue tick accounts will get X Premium+ for free. This is one way X is trying to boost subscriptions; however, users reported no signs of the new update.

YouTube News Updates

• YouTube Requires Creators to Disclose AI Altered or Synthetic Content: Google, the parent company of YouTube, has moved to make big changes in distinguishing between AI and human-created content. Creators are now required to disclose if their content was created with AI. The bottom line, if you use AI, disclose it.
• YouTube Adds Tagging to Shopping Affiliate Program: YouTube is introducing a feature that allows creators of the YouTube Shopping affiliate program to tag products from merchants in their live streams. The goal is to keep you within the network and not drive you off-site.

Google and Digital News Update

• Google Introduces ‘Key Events’ and Privacy-First Measurement Solutions: Google updated GA4 conversion reporting across ads and analytics. This unification introduces ‘key events’ and privacy-first measurement solutions.
• Podcast Listening is Up: This chart shows the continuous growth of podcasting, especially in the B2B sector, indicating it as an area worth considering.
• Social Media Usage in 2024-Who is Leading? Who is Falling Behind?: Discover the latest US social media usage, with Facebook and its platforms leading the pack, and note those falling behind (…X).
• Gartner Report Says Search Engine Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026: Gartner predicts a 25% drop in search volume by 2026 due to the rise of AI chatbots. Despite AI’s growth, SEO remains pivotal for website success in search and applications like ChatGPT.
• ChatGPT No Longer Requires a Login: ChatGPT is going login-free, boosting accessibility. However, this may raise security and accountability risks. If that is important to you – continue to login.