In a world where content creation is becoming increasingly popular and Reels legit set the tone of the day for many, Instagram is now allowing creators to post Trial Reels on their respective accounts, which apparently will be visible to non-followers first and then added to the creator’s profile once they allow the platform to ‘share with everyone’.
As per Instagram, this new feature will give creators the flexibility to try newer approaches, content ideas and even newer niches, without having to worry about losing a dime of their followers!
For Trial Reels, Instagram will be providing all key engagement metrics such as views, likes, comments, and shares, to creators after 24 hours. And mind you, this will all happen without the trial reel appearing in the creator’s feed or on the Reels tab!
Another update which has got Instagram audiences glued is the new feature of scheduling DMs on the platforms! And this, currently, includes setting specific time and date for messages containing only text. As for sending photos, videos, or GIFs to friends or family members, users will still have to do so in real-time.
To make use of this feature, users will have to long-press on the ‘send’ button in their respective chat and then choose a date and time that they’d like to send their messages to. However, Instagram will display a notice on chats entailing these scheduled messages and the maximum limit to schedule these messages as of now is 29 days.
Apart from these ‘gram updates, we also have new developments coming from platforms like YouTube in this fortnight’s catching up on what got social media platforms buzzing. The Google-owned platform is currently testing a new feature wherein it is allowing select creators to respond to comments on their respective videos via voice notes. Please note, the feature is currently limited to iOS, thereby not everyone will be able to hear these voice notes.
As for YouTube’s another major revenue generator- its CTV offering, YouTube is now adding a new ‘Watch With’ element which will allow creators to do live commentary during games as well as add ‘Subscribe’ button directly to its CTV video player to make subscriptions on CTV more easier and accessible.
Talking of Google’s YouTube, our attention was automatically directed to LinkedIn which is now adding a new auto-revolving slideshow of images as profile banners to its premium business subscribers.
As per LinkedIn, this new dynamic cover image feature will allow users to select up to five photos which will scroll through every few seconds. The same is currently being rolled out globally and can be done by clicking on ‘Create Slideshow’.
Now, moving on to Snapchat, the platform is now integrating its monetization pathways for creators by allowing them to generate revenue from another avenue- Spotlight videos (Similar to Reels) by adding it under their Stories revenue share program. When Stories revenue share program was started by Snapchat in 2022, it had enabled creators to generate income from their content via mid-roll ads between Stories.
To qualify under the same, Snapchat has clarified that Spotlight creators will need to post at least 25 times per month on either Spotlight or Public Stories on at least 10 of the last 28 days and generated at least 10 million Snap views, and/or a million Spotlight views in the last 28 days.
In addition to this, X has also updated its analytics to now show engagement bifurcation between followers and non-followers on posts on engagement split. This comes at a time when several users on X’s rival platform- Threads noted that more engagement was coming from non-followers. Currently, X’s advanced insights are only available to X Premium users.
That being said, since we’re already at the brink of this year’s holiday season, both Snapchat and Instagram have also added new features for the occasion and while the former is accessible largely to paid subscribers, the latter has a potpourri prepared for the masses.
This time around, Snapchat has got fancy alternative themes to make its interface look Christmas-y across every tab and rolled out new bitmoji reactions in chats for its paying users. That being said, for non-paid audiences, Snapchat has launched a holiday-themed AI-Generated Lenses like Ugly Sweater.
As for Instagram, the platform under Meta’s family of apps has rolled out an in-stream seasonal ‘Collage’ and ‘Add Yours’ for Stories, new fonts, chat themes, etc. in addition to EOY photo dump and themed collage. It is also believed that the platform will also roll out a new ‘New Year’ font and a ‘Countdown’ text effect closer to the date.
