Stay Social: December Social Media Updates You Can’t Miss

It’s December, the holidays are almost here, and we’re all gearing up for New Year, new me. But, before you start planning your resolutions, it’s time for your monthly roundup of all the top stories in social media marketing!

Facebook won’t do it Live.

You may have noticed something missing from your Facebook homepage over the last week. Can you guess what it is?

The Live Ticker is gone from the right side of the page, which means you’ll no longer be able to see what your friends are liking, sharing and doing in real time.

What this means is that Facebook is starting to shift more towards Stories as well as newsfeed content.

For brands, this makes it all the more vital to not only pay for a presence on the Newsfeed, but also to create content that engages and cuts through the noise.

In addition, Facebook is rolling out augmented reality in Messenger with World Effects. You can now add arrows, word bubbles or even stickers and emojis to the photos you take in the messaging app.

Augment your reality with 3D shapes in Facebook World Effects! Source: Facebook

With sponsored AR filters now available on Snapchat, the Messenger version is definitely a space that brands should be keeping an eye on in the near future.

Snapchat AR is brought to you by…

This year, Snapchat has been on a mission to make its platform friendlier to advertisers, and they’ve just introduced two new features that do this in a big way.

Sponsored Stories can now feature on the Discover page, alongside all the regular organic content that appears there. Brands can use the feature to curate 3 to 10 photos or videos to tell their story, and can even add a CTA to swipe to a purchase page or website.

The platform now also allows brands to create and promote AR filters with “World Lens”. BMW recently trialled the feature when promoting their X2 model, which users could drop into any environment their camera was focussing on.

User’s Snapchat’s new “World Lens” feature with the BMW X2 model.

On top of those, with image recognition coming to recommend certain filters for certain types of photos, there could also come a day where that feature is used to promote branded filters, AR or even Stories.

Instagram is getting new Highlights.

It’s not just on Facebook that Stories are a big deal. Instagram has added Story Highlights to every user’s page, a new feature with which Instagrammers can group their favourite Stories and share them on their profile pages.

Not only is this a great way for users to highlight their interests, it’s also a powerful tool for brands wanting to show off more of their personality. Every brand has a Story to tell, and Highlights adds another dimension in being able to do just that.

A new way to express yourself- Instagram Highlights allows you to make highlights out of any Instagram story you’ve shared in the past. Source: Instagram

Throw in the official launch of hashtag following and the testing of an official regram button, and it’s clear the platform is still developing in new and exciting ways for all of its users.

And that about does it for December!

Read next: Best Practices to Increase Your Social Media Conversions