Stay Social May: The Latest and Greatest in Social Media

It’s May, which means the memes about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding are coming in thick! Let’s deep dive into the world of social media marketing and explore what’s happening outside The Royal Wedding memes.

Facebook strengthens its Live offering

Live Video is the social media trend that just keeps getting stronger! Facebook is on the bandwagon and has just unveiled a slew of new features for brands and users who are producing live video content.

Feature no. 1: Persistent Stream Keys

You’ll no longer need to get approval from the Facebook team every time your page wants to go live. The stream key will now be linked to your brand’s Facebook page permanently, so once you’re approved, you can go live whenever you’d like!

Feature no. 2: Cross-posting

If your brand runs multiple Facebook pages or wants to partner with an influencer or another brand, you can go live across several pages all at the same time with the one livestream. It’s a great way to both expand the reach of your Live videos, as well as the engagement they’ll generate.

Feature no. 3: Live Rewind

Users can now go backwards in a Live video to catch up on anything they may have missed. This move isn’t just great for user experience – by having users who can quickly catch up on any highlights, brands can now expect to see better engagement on their Live content.

And with rumours that the platform is finally going to bring Facebook Watch to the international market, as well as a Facebook dating app, brands are going to want to keep keeping an eye on this space.

Facebook dabbles with the idea of expanding into the online dating scene. Image source: The Verge  

Instagram becomes very business friendly

Meanwhile, over on Facebook’s sister platform, Instagram is gearing up to continue giving businesses big and small some new options.

First off, as of this month, users will now be able to link their credit or debit card to the app, and directly pay for a product or service being advertised, without the need to exit to a separate browser or landing page.

Apart from exciting impulse shoppers (us!), it’s certainly going to help brands and marketers prove ROI via social, especially with campaigns built around sales or direct conversions.

On top of that, Instagram is also expanding messaging options for brands on the platform. You’ll soon be able to set up “quick replies”, which will let you create and store responses you find yourself using quite often. That means you can send details like contact or product information with just the tap of a button.

Messages to your business will now also go straight to your Inbox, and you’ll be able to “star” the ones you want to save or respond to later.

This will certainly provide better customer experience and is sure to excite community managers!

How can you use the new Instagram updates to prove ROI from social? Image via Marketing Land

Snapchat turns back time

After a controversial redesign at the start of the year, it seems that iOS users can soon expect to see the app revert to the older design, once again separating Stories from Snaps.

How this will affect the ways brands can reach users on the platform remains to be seen, but it’s a change that’s certain to make users very happy.

Which Snapchat design do you prefer?

And that’s it for May! Stay tuned for next month’s social media wrap!

Read next: 3 Fast Rules for Marketing on Instagram