New social media features and updates to know this week
Updates from X, Reddit, Google and more.
Social media was fairly quiet on the updates front this week — but Google made up for it with some major changes, including core algorithm changes. Take a look at what’s new, what will make your job easier and how you may need to re-learn how you use X.
X
The platform, long known for its microblogging, is now getting … regular blogging. The new Articles on X feature is available for Premium+ subscribers and Verified Organizations, according to an announcement posted last week. The posts will have basic formatting options as well as video and image embed capabilities. The articles will appear directly in followers’ timelines, which could be an interesting way of getting more eyeballs on a notable post.
X owner Elon Musk announced that a new, “very clean” timeline will soon roll out, nixing some of the most basic controls, including the like, reply and repost buttons. Only view counts will be shown, with other functions available via touch controls: “Swipe right to reply, left to favorite, tap & hold for all other actions,” Musk posted. No word on how this functionality would play out on desktop.
Threads
Threads has now rolled out its in-stream camera option and drafts functionality to all users, bringing it more in line with most other social media platforms.
Reddit is rolling out a new suite of tools for businesses on the community-based social platform. Currently in beta testing, Reddit Pro will eventually serve as a dashboard to help organizations build an organic presence on Reddit, according to the announcement.
Features will include:
- An AI tool to help organizations find relevant conversations, subreddits and topics to engage with.
- Organic post analytics.
- Publishing tools, including scheduling and drafts.
- A dashboard to help measure overall organic engagement.
Naturally, there will be easy integration to put paid boosts behind posts.
In early testing with brands including the NFL, Wall Street Journal and Taco Bell, brands saw a 35% boost in organic engagement when using Pro.
This is a big move forward as the platform continues to position itself as more advertiser-friendly ahead of its IPO.
TikTok
TikTok will begin rolling out a subscription offering to all creators on the app. Previously, the option was available only to LIVE creators. While initially only available by invite only, subscriptions will eventually roll out to all, giving creators a new revenue stream and new community engagement options.
As Congress yet again rattles its saber about banning the clock app, TikTok has deployed a pop-over to ask users to contact Congress and demand that the app stay, including an easy “call now” option.
But Business Insider reports that this tactic may have backfired.
It worked all right: people did call, with some offices receiving more than 50 calls on the matter. Though they called to support TikTok, the move apparently led some wavering representatives, especially among Republicans, to push for opposition to the app.
We’ll see if this is really lights out for TikTok.
Not exactly social media, but news you need to know anyway: Google has made another core algorithm update. While Google never gives full details on how its algorithm works, it says the major changes this month were designed to keep spam and low-quality results out of search engine results pages.
“This update involves refining some of our core ranking systems to help us better understand if webpages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people. This could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries.”
This and previous updates reduce low-quality results by up to 40%, Google said.
Among other changes:
- Google will focus on penalizing large-scale, low-quality content creation in a way that’s agnostic about whether it was created by humans, AI or both. “This will allow us to take action on more types of content with little to no value created at scale, like pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but fail to deliver helpful content.”
- The search engine is also cracking down on otherwise great websites that offer low-quality content a home. “We’ll now consider very low-value, third-party content produced primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner to be spam. We’re publishing this policy two months in advance of enforcement on May 5, to give site owners time to make any needed changes.”
- Finally, Google will deal with expired domain abuse, where spammers purchase expired domains that formerly had great reputations and proceed to fill them with low-quality content, banking on the former owners’ credibility to help them get clicks.
As always, the best way to deal with Google algorithmic changes is to focus on solid, human-centric content.
Google is also overhauling how it views Marketing Mix Models, analyses that help businesses measure their effectiveness across platforms. As cookies begin to fade from the modern internet, MMMs could be an alternative for better understanding user behavior.
Meridian will be Google’s new open-source MMM, focusing on increased accuracy, transparency, actions you can act on and education.
LinkedIn has spruced up its “interesting views” feature to see who’s creeping on your profile. Social media expert Matt Navarra reports that you can now more easily sort views to see if someone may be able to help you find a job, is a LinkedIn influencer and more.
The networking app has also announced new career development tools. Next Role Explorer will help people understand their job journey and what skills they need to level up, even creating customized Learning Plans to help them get there. They’re also making it easier for users to find and express interest in internal roles so they can grow in their current company rather than looking elsewhere — surely a powerful tool for keeping talent in-house.
YouTube
YouTube will now only show video recommendations if you’re logged in or have watched a few videos to fuel the algorithm, Android Police reported. Otherwise, you’ll be greeted with a blank screen.
For more social media insight, joins us at PR Daily and Ragan’s Social Media Conference at the Walt Disney World resort, March 27-29!
Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.
