The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it a lot of change – we’ve been forced to get used to a new normal for the foreseeable future in both our personal and professional lives. Social media platforms, which are constantly evolving anyway, have unveiled update after update to keep up with the times.
Facebook (who, remember, also owns Instagram) in particular has seen quite a bit of change in this quarantine age. Below are just a few updates they’ve rolled out in the last six months:
- Hashtags– people have been using hashtags on Facebook for a while now, but they finally work on Facebook as they do on Twitter and Instagram – as a search function and to increase organic reach.
- Instagram Reels– this new feature allows users to record and edit together 15-second video clips set to music and share them to their Stories, Explore Feed, and the new Reels tab on a user’s profile. Reels is a direct competitor to TikTok. It remains to be seen how this will impact business users on Instagram – will your company utilize the feature?
- Messenger Rooms– Rooms are a live video chat for up to 50 people available in Messenger, Facebook and coming more widely to Instagram and WhatsApp. This is an alternative to services like Zoom.
- Messenger Chat Plugin– website visitors are no longer required to be logged in to Facebook: anyone can chat with you now as a guest. This is huge and is already making a difference in better customer care and higher conversions.
- Instagram Live updates – you can now watch Live videos on desktop, not just on the mobile app.
Mari Smith discusses these, and more, in her video HERE.
Are you keeping up with the Facebook updates?
What are you most looking forward to implementing for your business?
