Social Media Update – January 2015
Twitter has started rolling out group Direct Message and mobile video camera in a bid to compete with popular private messaging apps. Groups of up to 20 people will soon be able to chat privately, sharing tweets and emojis. Interestingly, not all participants have to follow one another in order to chat. The new video camera feature will let users share and edit videos up to 30 seconds long. A fantastic way to kick off 2015!
New! Use Direct Messages to speak privately with a group of up to 20 people. Share Tweets, show emoji & be yourself. https://t.co/8giGhC6OO0
— Twitter (@twitter) January 27, 2015
Overall Twitter usage is still quite low when compared to the likes of Google and Facebook, according to investment bank, Morgan Stanley. Elena Holodny, markets reporter at Business Insider, tweeted a photo showing that Twitter represents <1% of time spent on the Internet.
The Death Of Twitter pic.twitter.com/sKdYQCbV5D — Elena Holodny (@elenaholodny) December 24, 2014
Twitter introduces ‘while you were away’ to IOS. The recap feature rounds up what Twitter considers to be the most important tweets in users’ networks since they last logged in. The missed tweets will then appear in users’ home timelines. The feature will be soon available to Android and web users.
After years of planning, Twitter quietly launches its Bing translation tool. Once activated in account settings, users will see a globe icon next to tweets in a foreign language. The English version of the tweet will appear just below the original text.
One of India’s big four banks, ICICI, has launched a ‘tweet to pay’ facility. Customers need to follow @icicibank and register their mobile phone with the bank. Then they just send a direct message containing the recipient’s username and amount they want to transfer. The recipient doesn’t need to be an ICICI customer.
Google search results now show brands’ social media profiles. When you search for … let’s say “British Airways”, the Knowledge Graph on the right hand of the page shows social media buttons for Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks.
Facebook has completely redesigned the video section of its pages in an attempt to look more like a YouTube channel. The new video section includes featured video, likes, comments, playlists and more. Only a few brands have access to the new layout at the moment, so the rest of us have to wait and see until Facebook rolls it out to all.
Facebook at work not an option? Think again. The social media platform is currently testing its work-only network before it is rolled out. The intention is that the office-friendly network will be used as an internal communication platform, where users can share posts, updates and group messages with their colleagues only.
LinkedIn has reached one million posts. The platform wants to encourage all 330 million members to start sharing their insights with other professionals across the globe.