Social media round-up for charities #20

We know that keeping up to date with changes and new features when it comes to social media, can be hard. So that’s why we do all the hard work for you! Welcome to our 20th social media round-up for charities.

Instagram is testing direct messages for desktop

Instagram is finally bringing the ability to see and send DMs via desktop – although they’re only testing the feature. This is good news for social media managers who don’t want to have to constantly toggle between personal and private Instagram on their phones. At the moment, Instagram works pretty much only via phone app so the move towards a better desktop version is a step in the right direction.

Twitter is adding a new setting for replies

At the moment, anyone can reply to any public tweet – whether you follow the account or not. Twitter is now testing different reply settings for tweets, which are:

• Global – allow anyone to respond (the same as now)
• Group — allow replies from people the user follows or mentioned (so only people you follow or have mentioned in a tweet). This could be particularly useful for understanding your audience better.
• Panel — allow replies from people mentioned (Interesting for a specific conversation – think, like a Q&A panel. Could work really well for campaigns with other stakeholders or for events)
• Statement – not allow any replies (Social media should be all about conversations. Perhaps this would be useful in a crisis situation?)

LinkedIn adds three new features

This quarter, LinkedIn is introducing three new features to enhance Pages. The first is the new ‘Invite to Follow’ feature where you can invite your first-degree connections to follow your Page.

The second is that LinkedIn Live, which has been in beta, is now available to Pages. According to LinkedIn, this feature allows organisations to “leverage sight, sound, and motion, to have direct conversations and interactions with their Page followers.” It works in the same way that Facebook Live does and those people who have push notifications enabled will receive one when your Page goes live.

The third new feature is the ability to post as a Page or a member (much like Facebook gives you this option). The toggle switch will be available on the homepage, making it easy to switch accounts.

Instagram to flag potentially offensive captions

Last month Instagram rolled out a new AI feature where users will be warned that their caption may be offensive or hurtful. They will receive a notification to say that the caption “looks similar to others that have been reported.” The user will then be encouraged to edit their caption, however, they still have the option of posting it unchanged.

As we’re all about making social positive again and reclaiming social for good, we think this could be a powerful feature to make people think twice about posting hurtful or insensitive captions.

Interesting reads

A guide to Facebook social, political and election ads

Instagram Addresses Questions on Algorithm, Comment Pods and Verification

Shifting narratives on social: choose your own adventure highlights real issues

TikTok For Good – How Can Charities Use TikTok To Raise Awareness and Engage Audiences?