Each month, our team of social experts dig through the trenches of the internet to find the biggest, best and most important news coming out of the social platforms we and our clients use daily.
TikTok Launches Q&A Function for CreatorsTikTok is testing a new feature, allowing select Creators to enable the Q&A function on their profiles. This allows users to ask Creators questions that they can answer and address in future videos. The functionality is similar to how Creators can respond to commenters by tagging the comment in a new video.
What it means for brands: While it’s unclear when this new feature will roll out to the larger TikTok population, the update is certainly exciting for brands. Much like Instagram’s Question functionality, this Q&A will allow brands to address consumers’ specific questions and interests in a format authentic to the platform.
Instagram’s new Professional Dashboard is a central hub for brands and creators to more easily access their performance analytics, tools to grow their business (like ads), and guides and resources for content creation. Though it does not currently offer new analytics, Instagram expects to add features to this hub throughout 2021.
What it means for brands: Tracking performance on Instagram has always been more limited than its parent brand, Facebook. And while Instagram’s announcement is a step in the right direction for brands to (more easily) understand and analyze the impact their organic efforts are making, there is still plenty of room for improvement in Instagram’s analytics capabilities.
Early last year, Pinterest launched its lipstick try on Pins. This month, a similar feature was launched for eyeshadows, with Pinterest expected to continue to expand the platform’s AR capabilities in 2021. The platform saw significant growth in 2020; Pinterest became an alternative for consumers to browse a wide range of products without leaving their homes.
What it means for brands: Pinterest isn’t the only platform focusing on its shopping capabilities; we’ve seen a slew of updates from Instagram in the last few months to improve consumers’ in-app shopping experiences. As consumers continue to look to social platforms as the new shopping mall, brands need to be thinking of their social profiles as the new storefront.
According to new polls, the majority of Americans are in favor of breaking up Big Tech monopolies, including Facebook. Maybe even more surprising, there seems to be bipartisan support for antitrust action. While there are a number of lawsuits in process, we likely won’t know the outcomes for years.
What it means for brands: The results of these lawsuits are years away, so it’s anyone’s guess what it will mean for the future of Facebook and its owned brands (Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp). Though, some speculate Instagram may be better off without Facebook.
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