July 2023 Social Platform Updates

Author

James Creech
August 01, 2023

This is a monthly newsletter about social platform updates and new features. To receive Social Navigator in your inbox each month, subscribe here.

Instagram launched Threads to huge fanfare. TikTok is rolling out its own music streaming service. And Twitter is now X.

Here's everything you missed from social platforms last month...

Facebook 👍

✦ Testing a way for EU app developers to allow direct app installs from FB ads, essentially creating their own app store that takes a 0% cut.

✦ Announced NIL Empower 3.0, an incubator for female athletes to maximize name-image-likeness opportunities.

✦ Added support for high dynamic range (HDR) videos to FB + IG Reels.

✦ Became the first social platform to surpass 3B MAUs.

Instagram 📷

✦ Launched its new text-based Threads app, which became the fastest product in history to reach 100M users. But how long will it last?

✦ Released a new Template Browser.

✦ Testing labels for images "generated by Meta AI."

✦ Reportedly working on AI-powered summaries of direct messages.

✦ Developing AI editing tools, such as Restyle to let users transform the visual style of an image and AI brush to add or replace specific elements in an image.

Mammoth 🦣

✦ Added a personalized For You feed, giving the Mastodon app a familiar Twitter-like feel.

Today's issue of Social Navigator is brought to you by Papercup.

Boost your YouTube channel’s performance through AI dubbing and take advantage of the new Multi-Language Audio feature. Tracks dubbed by Papercup have seen up to a 12x increase in watch time versus subtitling alone!

Check out Papercup to increase your YouTube channel's watch hours.

Reddit 👽

✦ Testing an “official” tag to authenticate profiles.

Snapchat 👻

✦ Rolled out a Linktree integration to provide a link-in-bio option for creators.

Threads 🧵

✦ Rolled out automated translations.

✦ Added Follows, Replies, Mentions, Quotes, Reposts, and Verified tabs to the activity feed.

✦ Introduced tappable reposter labels.

✦ Enabled users to open a list of IG followers for a given account.

✦ Released a following and on thread replies page.

✦ Added an option to subscribe to unfollowed users.

TikTok ♪

✦ Announced an audio streaming service called TikTok Music, which includes social listening features, vertical scrolling for music discovery, and collaborative playlists. Read my full breakdown of TikTok Music here.

✦ Testing a new Shop feed with select users.

✦ Piloting the ability to download a video without a watermark.

✦ Introduced passkey support on iPhones, allowing users to sign in via Touch ID or Face ID.

✦ Launched its Elevate program to identify up-and-coming music artists.

✦ Rolled out text-based posts.

Twitch 🎮

✦ Announced plans to launch a Discovery Feed this fall - finally!

✦ Enabled creators to natively edit clips from their streams into a vertical format.

✦ Added support for direct exports to YouTube and will allow users to export clips to TikTok starting in August.

✦ Plans to launch a Stories format in October, which can either be public or available only to paying subscribers.

✦ Released a chat countdown timer to help streamers better time ad breaks by allowing them to “snooze or pull ahead” the ads.

✦ Added a streaming together feature.

Twitter 🐦

✦ Limited the number of Tweets that users can read per day amid an extended outage.

✦ Launched $5M of retroactive creator payments to those with Twitter Blue subscriptions.

✦ Preparing a job listings feature for verified organizations.

✦ Changed its name to X and got rid of the iconic bird logo.

YouTube 🎥

✦ Unveiled a video title suggestions feature.

✦ Testing a long-press action for 2x playback speed, bigger preview thumbnails, and Stable Volume on mobile.

✦ Announced a price increase from $11.99 to $13.99 per month for YouTube Premium.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on LinkedIn for the latest insights into social media and the creator economy.

Subscribe here to receive Social Navigator in your inbox every month.