Welcome to another addition of the social media updates blog, where we discuss important and relevant news surrounding the industry. Not all updates will directly impact you, but we want to keep our customers informed of exactly what is happening in the industry. On November’s addition of social media updates: Meta makes changes to their profile layout, Instagram adds music to still image posts, and Twitter’s verification plan is starting to take shape. 



Facebook 

Starting in December, Facebook profiles will look slightly different. Meta announced that it will be removing fields to make profiles “easier to navigate”. As part of these changes, Facebook will be removing the following fields: 

• Address 
• Political Views 
• Religion 
• Interested In (Dating Gender Preference) 

The great news is that they will not impede on anything from a profile perspective. The platform intends to remove them, but after December 1st, you will no longer be able to download your data on the platform with those fields filled out. 

For those running paid advertising through Facebook, this will not affect the performance of those ads. Meta have previously removed those fields from ad targeting before removing them from profiles, so you should not have any trouble with your ads. 

Instagram 

Instagram has launched a cool new feature for still images. Posters now have the ability to add music to their still images. 

When you create a post, you are able to search for and pick from a list of tracks using the ‘add music’ function. The new feature does not have any impact on the performance of the post. 

It is mainly meant to match the other music features on the app. Instagram Reels have the ability for music to be added, so it is no wonder that Instagram made this feature available. 

It is thought that this decision was made with TikTok in mind. The platform thrives because of being able to use a large list of songs, and Instagram is looking for a way to bridge the gap between the two social media giants. 

As part of our services, we offer Instagram management as either an a’ la carte or with our professional package, which includes a free photo package. If you are a current client on our Instagram management services, having access will allow us to post content with audio that matches current social media trends, as well as matching the personality of your business. 

Twitter 

Twitter is rolling out their plan for verification on the platform. The verification of a Twitter profile means that the profile will have a blue check mark, meaning that the owner of the profile has been verified by Twitter to be a person of importance, authority, etc. 

The plan is an eight dollar per month program that offers things that normal profiles won’t have access to. According to Musk himself, people who sign up for this verification program will be entitled to: 

• Priorities in replies, mentions, and search 
• Post long form video and audio 
• Ads will be less prevalent to the user 

This program will also create a pool of revenue that will then be used to reward content creators for the performance of content and their profiles. Much like platforms like Instagram and YouTube, the importance of user experience and engagement comes into play. 

Those platforms also reward their content creators for the performance of their platforms, meaning that the consumers may be enticed to create a revenue stream apart from their normal, day-to-day occupations. 

People have opposed the idea of this program, but according to Twitter, it will combat what they see as a class system on the platform, as well as combatting bots and trolls. It is said that this process works by “making it cost-prohibitive for troll farms to operate and eliminating the use of verified profiles for scams.” 

The process will be rolled out, but the effectiveness of it remains to be seen. There is speculation that it will create a larger gap between consumers, but only time will tell. For our current clients, you can participate in this program, but not participating in it has zero impact on how we manage your business’ Twitter page. 

More from this space later. 

Thank you for reading our edition of social media updates in November. Remember to check back with us next month to stay on top of all the updates for the new year. 

We manage your presence online, so you can be present offline.