Social media has changed drastically in the year 2018, while Instagram has become the new facebook, vlogging has become the new way of blogging. These social media applications introduced new features almost every single month. If you want to thrive in the field of social media marketing it is important to learn about these social updates and make the best use of them to market your brand or company.

Instagram

Instagram is possibly the best channel for social media. It has about 1 billion active users as of August 2018. Instagram is the largest photo and video sharing platform. 71% of the users on Instagram are 18-29 years old. Here are the top Instagram updates:

1. Emoji slider: On May 10th, 2018 Instagram launched the emoji slider, it lets users ask their followers any question and the users with the help of the slider can show what they feel about the question.

2. Re-Share Instagram Posts to Stories: On 17th May 2018 an option to share posts on Instagram stories was launched. Posts from the user’s own profile or from public profiles can be re-posted to the user’story.

3. A New Instagram Explore Page: Previously on Instagram, the explore page displayed posts which were related to posts the user has liked before, but in 2018 the new Instagram explore page has become more personalized and organized. The explore page displays various broad topics like tv shows, humor, food, animals, beauty, style, nature, travel and many more themes related to the personal interests of users.

4. Repost Instagram Stories: On 7th June 2018, Instagram launched an option to re-post stories when someone has mentioned you in their story you get an option to re-post it again on your profile’s story.

5. IgTv: On 20th June 2018 Instagram launched IgTv, allowing creators to upload longer videos up to 60 mins. Before you could only 60-second videos.

6. Question Sticker: On 10th July 2018, Instagram launched the question sticker for Instagram stories, it allows the users to interact with their followers and the users have to answer the questions typed in by the users.

7. Instagram video call

8. Instagram audio message

9. Instagram GIFs in messages

10. Close friends option on Instagram: On 30th November 2018 Instagram added the close friends’ option where you 24-hour stories can be shared with a specific list of close friends.

[Sources: AdEspresso, hindustantimes]

Facebook

Facebook remains the most used social media channel with 2.27 billion monthly users. Facebook helps you target a specific audience and facebook algorithm is promoting video content more. Here are the top updates of Facebook:

Can Your post generate meaningful conversations? If yes, the FaceBook algorithm is on your side. It was officially announced on January 11th, 2018 that the Facebook algorithm will be changed drastically and it will promote content on the Facebook news feed, which will help create meaningful conversations, especially between friends and family.

News-feed displays only High-quality news: In 2018 Facebook algorithm has given more priority to news which is informative, authentic and backed-up by sources and also news relevant to the user’s local community.

WhatsApp

We all the know that WhatsApp has become an indispensable part of our everyday life. Here are the top updates of WhatsApp:

1. Whatsapp forward restriction: Global limit of forwarding a Whatsapp message was 20 chats but later on, it was seen in India, the spreading of violence and fake provocative content on its platform, the Facebook-owned company WhatsApp announced in August 2018 to launch a limit on message forwarding to five chats in India.

2. Whatsapp stickers: First emojis then GIFs and now WhatsApp has also launched interesting stickers in October 2018, from a smiling teacup to a broken heart, WhatsApp has made our conversations way more interesting by launching these artistic stickers which make our chats more interesting.

3. WhatsApp Payments: Integration of payments was the biggest launch of WhatsApp this year, based on Indian government-UPI or Unified Payments Interface, WhatsApp payments is a simple way of transferring funds to your contacts by simply entering their UPI pin.

[Source: Gadgets360]