Monthly Social Media Updates and News –December 2021

Keeping up with new changes on the various social media platforms is essential to staying ahead on social media. However, we know that you are busy scheduling content and engaging with your followers, so it can be difficult to check all the news about social media.

So, here we picked the latest headlines on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest.

This post is a part of our monthly social media updates and news series, where you can quickly scan through quick recaps of all the changes that took place in recent months.

Today, we’ll recap all the important social media updates in December, 2021.

Monthly Social Media Updates and News –December 2021

1. Facebook Launches New Tools for Live-Stream Creators, Including Links in Streams and Additional Stream Guests

Facebook has announced a slew of new creator features, including Featured Links in live-stream broadcasts, new ways for creators to interact with fan comments, additional funding for rising stars, guest chats in posts, new follow recommendations and more.

Facebook Launches New Tools for Live-Stream Creators

2. Meta Introduces Professional Mode for Facebook Profiles

Meta is bringing professional features to Facebook profiles that were previously only available with a Facebook Page.

The Professional Mode provides an alternative platform for emerging creators to glean audience insights, and connect.

Meta Introduces Professional Mode for Facebook Profiles

3. Facebook AI Hunts & Removes Harmful Content

Facebook announced a new AI technology that can rapidly identify harmful content in order to make Facebook safer. Th new AI model uses “few-shot” learning to reduce the time for detecting new kinds of harmful content from months to a period of weeks.

4. TikTok Tests New ‘Re-Post’ Option to Boost Distribution of Clips

TikTok is currently testing a new ‘Repost’ option with some users which enables them to re-share TikTok clips to their followers, with the re-posted clip then displayed in their connections’ feeds.

TikTok Tests New 'Re-Post' Option

5. TikTok Adds Live-Stream Intros to Better Facilitate Engagement

This is a small, but potentially valuable addition for your TikTok live-stream broadcasts. As noted by user Jonah Manzano, TikTok has added a new ‘LIVE intro’ option which enables you to add a short text description to welcome new viewers as they come across your broadcast.

TikTok Adds Live-Stream Intros

6. TikTok Tests New Desktop Live-Streaming App, Focused on Gaming Streamers

TikTok is currently testing a new desktop streaming app, which would enable users to broadcast direct from their PCs to TikTok Live, facilitating more ways to connect with the TikTok audience.

7. Instagram’s Chief Outlines the Key Areas of Focus for the App in 2022

Mosseri sums up the past year, he also says that Instagram will be focused on two key themes in 2022 – ‘Video and Control’

On the video front, Mosseri says that – you guessed it – Reels will remain the key focus:

We’re going to double-down on our focus on video and consolidate all of our video formats around Reels”

8. Instagram Publishes 2022 Predictive Trends Report

As part of its broader effort to re-connect with younger audiences, and maintain its position as a key driver of cultural influence, Instagram has published a new predictive trends report for 2022, which highlights a range of rising movements across various categories to help brands and marketers get a better understanding of key shifts.

Instagram Publishes 2022 Predictive Trends Report

9. Instagram Adds Reels Replies, Providing Another Way to Tap into Short-Form Video

Instagram has officially announced that users can now reply to post comments with Reels, providing another way to integrate Reels into the Instagram process.

10. LinkedIn Launches in Hindi, Expanding Potential User Base By 600 Million

LinkedIn launches in Hindi, making it the first Indian regional language on LinkedIn to support the Hindi-speaking community of 600+ million people worldwide.

After the United States, India is LinkedIn’s second largest market with 82 million members.

11. Pinterest Publishes New Guide on Optimizing Your Product Catalog Feed for Product Pins

Pinterest has published a new, 57-page guide on how to set up your Pinterest Shop from a product listing perspective, which outlines the full details of each step to streamline the process.

The main emphasis of the guide is improving the quality of your product listing data, in order to maximize your opportunities, via both ads and organic listings.

12. Pinterest Adds Option to Reply to a Comment with an Idea Pin

Pinterest has announced that users can reply to Pin comments with an Idea Pin video.

13. Snapchat Shares the Top AR Tools and Campaigns of 2021

Snapchat has shared a new overview of the top AR campaigns and tools in its ‘Lens of the Year’ report, which points to the increasing value of AR, for varying purpose.

14. Snapchat Launches New ‘Story Studio’ App to Better Facilitate Video Content Creation

Snapchat has launched a new ‘Story Studio’ app to selected users, which provides a simplified, streamlined means to create more complex vertical videos, which you can then upload into the main app.

15. YouTube Looks to Highlight Places Mentioned in Videos

YouTube’s testing out a new option that will automatically provide a new link format for any places mentioned within YouTube clips, while it will also now enable creators to edit auto-chapters with text descriptions.

16. Twitter Tests New, TikTok-Like Full-Screen Display for Explore

Twitter has launched a new test of a reformatted Explore tab, which displays tweets in a full-screen, vertical scrolling format.

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