Social media updates and new features to know this week

Good morning, social friends! This week in social media updates we’re seeing more apps push for improved age authenticators as new regulations go into effect along with some features focused on creativity and content engagement. Let’s take a look and see what’s most relevant to your brand.

X

Advertisers on X will now have to be cautious about using more than one emoji or creative after this latest rule change.

Following the elimination of hashtags from ads in June, X says that effective shortly, it may charge higher prices for advertisers that use multiple emojis.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra shared that X said: “Ads with more than one emoji in the ad copy or creative will have a lower quality score and may experience higher pricing.”

We don’t know exactly why X is instituting this change – does it cause decreased engagement or, as with hashtags, does owner Elon Musk just not like the aesthetics? Your guess is as good as mine.

Alongside other platforms, X has additionally updated its age-verification policy to comply with new international legislation.

X said it will verify age through government ID, account creation date, self-attested age, email verification or live selfies which will be assessed by AI to determine the user’s age.

The platform said, “Where X is legally required to do so, we take a multi-step age assurance approach to verify or estimate whether users are 18 or under. This helps us apply appropriate settings, such as restricting access to sensitive media, including pornography.”

X cited complying with new regulation in Europe, the U.K. and Ireland in the updated age assessment rules.

X owner Elon Musk also announced that he is bringing back Vine (the once-popular short form video platform) but in AI. He did not elaborate on this, so it remains to be seen if there are concrete plans to revive and revamp the platform and what an AI Vine looks like. Time will tell.

Meta

Meta announced it will ban all political, electoral and social ads in the European Union to comply with new regulations under the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising provision, which aims for greater transparency in political ads.

The regulation restricts how advertisers can reach their audience and will limit relevant content, Meta argues.

This change will not affect U.S.-based users.

Snapchat

Snapchat has unveiled a new safety tool for users called Home Safe. This feature will alert friends and family of the user’s choosing when they have arrived safely back home, perhaps after a concert or a date. The feature was launched July 24.

Per Snapchat: “Starting today, a new feature called Home Safe will give Snapchatters a simple way to let a friend know when they’ve returned after being out and about – without having to remember to send a message… Set your home location by tapping your Bitmoji on Snap Map, then ‘My Home.’ Once you set this up, it is only ever visible to you and the friends you’ve chosen to share your location with on Snap Map.”

YouTube

YouTube has rolled out some generative AI tools that could be beneficial to creators looking to add variety to their content.

In one update, YouTube is now generating videos from still images through its Veo image animation in Shorts. This is a trend you have likely seen before on another platform  — a photo of a mom and daughter from decades ago transforms into a short video of the two laughing and embracing each other, for example.

YouTube says, “Bring your story to life with Photo to video, which instantly turns a picture from your camera roll into a video. Just select your image, choose a creative suggestion, and watch your memories come alive.”

In addition to this, there are now more options for creativity with different effects, including turning your drawing into art. “Our latest generative effects can dynamically transform your doodles into fun images and turn your selfies into unique videos, like swimming underwater, twinning with a lookalike sibling, and more,” YouTube said.

The AI-generated content will receive watermarks labeling it as AI for transparency, the app-makers said.

Further, YouTube Premium is testing out comment threads, meaning paid premium users can more closely track a thread of comments on a post in a single stream. This is especially useful on posts with thousands of comments.

As they explain: “Comment threading provides a more focused reading experience and helps users easily understand conversations. Click on the ‘X replies’ button under a comment and view threaded replies in the ‘Replies’ panel. Only available on iOS and Android.”

The app is also testing AI additions to its Dream Track experiment, or its AI feature that generates short audio clips based on text prompts.

Per YouTube: “We’re testing several new features aimed at enhancing our Dream Track experiment in Shorts. If you’re a creator in the experiment group, you may see new options and quality enhancements to the customized soundtracks you can create for your Shorts. These experimental features are rolling out to a select group of creators in the U.S.”

This feature could help make your generated sounds or music more customized.

Threads

Threads has launched more analytics options to give more insights into audience behavior and engagement.

They said, “We’re doing more to make Threads the best place for sharing fresh perspectives, and continuing to help creators build and grow their communities on Threads. Part of this is giving creators tools for understanding the kinds of content and conversations that resonate with their audiences. Starting today, we’re improving Threads Insights and making it easier to see how posts perform and where your content was discovered.”

The updates include more detailed explanations of your audience’s likes, engagement and demographic information. This also includes a bar graph that shows when your audience is interacting with your content, which is useful for having a better idea of when to post.

Threads is also rolling out DMs, including the ability to share GIFs, stickers, edit messages and create group chats.

Researcher Alessandro Paluzzi shared what this looks like in the app here.

Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].