Social media updates and new features to know this week
Updates from Threads, Instagram, Beehiiv and more.
Looking for the broadest reach in social media? You’re still looking at the Meta family of apps, according to data from Social Media Today. Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all boast about 3 billion monthly active users. YouTube comes in fourth place with about 2.7 billion, while TikTok trails with 1.5 billion.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are the best apps for your social media activity. It all depends on your audience, where they spend their time and what you hope to accomplish.
Let’s see how you can make that time productive:
Threads
Meta AI is becoming more deeply engrained into Threads. Now, users can chat with the AI product directly through their Threads DMs. Users can send links, videos, photos or other Threads messages directly to the AI for fact checks, deeper dive or just an indefatigable conversation partner. Threads is also testing inserting AI responses into the public timeline. Mindful of backlash, they’re gathering more data before going all in on the public replies. Users can also hide individual posts or mute the AI altogether.
Also new on Threads are additional parental controls. These tools largely mirror those found on other Meta products and can be accessed through the Family Center. Among the features parents can access are seeing how much time teens have spent in the app and setting limits, muting notifications during certain hours, and controlling certain other privacy aspects.
This comes at a time when Meta specifically and social media generally are under extreme scrutiny for teen usage. Proactively releasing these tools is an effort not only to protect kids, but also to keep social media use legal for underage youths.
Elsewhere in the Meta ecosystem, Instagram is allowing users to go back and change music in old posts. This especially brand friendly feature can be used as many times as the user wants without having to re-upload the old post. While it won’t give any algorithmic benefit, it does allow users to swap music when partnerships end or usage rights change.
“Creators put a lot of thought and care into their posts, but that doesn’t mean they should be locked into every decision they made at the moment they hit publish,” Jimmy O’Keefe, head of creator product marketing at Instagram, told The Verge. “We’ve been building toward this idea that your content should be able to grow and change with you — whether that’s reordering your grid, updating a caption, or now swapping out the music on a post. Replace Audio is the latest step in that direction.”
TikTok
This one isn’t an update to TikTok, but to who can use TikTok. After years of bans, federal employees can now once again download TikTok on their government-issued phones, Reuters reports.
Usage must still be “subject to the agency’s discretion and consistent with all applicable workplace policies,” according to a memo about the policy.
It shows a definitive shift in governmental opinion after years of acrimony with TikTok and the potential for many government agencies to start or re-start programs on the app.
Beehiiv
Beehiiv is mostly known as a newsletter platform, a challenger to Substack. But now it’s incorporating new social elements to keep the conversation going.
“Community gives your publication a members-only space where you can engage directly with your audience. It syncs automatically with all your Beehiiv content (e.g. newsletters) and is designed for engagement,” the platform announced. Users can create free communities or exclusive communities for paid subscribers.
This feature solves a common pain point, as many creators used other platforms, such as Discord or Facebook, to build discussion groups. By keeping it all in the platform, Beehiiv can increase time on site and avoid losing revenue to other platforms.
Bluesky
Like Threads, Bluesky is also offering users new access to an AI assistant. Known as Attie, the tool will now be able to search across Bluesky’s entire social graph for news and information. Known as Quests, users will also be able to research trends, influential users and more. This could be a powerful tool for brands. The tool is currently in beta testing.
Allison Carter is editorial director of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.
