Social media snippets: 1-14 April

15 Apr 2014

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Clampdown on asking for Likes, Shares and Comments - Facebook is cracking down on posts that explicitly ask for Likes, Comments and Shares “The improvement we are making today better detects these stories and helps ensure that they are not shown more prominently in News Feed than more relevant stories from friends and other pages. This update will not impact pages that are genuinely trying to encourage discussion among their fans, and focuses initially on pages that frequently post explicitly asking for likes, comments and shares.”

Facebook scraps in-app messaging service for standalone app - Facebook have announced that it’s withdrawing the messaging function from its iOS and Android apps. So if you wish to send chat messages on your phone you’ll have to use the stand alone Messenger App. This move follows Facebook’s takeover over stand-alone messaging app What’s App. View iOS Facebook Messenger App info or Download Android Facebook Messenger App.

Twitter acquires lock screen app - Twitter has bought Cover, a lock screen application for Android. Cover provides the ‘right apps at the right time’ by providing the six apps icons on the lock screen that are most likely to be used, based on an analysis of the user’s smartphone habits and current location ie at home, work or driving somewhere or out. I’ve been using the app for a week and find it useful; it saves time. You can find out more and download it here. Future plans for the app are unclear but with this app being highly visible, I would imagine that advertising will feature in future developments with perhaps promoted tweets being displayed on the locked screen.

Twitter revamp desktop design - Twitter have launched a radical new design of profiles for the desktop that looks very much like Facebook. It’s available for all new accounts and is in the process of being rolled out to new users. This follows on from testing which I flagged up last monthTweets that receive the most interaction; retweets, favourites and replies, appear in a larger font in the new feed. This looks untidy, but the idea is to make these tweets stand out. Borrowing a feature from Facebook, tweets can be “pinned” to the top of the page. Users can now select different timelines and view just tweets, tweets with photos, tweets with videos and so on. The background image has now gone and you’ll probably need to resize or create new images for the new style header photo across the top which is 1500px x 500px and the new size profile photo which is 400px x 400px. If you need new images containing your photo and/or reflecting your brand, please let me know.

Twitter adding pop-up notifications - Hot on the heels of the new design, Twitter announced that it is introducing pop-up notifications which will be displayed on the right hand side of Twitter.com. Desktop users will be able to receive pop-up notifications when someone replies to, favourites or retweets one of their tweets. They can also be notified when they receive a direct message or new follower. The pop-ups will be interactive, so you’ll be able to reply or follow somebody back from the pop-up notification box. You’ll be able to choose which notifications pop-up and who you want to see notifications from ie any Twitter user or just people you follow.