Messenger gets a new look, Facebook makes further algorithm changes and YouTube introduces its first self-skippable ads - Social Media News - Insight

Well hello there social superstars! Let me introduce you to our newest Yeti - Sam Benzie! Everyone say 'Heeeeeey'!

Anyway, he's going to take you through the latest moves in the social sphere so you never miss a trick! Here he goes!

Welcome to this week’s dose of Social Media news where there has been some real movements! Read on to find out more about the latest updates from Facebook, Messenger, YouTube and Instagram to keep you in the loop.

Facebook's Messenger New Home Screen

First up is the redesign to Messenger’s home screen. Now when you load up the app you’ll see a whole different layout. The tabs at the top of the app give you easy access to your messages, those who are active on the app and your group messages. Underneath that are images from people’s day and the list of your messages.

There is a new bottom bar which gives quick access to Home, calls, the camera, people and games. Each of these icons gets a red notification dot to let you know when you have an update. This update has been in testing for a long time and Facebook is hoping that it makes the app interface more user friendly.

On the feature testing theme, a new spot from some social media managers is an assistant bot for Facebook pages. The bot is supposedly there to help you improve your page and get the most from it. However, it’s hard to say too much about this new feature as Facebook haven’t said anything more about it. What we can gather is that it works to help pages and companies make the most out of the new features, working as a sort of personal assistant, giving feedback and support. What is beneficial is the correspondence between you and the bot is down to your preferences, it can update you every day to every three days.

This new feature seems to be a blessing for those people starting up new pages and businesses who don’t have the technical skill to optimize their pages’ content and coverage, and may even be beneficial to the Facebook veterans.

Another Facebook Algorithm Change

Facebook's changing its news feed algorithm, again! Gone are the days of spam content and click bait articles filling your Facebook. Facebook has said that its users value the content they see and that misinformation, clickbait articles and sensationalism is destroying the integrity of its feed. Facebook has explained that meaningful, informative and accurate information is what will populate the news feeds, suggesting that publishers will have to focus on how to reach their audiences better and how to connect with them.

What they have said is difficult is determining what posts users will find informative. Something for Facebook to work on.

Another thing Facebook is working on is improving the community feel that Facebook brings by encouraging positive behaviour and cutting down more harshly on negative content such as nudity, hate comments, violence and graphic content. By making these changes Facebook is looking to improve the overall experience that its users have whenever they log on.

Barclays Makes Waves With First Self-Skippable Ads

It’s finally here! Barclays have created the first self-skippable ad that appears before YouTube videos. Everyone understands the pain of the five seconds of adverts you must watch before watching a viral video and don’t even get me started on the un-skippable adverts. Well Barclays have made the first step to keeping audience attention with its self-skipping advert.

Barclays have created a new advert which skips itself to something a bit more interesting, starting off with a piece of writing where they say they understand the wants of their customers and that’s the reason they skip the ad. It then cuts to a Rube Goldberg machine which sets off many different things while the messages appear in the background of the advert.

Instagram Updates Stories Feature

Instagram strikes again! Instagram have brought out its newest feature adding to the ‘story’ part of the site, now allowing stories to be grouped up by location or hashtag. Sound familiar? Yeah I thought so, snapchat brought this out a while ago.

The danger in this is the content that could be posted under these locations or hashtags, its already been seen that Facebook struggled to monitor its live videos, but Instagram has said that users will be able to report inappropriate content while Instagram also moderated the streams.

Spying on Facebook Just Got Easier

Facebook is stepping up the game by not only showing us people we may know, but now it’s also going to suggest people we should know based on interests, jobs and aspirations. Mark Zuckerberg came out saying that relationships are the most important thing as they shape our lives and allowing us to connect to the people we should be connecting with can only benefit us and enrich our lives. The aim from this is that people will be able to improve their community and will be provided with better opportunities.

The people that Facebook wants to connect us too are most likely to be outside of our social circle allowing users to branch out new friendships with people most suited to them.