February has flown by in a flash and with it, so have plenty of social media updates. Here in the m4m office we all agreed January felt like it lasted a year while February felt like a week at best! This month we saw Instagram’s AR filters take off including their Valentine’s Day edition which told you your V-day fate (unfortunately some of the team didn’t get the best readings), Facebook launched two new apps, Snapchat released Bitmoji TV which allows your Bitmoji to star in their own TV show, along with many more updates. For the full run down, continue reading below.
Facebook releases Pinterest app clone
Facebook is back at it again and has launched a new app via its New Product Experimentation team. The new app called Hobbi is similar to Pinterest, where users can save and share photos and videos of their hobbies or interests. Although the app has Pinterest similarities, the new app is not just a pinboard of inspirational ideas. Aimed at hobbyists, the app organizes photos of projects into collections so users can track their progress over time. At the moment, it doesn’t have a social sharing component, but Hobbi can be used to create videos of projects after they’re finished. We’ll have to wait and see how far Hobbi will make it, with Facebook proving to have a not so great track record with their previous apps including, meme-making app Whale, social networking app Bump and teen meme hub, LOL. For more info on Hobbi and its key features, click here!
Bring your social videos to life with Vimeo Create
Content creators your life is about to get a whole lot easier with Vimeo’s new video editing creation platform and app! The new app, called Vimeo Create, includes a set of video creation tools aimed at small businesses or marketers looking to tell their stories using social video who may not have the resources, time or budget for a full scale production. Available on both desktop and as an app, users can choose from pre-made templates that can be customized to add captions along with plenty of stock footage and music to choose from. For more info on Vimeo’s new video creation platform and how to use it, click here!
Facebook launches new creator studio app
Facebook’s Creator Studio tool has added a mobile companion, allowing users to manage their Facebook pages on the go. The insights dashboard that originally debuted in August 2018, is now available as a mobile app and has similarities to the desktop version including tracking performance of content, as well as publishing, scheduling and making adjustments to posts, replying to messages and more. This isn’t the first time Facebook has offered a dedicated app for its creator community, in 2017 they debuted a creator app that offered a unified inbox and analytics. However, the app was shut down last year, where creators turned towards the Pages Manager app or desktop version of Creator Studio instead. The new Creator Studio app seems to be a refreshed version of the scrapped creators app with a new user interface, however comes with some limitations. Users are unable to upload content and create new posts via the tool, instead they must upload their posts via the Facebook app or desktop, where they can then save to drafts and edit in the creator studio app. While there are some limitations with the app, there are definitely some great features and tools that provide value to Facebook creators and page managers. For more info, click here!
Snapchat launches Bitmoji TV
Your Bitmoji can now be the star of Snapchat’s new feature called Bitmoji TV! The new TV channel is a continuation of its Bitmoji feature, which lets users create their own personal cartoon avatars. Snapchat will now create short cartoons featuring the Bitmoji of users, their friends and celebrity guest stars which will appear on the app every week as mini TV shows. At launch, Bitmoji TV doesn’t include ads, but it is safe to assume they’ll eventually arrive soon if it ends up becoming a hit! For more info on Bitmoji TV, and how you can star in your own show, click here.
m4m’s top social tip of the month!
While scrolling through Tik Tok’s never ending feed, the team stumbled across a great Instagram story hack! If you’ve ever struggled to find the perfect Insta story sticker gif, an easy way to find popular cute gifs is to search these search terms: chxrry, joules, helen, gravitando, the uncommon place and boho. Searching these names will bring up all of the gifs the creator has made, making it any easy way for you to find gifs that may not have originally popped up on regular search terms such as ‘cute’ or ‘love.’
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