The only thing that stays the same is everything changes. Especially in social.
Here’s a rundown of the latest things to know.
After three years at the helm of the @ColoradoStateU Twitter account, I’ve grown to love the platform and appreciate it for what it is — a space for saying a lot with a little.
I was unamused to hear that Twitter is testing out an update that would double the character limit from 140 to 280. The Twitter blog offers this reasoning: “Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet — we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain.” That pain was what I grew to love about the platform. There’s something refreshing about a social space that forces content to be condensed into a very consumable portion size. Double the character limit means double the cognitive load that users will need in order to process which content is relevant and meaningful.
I could go on and on, but the Twitter world has already spoken.
Same. 👇
https://twitter.com/miskeencore/status/912789132560273409
This is literally ONE TWEET. 😱
https://twitter.com/jrobertlennon/status/912872315993706496
And then this one, which is so annoying I will only provide a hyperlink instead of sharing the tweet in all its (intentionally) obnoxious glory.
iOS 11
An exciting feature of iOS 11 is the ability to Screen Record. You can add the featu
re to Control Center by going to Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls > Then tap on the green button next to Screen Recording.
The good? I could see this being useful for saving ephemeral content or putting together training tutorials. A Snapchat Takeover, for example, would be a great opportunity to record the live story before it disappears so that the content could be repurposed on another channel or be sent to students in the future as an example takeover.
The bad? Privacy concerns. Some Internet users believe the screen recording could enable people to save photos and videos from Snapchat stories while bypassing any notification that the content has been saved. Snapchat will likely soon provide an update solving this issue, but keep this in mind.
Live Polling
Now this I am really excited about. Instagram announced October 3 that the company was introducing an interactive poll sticker in Instagram Stories.
To see your own poll results, swipe up to open the viewers list for that part of your story. There you’ll see everything you need to get the best answer for your question. Not only will you see how many votes each option received, but you’ll also see who voted and what option they chose. That way, you’ll be able to compare votes from the friends and followers whose opinions you trust most. And just like your story, your poll and its results will disappear after 24 hours.
I only wish the poll results would stick around for longer than the 24 hours, but this is a really cool, interactive feature that I’m excited to use. Our first test was a simple question: How do you like your coffee? Over 2,500 users voted (hot narrowly edged out iced). Moving forward, I can see plenty of practical uses for this feature, like polling users to gauge whether they’re familiar with an on-campus event, to ask how they’re feeling about the semester (👍 or 👎), or to conduct research for a better understanding of how to connect with our audience.
Alignment + Color Picker
Two other new features will help make your stories better. You now have the ability to snap stickers and text to an alignment grid that will help you position elements perfectly in the middle of the screen. Knowing an emoji is exactly centered makes me feel way better than it probably should. The new color picker lets you use an eyedropper to select any color from your photo or video and use it for text or drawings.
Grid Update
Beyonce is gonna need a new aesthetic.
Her signature style of posting a full row of three photos with a consistent theme is going to be all out of order if/when Instagram changes the grid from 3×3 to 4×4. Some users have noticed their grids changing, and the Internet is speculating that an update may be on the horizon.