With social networking sites frequently introducing new features, it can be difficult to keep up and ensure that your brand is getting the most out of what different sites and apps can offer. To make things a little easier, here’s a round-up of the latest developments in the world of social media.

Snapchat’s Snap Map

Snapchat recently launched their ‘Snap Map’, a location-sharing element which allows users to see where their friends are and what’s going on. However, brands are likely to be more excited by the opportunities opened up by the map’s ‘Our Story’ feature. Users can submit their Snapchat Story to ‘Our Story’ to allow non-friends to see their content for 24 hours. This will give users the chance to share photos and videos from specific locations, like gigs or festivals. As a result, brands will be able to promote their events using the map, and will also be able to track how users are engaging in particular locations.

Twitter redesign for mobile

As 85% of time spent on Twitter comes from mobile devices, the site’s most recent re-design of Twitter mobile apps this week is hitting the headlines. Alongside its clean and minimalist new look, the app now includes live refreshing of comments. This change is consistent with Twitter’s aim to be the home of live events and breaking news, as it allows users to keep track of emerging stories and stay up to date without having to manually update their timeline. Links within the Twitter app will also now open in an in-app Safari browser, meaning users can access their accounts on sites they are already logged into on their main mobile browser. This will be of interest to brands with websites requiring logins, as the new ease of access is likely to drive website traffic from Twitter users clicking to in-app links.

Facebook’s Live Chat with Friends

Facebook recently began rolling out its ‘Live Chat with Friends’ feature. With Facebook Live already proving popular, and users commenting over ten times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos, this new aspect allows people to invite their friends to a private chat about a public live video. The feature could allow more people to see live videos, drawing attention from people who may not have been watching initially, and gives people more engagement and interaction options with live broadcast content on Facebook.

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